Report: The Phillies once scouted Donald Trump as a high school baseball player

These days, Donald Trump is known more as a presidential candidate and reality TV personality, but back in the 1960s, he was something of a talented ball player — one good enough, it seems, to be scouted by our very own Phillies.

As one of Trump's former teachers recently told Rolling Stone, that is apparently the case, saying that the Republican front-runner was a good baseball player during his time at the New York Military Institute.

"He was good-hit and good-field," former instructor Col. Ted Dobias said. "We had scouts from the Phillies to watch him, but he wanted to go to college and make real money."

Interestingly, this isn't the first pro baseball Trump scouting report to come about since Trump began his bid for president. The Boston Red Sox also reportedly looked at Trump as an option in 1964, his graduating year.

Trump, as CSN points out, has also said that his fate formerly was with professional ball.

"I was captain of the baseball team," he told MTV back in 2010. "I was supposed to be a professional baseball player. Fortunately, I decided to go into real estate instead. I played first base and I also played catcher. I was a good hitter. I just had a good time."

Instead of playing ball out of high school, Trump went on to attend the Bronx's Fordham University before transferring to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where some of his classmates claim to not remember him. He graduated from that university in 1968.

Currently, Trump leads Republican presidential polls, with a recent CNN/ORC poll showing 24 percent support for the once-potential Phillie.

[Rolling Stone | CSN]