MILESTONES

Since 1978, USA Baseball has honored the top amateur baseball player in the country with the Golden Spikes Award. The award is sponsored by Major League Baseball. It is presented each year to the player who best exhibits exceptional on-field ability and exemplary sportsmanship.

In 2022, Texas’ Ivan Melendez won the prestigious award in a presentation on ESPN's College World Series Special. Past winners also include Terry Francona (1980), Will Clark (1985), Robin Ventura (1988), Jason Varitek (1994), J.D. Drew (1997), Mark Prior (2001), Jered Weaver (2004), Tim Lincecum (2006), David Price (2007), Buster Posey (2008), Stephen Strasburg (2009), Bryce Harper (2010), Mike Zunino (2012), Kris Bryant (2013), A.J. Reed (2014), Andrew Benintendi (2015), Kyle Lewis (2016), Brendan McKay (2017), Andrew Vaughn (2018), Adley Rutschman (2019), and Kevin Kopps (2022).