Michael Conforto a.k.a. Scooter made his MLB debut for the Mets in 2015 about a year after being selected with the 10th overall pick in the 2014 MLB draft. As of this writing, Scooter’s most notable career highlight came in 2017 when he was named an All-Star. Here is everything you need to know about the talented outfielder.
Who is Michael Conforto? – Biography
Scooter was born as Michael Thomas Conforto on March 1, 1993, in Seattle, Washington. He is the son of Michael Anthony Conforto and Tracie Conforto (née Ruiz). Conforto was born with athletic genes as both his parents were active athletes. His mom, Tracie is a three-time Olympic medalist in synchronized swimming, while his dad, Mike played American football with the Penn State Nittany Lions of the Pennsylvania State University.
Michael Conforto isn’t the only one who inherited his parents’ athletic genes as his sister, Jacqueline also got some. She played college soccer with the Azusa Pacific University female soccer team. Michael Conforto has Italian and Hawaiian roots from his father’s side and his mother’s side respectively. He is also of Spanish descent.
Conforto was already an active athlete before his teens. As a boy, Conforto represented the Northwest Region in the 2004 Little League World Series, the largest youth baseball competition in the world. He attended Redmond High School, Redmond Washington where in addition to baseball, he also began playing football as a safety. Conforto excelled so much so in football that he was recruited by a number of Ivy League schools to play football for their respective teams.
As a baseball player, Conforto also got offers from a good number of schools including the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, the University of Washington, Washington State, as well as the prestigious Stanford University.
He, however, chose Oregon State University where he went on to shine right from his freshman year when he was named by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) as the Freshman Hitter of the Year. Among the highlights of his college career include leading his team to the College World Series and making it to the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team in 2013.
After being selected by the New York Mets in the 2014 draft, Conforto was given a signing bonus of about $3 million. He spent the next year playing on the team’s minor league affiliates Brooklyn Cyclones and St. Lucie Mets before being promoted to the major leagues in July 2015.
A couple of times, injuries have marred his performance which has seen him being demoted to the lower leagues, however, he manages to keep his career alive. As of June 2018, Michael Conforto’s stats are a Batting average of .253, 55 home runs and 152 Runs batted in. According to Spotrac, Michael Conforto’s salary in 2018 is $605,094.
He stands at 6 feet 1 inch tall and weighs 215 lbs per his player profile on FOX Sports.
About His Mom
Michael Conforto’s mom, Tracie Lehuanani Ruiz-Conforto is a celebrated Olympian who won gold twice and one silver medal. In total, she won 41 medals at both national and international level. She was born on February 4, 1963, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Tracie got her big break in Synchronised swimming in 1982 when she competed in the World Championships held in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She won two medals at the competitions both as a solo. She impressed further at the 1983 Pan American Games where she won gold both in the solo and duet event. Conforto’s mom became the inaugural champion of the women’s solo event of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Tracie married Michael Anthony Conforto in 1985 who helped her to train for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul where she won a silver medal in the women’s solo event. 1988 would become her final appearance in the Olympics. In 1993, she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Romantic Life – Michael Conforto’s Girlfriends
Michael Conforto is one of those athletes who keep information about their private life, very private. He is not even a fan of social media and the last time we checked, he deactivated his Twitter account and had just three photos on his Instagram account. He revealed to the New York Post that he did the former to focus more on real-life stuff.
However, in an IBTimes post about the girlfriends of the New York Mets stars ahead of the 2015 World Series, Conforto was linked with a certain girl named Heather. NY Daily News in an article about Conforto all-star game in 2017 stated that Conforto was in the company of his girlfriend who was unnamed.
