5-year-old prodigy raises question: How young is too young for fame?

The video sensation of little 5-year-old Ariel Antigua has everyone stunned and amazed. This petite version of what every major league baseball team wants poses a question: How young is too young?

Antigua looks like any other 5-year-old boy from New Jersey. However, put him on a baseball field and he is no longer like any other boy his age. This kid can hit pitches that are going roughly 86 to 88 mph — and they are not just flimsy hits. These hits are strong. Any kid at that age would not even try to hit a moving pitch, let alone a pitch at that kind of speed. In addition, Antigua can bat well on both the left and right sides of the plate. To top all that, he can field the ball almost perfectly.

This kid clearly has great hand-eye coordination and endless potential, but does that mean his future should be decided for him? Should a 5-year-old have to decide now that he wants to be a professional baseball player in about two decades? Of course, he does not have to literally think about his future. But with all of the hype and attention, this kid is most likely going to continue this route. I mean, why stop doing something that you are great at? And, hopefully, he likes it too.

The larger picture here is whether Antigua is going to grow up normally. Since his personal instructor, Edwin Ortiz, created this video and posted it on the Internet for everyone to see, Antigua’s development as a baseball player will most likely be monitored. Scouts are going to want to see how much better he gets and, if he does continue to improve, when they can sign him. But what people forget is how much pressure that can be. I’m sure all of this attention is more than welcome to a 5-year-old kid. But in a couple of years, that attention will die down and the only thing left will be the pressure to show improvement in order to keep people interested. This level of pressure for a 5-year-old is unbearable. Even professional athletes today who get paid to perform have issues with pressure from their teams, organizations and fans. Arguably, it is this pressure of satisfying everyone else that leads to the desire to use performance-enhancing drugs that has struck even the best players in the league.

However, pressure is not the only issue here. The idea of morality is apparent, too. In regard to child stars like Antigua, no one really knows what the appropriate age is for a child to be smothered with this kind of attention. Should Ortiz have waited until Antigua was ready to be exposed as a prodigy? When is a young boy truly mature enough to make decisions on his own? By posting this video, not only did Ortiz indirectly force Antigua into a career that he may or may not want, he also used the kid’s skills to advertise his own facility. Through the video, Ortiz was able to show how his own ability as a trainer can help your child be the next Alex Rodriguez. It would be nice to hope that Ortiz has Antigua’s best interest at heart, but a kid with this much potential can mean a lot of money.

Regardless, Antigua’s future is already laid out for him. All we can do now is wish him luck and hope his status as a child prodigy fulfills itself in the future. But most importantly, above all of this hype, let’s hope he continues to enjoy playing baseball at whatever age.

Source: The video sensation of little 5-year-old Ariel Antigua has everyone stunned and amazed. This petite version of what every major league baseball team wants poses a question: How young is too young?

Antigua looks like any other 5-year-old boy from New Jersey. However, put him on a baseball field and he is no longer like any other boy his age. This kid can hit pitches that are going roughly 86 to 88 mph — and they are not just flimsy hits. These hits are strong. Any kid at that age would not even try to hit a moving pitch, let alone a pitch at that kind of speed. In addition, Antigua can bat well on both the left and right sides of the plate. To top all that, he can field the ball almost perfectly.

This kid clearly has great hand-eye coordination and endless potential, but does that mean his future should be decided for him? Should a 5-year-old have to decide now that he wants to be a professional baseball player in about two decades? Of course, he does not have to literally think about his future. But with all of the hype and attention, this kid is most likely going to continue this route. I mean, why stop doing something that you are great at? And, hopefully, he likes it too.

The larger picture here is whether Antigua is going to grow up normally. Since his personal instructor, Edwin Ortiz, created this video and posted it on the Internet for everyone to see, Antigua’s development as a baseball player will most likely be monitored. Scouts are going to want to see how much better he gets and, if he does continue to improve, when they can sign him. But what people forget is how much pressure that can be. I’m sure all of this attention is more than welcome to a 5-year-old kid. But in a couple of years, that attention will die down and the only thing left will be the pressure to show improvement in order to keep people interested. This level of pressure for a 5-year-old is unbearable. Even professional athletes today who get paid to perform have issues with pressure from their teams, organizations and fans. Arguably, it is this pressure of satisfying everyone else that leads to the desire to use performance-enhancing drugs that has struck even the best players in the league.

