Marcus Stroman Stands Tall

Over the past several years, Toronto Blue Jays' pitcher Marcus Stroman has been developing into one of baseball’s most dangerous hurlers. Racking up 40 wins in his young career, the Blue Jays' ace's stats have been impressive ever since he made his debut and has quickly become one of Toronto’s rising stars that has made the baseball world pay close attention.

Athletically, his coming out party came after the 2016 season when he was named MVP of the World Baseball Classic. Stroman made three starts, racking up an ERA of 2.35 in 15 ⅓ innings pitched which included an impressive six hitless innings against Puerto Rico in the championship game.

However, Stroman's success on the diamond stands for so much more, as evidenced by his lifestyle line HDMH—Height Doesn't Measure Heart. Stroman built HDMH to inspire undersized, underdog athletes, a position Marcus knows well.

“There’s a bunch of undersized athletes out there,” Stroman told Yahoo! in 2015. “I’m trying to just get that message out there. I’ve seen it, people get discouraged because someone will say that they’re too short to play a position. Or too small to do this, or too small to do that."

“I think it’s had a pretty positive impact already. I’ve interacted with some fans and young athletes through Twitter and Instagram. They seem to like it, and it seems to give them a bit of motivation and inspiration to be better.”

While Height Doesn't Measure Heart has been around a minute, look for Stroman to become an increasingly prominent baseball star in a league looking to market its most exciting personalities. 

This piece is part of our monthlong series featuring the 30 Most Entrepreneurial Athletes. For other entries in the series, head to our 30MEA page.