Chad Robert Orvella (born October 1, 1980) is an American former Major League Baseball (MLB) relief pitcher who played for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays from 2005 to 2007. He played collegiate baseball for Columbia Basin College and North Carolina State University as a shortstop. Early life Orvella grew up in Redmond, Washington. His dad was a golfer and his mom a tennis player. As a kid and all the way up through high school, he played soccer, golf, basketball and baseball. As a young boy he mostly played baseball and golf and he excelled in both. Orvella fell in love with baseball at a young age, he attended many Washington Mariners games in his youth. Orvella began playing baseball at the age of 4 and played his high school baseball at Eastlake High School in Washington and took an offer from Columbia Basin College. College experience Orvella started his Junior College ball as a very small player, at about five foot eight, one hundred and fifty-five pounds. Being that he was so small he had to go the Junior College route. He had every intention as using it as a minor set back, and a stepping-stone to get into a bigger Division I baseball program. He received offers from almost every ACC program, and Texas. Ultimately, Orvella chose to take his talents to North Carolina State University in his junior year. He excelled at shortstop there and being that he had grown in size, he was showing bigger, stronger, and faster at the plate and in the field. In 2002, he played collegiate summer baseball for the Chatham A's of the Cape Cod Baseball League. During his senior year, he pitched roughly ten to twelve innings, and the MLB scouts began to really take notice that he could pitch very well and play shortstop. When scouts approached him and asked him if he would enter the MLB draft as a pitcher, he said he would do anything to get to the next level. He was a hard throwing righty who repeatedly could pound the strike zone. All but one team wanted him to pitch at the next level. Minor League playing time Orvella was drafted in the thirteenth round of the 2003 MLB draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as a shortstop. In late 2003, after his college ball was over, he reported to rookie ball in New