However, pressure is not the only issue here. The idea of morality is apparent, too. In regard to child stars like Antigua, no one really knows what the appropriate age is for a child to be smothered with this kind of attention. Should Ortiz have waited until Antigua was ready to be exposed as a prodigy? When is a young boy truly mature enough to make decisions on his own? By posting this video, not only did Ortiz indirectly force Antigua into a career that he may or may not want, he also used the kid’s skills to advertise his own facility. Through the video, Ortiz was able to show how his own ability as a trainer can help your child be the next Alex Rodriguez. It would be nice to hope that Ortiz has Antigua’s best interest at heart, but a kid with this much potential can mean a lot of money.

Source: http://www.bupipedream.com/archive/814/5-year-old-prodigy-raises-question-how-young-is-too-young-for-fame/

Benefits of Youth Baseball – Confidence, Communication and Patience Gained on the Field

T-ball, baseball and softball develop confidence, hone communication skills, require patience and offer a place on the field for kids of all athletic abilities and personalities.

T-ball: A Great Starter Sport
T-ball introduces children to the many benefits that playing the sport of baseball offers. Players, who are typically 4-6 years old, learn the basic fundamentals of catching, throwing and hitting, all of which require a significant amount of hand-eye coordination. They get their heart pumping when running around the bases and sprinting to catch and field the ball.

In reality, a t-ball player catching a fly ball is a rarity and is highly celebrated. Needless to say, once a catch does happen, it’s a huge confidence booster for that child! Same goes for hitting the ball. It’s a great achievement and a skill that doesn’t come naturally to many young children. Hitting a coach-pitched ball after transitioning to “real” baseball generates even more pride because in most cases a lot of practice and courage was required to gain this new skill.

Baseball has a Position for Everyone
The transition to coach pitch baseball (or softball) is usually made around 1st grade. The main difference between baseball and t-ball is that a higher level of hand-eye coordination is required to successfully hit a pitched ball. And of course, two new positions are added because the game now includes a pitcher and a catcher. In respect to positions, baseball offers nine and each requires a different skill set. This is very advantageous because children have varying degrees of ability. Those who can more accurately judge distance are better suited for outfield. Speedier kids are perfect for short stop. Catchers are typically more outspoken leaders. There’s a place for everyone on the field!

Patience, Attention and Focus on the Field
T-ball and baseball both test the patience of its participants. Fielders must wait for a ball to be hit near their position and have to accept that they might not get a ball very often. Batters need to wait for their turn at the plate. And when hitting, they must learn to discriminate between strikes and balls, which requires patience and good judgment. Unlike soccer, baseball does not require active participation at all times, but it does require a player to stay “on their toes” or, in other words, attentive and focused.

Communication is a Must for Success
Teams with players that actively communicate during games are the most successful. In order to avoid collisions and streamline the fielding process, players must talk (sometimes yell) to one another to communicate who is going to catch or field a hit ball. “I got it,” is commonly heard. Same goes for alerting fellow teammates when an opponent is advancing to another base or stealing a base. It’s a necessity to communicate every move the other team is making in order to make the appropriate play and get an out.

Finding a League
Most community education and local athletic associations offer t-ball programs during the summer months. Little League has an extensive national network of competitive programs in both baseball and softball.

Source: http://www.activitytree.com/blog/2010/dec/7/benefits-youth-baseball-confidence-communication-a/

Wait, baseball is dying?

I haven’t always loved baseball, but right on cue, as soon as I did, people said it’s a dying sport — especially in the youth divisions. According to the National Sporting Goods Association, from 2000 to 2009 the number of 7-17-year-old kids playing baseball dropped 24 percent. Other sports like football and hockey had significant growth in the same amount of time.

People attribute baseball’s decline to a variety of things: the (supposed) slow pace of the game, the increasing need for costly specialization (having the best bat, glove, etc.), and better efforts behind other youth sports organizations to recruit young players.

But if we look at what has always made baseball special, especially in Little League, it becomes clear that baseball’s decline actually mirrors a shift in more general American values.

My love for baseball didn’t grow at a Padres game or at Fenway. It came while I sat wringing my hands on the bleachers of my sons’ Little League games. Because that’s where it became clear to me that baseball is everything that is America.

First is the metaphor for home. Home plate. Home run. Home team. All of the strategy of baseball centers on getting home. When a Little Leaguer steps away from home plate, he begins a journey around the bases that is the visual and physical equivalent of narrative gold: getting home.

Some of the best literature has at its core an element of returning “home.” In Little League, that narrative arc — the suspense, the tragedy and resolution — plays out over and over again, and more so than in the Majors, where rounding the bases, surprisingly, seems like an infrequent event due to every player’s mastery of the game. And too often, MLB players go home in one hit: a home run.

