"polished" enough to be considered more advanced than most high schoolers in the United States. However, Molina's hitting lagged behind his defense. The initial report on his skill set was "defensive catcher, great arm, weak bat"; his closest comparable hitter as catcher was one whom the Cardinals eventually placed at the top of their organizational ladder, his future manager, Mike Matheny. Before he was drafted, Molina worked out for the Cincinnati Reds. He put on a spectacle at Riverfront Stadium with his arm and bat that grabbed the attention of executives, scouts, and prominent former Reds players, including Johnny Bench and Bob Boone. As Molina recalled, he left the session with the impression that Cincinnati intended to draft him. Undeterred by the universal reservations about his offensive ceiling, the St. Louis Cardinals instead took Molina in the fourth round of the 2000 MLB draft and signed him for $325,000. The Cardinals invited Molina to major league spring training camp following his draft. Although described as "raw", the young catcher purposed with fascination to emulate Matheny. At one point in that extended spring training, instructor Dave Ricketts observed Molina from a golf cart during a game as he was still learning how to catch; he had been transitioning from third base. After allowing a passed ball through his legs with a runner on third base, Molina raced to the backstop to retrieve the ball. Still hoping to prevent the runner from scoring, he instead found Ricketts in the golf cart parked on top of home plate. Ricketts had a reputation for becoming upset when minor league catchers allowed balls to bounce between their legs; for this, he removed Molina from the game and drove him to the batting cage. There, Ricketts batted 150 to 200 ground balls, as Molina estimated, to improve the young catcher's ability to block pitches. Molina began his professional career with the Johnson City Cardinals of the Rookie-level Appalachian League in 2001, playing 44 total games and batting .259. He advanced one level in each of four seasons in the minor leagues. Even without highly developed offensive skills, Molina proved difficult to strike out. Mainly a singles hitter who favored hitting the ball the other way, he batted .278 with 14 home runs and 133 runs batted in (RBIs) with 118 strikeouts in 1,044 at-bats in four minor league seasons. In his first three seasons, he threw