in." He married Pamela Clark in 2007. On November 5, 2009, Hirsh and his wife had a baby boy, Brady Antoine Hirsh. High school Hirsh was only 5' 11" as a freshman in high school, and failed to make the basketball team, whereupon he decided to focus on baseball. "Baseball was it for me," said Hirsh. "High school turned out to be one big growth spurt.... All of a sudden I'm 6-foot-8, and people are like, 'What happened to you?'" Despite his size by the end of high school, Hirsh drew little interest from scouts out of St. Francis High School of La Cañada, California, because he then threw just 86–88 mph. He went undrafted when he graduated in 2000, and no NCAA Division I programs wanted him, so he wound up at Division III California Lutheran University, which was only 40 minutes from his house. College Hirsh attended and played baseball at California Lutheran, where he was a 3-year starter, and flashed a fastball and a mid-80s slider. His record was 26–6, he had a 2.96 earned run average (ERA), and he struck out 238 batters in 258.1 innings pitched. As of 2013, he is tied for first at the university in career wins (26) and holds the record for the most strikeouts in a game (18). He was a First-Team All-SCIAC twice, as well as an ABCA All-West Region First-Team selection in 2003. He was drafted by the Houston Astros with their top pick in the second round (59th overall) of the 2003 amateur entry draft, and signed for a $625,000 signing bonus. Although Hirsh left college after his junior year, he went back after his first minor league season, e-mailing his assignments in from his laptop when he was in the minors to earn a BA in multimedia in 2004. Minor leagues In his pro debut, Hirsh went 3–1 for the 2003 Tri-City ValleyCats, with a 1.95 ERA, limiting batters to a .175 average, and striking out 33 hitters in innings of work. Following the season, he was rated the No. 8 prospect in the organization by Baseball America. In 2004, he recorded 11 victories with the Single-A advanced Salem Avalanche. 2005: Texas League Pitcher of the Year For a week in January 2005 he worked with Nolan Ryan at Ryan's off-season pitching camp in Houston. Hirsh said: "The biggest thing I got out of it was