But in Little League, players struggle game after game to get on first base. When they steal second, no one is sure they will make it. And when the player crosses home plate for the first time — well, you can be sure his parents, however subconsciously, are thinking about his childhood and eventual independence.

The game might still have five innings left, but that player just had his Field of Dreams moment.

Which is another great thing about baseball: team effort and personal opportunity coexist. No position on the field is unimportant, and every player has a role to fill. If you aren’t the best hitter, you can work at being a great fielder. Or maybe you’re a pinch runner. There are many ways to contribute to the team. But each inning, when a child gets up to bat in Little League, he has his moment in the spotlight. He might be in right field for four innings, but each time at bat is a new opportunity to shatter the lights in the outfield. Or so he believes. Because every kid is Roy Hobbs when he is at bat.

And when the boy returns to the dugout, sometimes defeated, that’s when perhaps the most magical part of Little League happens: Mom isn’t there to make it better. In a society where helicopter parents micromanage all the details of children’s lives, where walking to school alone is “too risky,” the Little League dugout represents one of childhood’s last places where a boy can experience defeat, triumph, and heartbreak without being under Mom’s watchful eye.

A child’s character is built as much in the dugout as it is on the field.

But perhaps our society doesn’t value these things anymore. Many American parents don’t like being separated from their child, not able to offer water and hugs. And our celebrity-obsessed culture has taught kids that being part of the team is less exciting than being the one and only star. Some kids don’t want to be patient. They need constant action and quick rewards. Waiting to “go home” feels boring.

And yet there is a reason why Hollywood has made so many movies about baseball. It’s one of the few sports where the game itself, not its stars, tells the story. It’s a narrative we all know.

That a boy’s Little League years coincide with him becoming a young man is surely part of it. A boy starts Little League idolizing the older players on his team. He hopes that in four years he will be as good as them. So he tosses a ball at the ceiling in his bed. He sleeps with his glove on. And he believes, will all that he has, that next year (please!) he will hit his growth spurt.

Not every player does. And, unfortunately, boys age out of the league around the same time they hit the really awkward years of middle school, solidifying — magnifying — for them the struggle and triumph that was Little League. It’s frozen in time as magical years, a new idea of “home” that many boys will come back to in their minds as grown men, hopefully in the backyard, when they are playing pass with their own Little Leaguer.

Source: http://bangordailynews.com/2014/06/08/living/wait-baseball-is-dying/

Development of a Superstar: Justin Bellinger prepares for draft

The biggest decision of Justin Bellinger’s life will present itself in just over a month, and the 6-foot-6, 240-pound power hitter from Weston, Mass., has explored every avenue to give himself the best options.

College or pro? Duke University or a low-level minor-league affiliate? (St. Louis Cardinals http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/high-school/post/_/id/32658/st-sebastians-bellinger-drafted-by-cardinals)

Bellinger spent hours upon hours in the batting cage last winter with his own personal hitting coach, Oliver Marmol, who also is the manager of a Single-A affiliate for the St. Louis Cardinals. The Bellinger family moved Marmol and his wife up to the Boston area for the past two winters in preparation for this year’s draft.

Marmol didn’t concern himself with adding power to Bellinger’s swing. Power has never been the problem. That much has been evident since Bellinger hit a baseball 400 feet as a 12-year-old playing in Cooperstown, N.Y. Also that summer, playing for five different teams, Bellinger estimates he hit 100 home runs in 162 games.

Marmol and Bellinger spent time together last offseason working on the hitter’s ability to read pitches. Bellinger wore strobe glasses in the cage, struggling to identify 85- to 90-mph pitches with 60 percent of his vision blocked. He worked on driving the ball to all fields and shortening his swing so that it resembles that of a player closer to 6 feet tall. The work seemed endless and tedious, but Bellinger wanted to leave no stone unturned in his quest to refine his game.

The retelling of Bellinger’s development as one of New England’s top pro prospects can, at times, sound like a science experiment. Justin is the son of two former Division 1 athletes at Northeastern. His father, David, played football in the NFL for a short stint during the strike season of 1987. Justin’s mother, Lisa, remains a competitive runner with Boston Marathon experience.

When Justin started playing Little League T-ball in Weston, his coaches found he was blessed with some natural baseball gifts. He was left-handed, he could crush a baseball off the tee, and he could pitch with velocity. At 12, he learned for the first time what it was like to outgrow the competition. He hit home runs seemingly every game, and rarely allowed a hit as a pitcher.

