I can't believe what a great career they ended up having ...

Shouldn't this be the country music thread? My goodness where do you start? They all look the same, sound the same and sing the same damn stupid songs.

Marisa Tomei - from third wheel on A Different World to an Oscar winner, and she has been phenomenal since focusing on character roles. Never saw that coming.

DiCaprio - I still don't see it.

 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, like Tomei above, from a goofy kid on 3rd Rock from the Sun to one of the most respected actors today.

 

Mike Piazza, 62nd round, 1,390th overall back in 1988.

 

Jimmy Fallon. In 1998, the notion that'd he'd become the host of The Tonight Show would've been mind-boggling.

 

Woody Harrelson probably belongs here, though you could certainly tell he could act on "Cheers."

 

Phil Niekro: 31 career wins before age 30. Ended up with 316 wins despite toiling for some very bad braves teams.

 

Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was a fan from the first record. Saw them play in a bar in Huntington Beach. They played a beer garden at my school. Never in a million years thought they'd be an arena band going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Crazy.

 

This guy's gotta rank high on both threads, but
he might be the king of this thread, so he goes here.

 

Early in their careers, Sandy Koufax, Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson would all have been on this list.

 

If you had said in 2001 that Drew Brees would a sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Fame QB five years after he retired -- and that he would play close to 20 years in the NFL and throw for eleventy-gazillion yards as a pro -- I'm not sure anyone would have bought it.

 

To that end, Oingo Boingo should've been much bigger nationally.

They were as good as any band in the '80s.

 

Two words: Donald Trump.

Whoda thunk he'd become, you know, president.