Recognizing his son needed a bigger stage on which to perform, David Bellinger, who owned a manufacturing company, secured a tryout for Justin with a travel team based out of Maryland.

“Every weekend, we’d go down there on an airplane and he’d play with the Maryland Cardinals,” David Bellinger said. “I wanted to see how he compared with Mid-Atlantic players.”

Justin compared favorably, and in future seasons, the trips became longer in mileage, but more frequent. He played on AAU teams, travel teams and in the most prestigious invitational tournaments all over the country. The Bellingers bought a home in Jupiter, Fla., so that Justin could play on travel teams in Florida during the summer. David Bellinger connected his son with a personal trainer, Mike Perry, of Strength of Skill out of Chelmsford, Mass.

By the summer after his eighth-grade season, Bellinger was being recruited by a host of Division 1 schools. He gave a verbal commitment to Vanderbilt, although last August, he signed papers with Duke University. He also quit wrestling — a sport in which he had lost only one match from the start of his career through eighth grade.

“People say it’s difficult to evaluate players from Massachusetts because they’re not playing against the top competition,” Bellinger said. “I rarely play any baseball in Massachusetts outside of high school. Some people say a New England kid won’t get the at-bats against the top arms. I’ve been playing against the top kids in the country — traveling everywhere — for six or seven years.”

This is when it can start to feel as if Bellinger has been created in a baseball lab. He travels to seemingly every big showcase — the Area Code Games, Perfect Game national events, WWBA World Championship events — to compete against the best. He spends 10 hours a week with a physical trainer and another 10 with a hitting instructor — a professional baseball manager whom his parents paid to move from Jupiter, Fla., to the Boston area each of the past two winters.

“I wouldn’t have moved if I didn’t think this kid is special,” Marmol said. “I live in paradise in Jupiter, and I went to Boston for two straight cold winters. This is a kid who I think will play this game for a long time. He loves to play, he loves to learn, and he’s still raw and developing.”

Here comes some more numbers. Last spring at St. Sebastian’s, Bellinger hit .396 with eight home runs and 36 RBI in 53 at-bats. He had a .736 OBP and 1.698 OPS. He was the lone player in the ISL to use a wood bat. This year, he has downsized to a 34-inch, 31-ounce maple Max Bat. Again, power never has been the issue.

Bellinger wears custom-made XXXL batting gloves, and he also can throw 90 mph from the left side off the mound. At a Power Showcase Home Run Derby in 2012 at Chase Field, Bellinger hit a ball farther than any other competitor from around the globe — 477 feet. This winter, he was named to the Perfect Game Dream Team as well as the Best Hitter for Power in the Northeast Region.

“I don’t pay attention to that at all,” Bellinger said. “Perfect Game makes you pay money to look at that stuff, and I don’t do that. It doesn’t matter. I’m not a big believer in ranking kids.”


Baseball can be a funny sport, in that superstar players at 12 rarely are still superstar players at the college level. Little League ends, and somewhere along the way, the superstar player loses his love for the game. Or he stops growing. Or he stops working. Or his parents push too hard. So many things can get in the way of a superstar player finding his way to the highest level.

Source: http://www.baseballjournal.com/news/players/recruiting/Justin_Bellinger_St._Sebastian_power_hitter

THE FLUID STYLE OF ROD CAREW: IN TOTAL CONTROL AT BAT

ROD CAREW at bat tickles the fancy, unless, naturally, one is sitting in the foe's dugout, or facing him from the pitcher's mound. The California Angels' first baseman, one of the most remarkable and successful hitters of the last three decades, is off to perhaps the best start of any batter in baseball history. Carew was hitting nearly .500 - .500! - after his first 100 times up this season.

Carew is kaleidoscopic at the plate. A left-handed hitter, Carew seems to have an infinite variety of batting stances, each depending on the pitcher and the situation.

One stance has him midway in the batter's box, crouching low, fingers flexing on the bat, as if he's plopped on a milk stool and handling an udder.

A second stance is straight up, like a park statue. A third finds Carew leaning - tilting - far back in the box, bat held flat and nearly parallel to the waist. Sometimes his teammate, Reggie Jackson, can't contain his amusement. ''Lay down, Rod,'' calls Jackson, ''lay down.''

To Birdie Tebbetts, the former catcher and manager and Yankee scout who now keeps his eyes peeled for the Cleveland Indians, Carew hits with a tennis racquet.

''He serves the ball to right field, he lobs it to left, he does about anything he wants with the ball,'' said Tebbetts. ''I have never seen him when he hasn't been in control of the pitcher. Or should I say in control of his own mind at the plate. He studies the pitchers, concentrates on the ball, and has the confidence - the great hitter's arrogance - that every time up he's going to get a base hit.''

Following yesterday's game, Rodney Cline Carew, at the senescent age of 37, was batting .442, with 50 hits in 113 times up. Only Jimmie Foxx in 1932 and Stan Musial in 1958 started a season better - both getting 50 hits in their first 107 times up.

Yet the terrific start this year comes after what must be one of the most disappointing seasons of his career - and one that has added to the criticism by some that this spray, or ''singles'' hitter, doesn't drive in runs like a home-run slugger.

Carew has an ambition to play in the World Series. He has been on four teams that lost in the league playoffs, one step from the World Series. The fourth team was the Angels of last season, who, after going ahead two games to nothing against the Brewers, lost the next three games and the playoffs.

The fifth and final game came down to the ninth inning, with the Brewers ahead, 4-3. The Angels put a runner on second base, with two outs, and Rod Carew coming to bat.

The capacity crowd of 54,968 fans at County Stadium in Milwaukee quieted, millions more watched on television. And Carew faced a hefty hard-throwing rookie relief pitcher named Peter Ladd. Before the game, Carew had called his wife, Marilyn, from her seat in the stands. ''No matter what happens,'' Carew said, ''no tears. O.K.? Someone's got to win, and someone's got to lose.'' ''For the last couple of weeks of the division race and the playoffs,'' Marilyn would recall, ''I was a wreck. All the wives were. It was such a tight race and the games were close and we wanted our guys to win so much.''

Carew, meanwhile, would try to remain cool. When he came to bat against Ladd and with the season in the balance, he didn't feel undue pressure, he said. ''I know I'm going to hit the ball,'' he said. ''I just wanted to hit it hard. After that, you can't dictate to the ball to go into this hole, or to take a crazy bounce over a guy's shoulder.''

He expected Ladd to be throwing as hard as he could. There would be nothing cute - no sinkers, sliders, or floaters - not in this situation.

He lined one foul down the left-field line. He took a ball, and then another strike. All on fastballs. On the following pitch, Ladd threw a fastball waist high and on the outer part of the plate.

He swung and made good contact. He hit it sharply. Just what he wanted to do. The ball took one bounce and landed right in the glove of the shortstop, Robin Yount.

''As soon as I hit it,'' Carew recalled, ''I said to myself, 'It's over.' '' The wives were waiting for the players in the hotel lobby in Milwaukee after the game. ''The players were very quiet,'' said Marilyn Carew, ''and the wives, well, we were all crying. It was like at a funeral.'' Carew, though, said that he tried not to dwell on it. ''You just can't spend any time second-guessing yourself,'' he said. ''We did the best we could - I tried the hardest I could - and there was nothing more we could do.''

And when he arrived home in Anaheim, said Carew, his three children - he has three daughters, Charryse, 9, Stephanie, 7, and Michelle, 5 -were delighted to see him, and to know he didn't have to play baseball any more that year. ''Now you can take us to the mall,'' said Michelle.

''It helps give you perspective,'' said Carew, with a laugh.

Carew was sitting on the dugout bench before a recent game, his long musician's fingers casually holding a bat between his legs, and recalled this.

His family, for the most part, gives Carew his diversion from the ball park and sometimes even from his own, deeply sensitive nature. In the game against Oakland recently when he went 4 for 5 and hit a grand-slam homer, he called home afterward and told his daughter Charryse.

''Daddy,'' she said. ''I had the same stats.'' He thought she was kidding. She wasn't. In her Bobby Soxers' softball league, Charryse Carew also went 4 for 5 and belted a grand slam. Some of the girls who pitch against Charryse Carew must surely appreciate how someone like Bob Stanley, the Red Sox' ace relief pitcher, feels about her father. When asked what kind of success he has had with Carew over the years, Stanley, who has been facing Carew for seven years, replied, ''Success? Rod owns me.''

A goodly number of pitchers admit to being in Stanley's category in relation to Carew. Now in his 17th season in the major leagues, still graceful, still fluid, Carew has a .331 lifetime average. Second to him among active players is Brett, at .316. Carew has won seven batting titles - his first was in 1969, and then he won six in seven years in the '70s. Only four men have equaled or surpassed his number of batting titles: Rogers Hornsby and Stan Musial, seven each, Honus Wagner with eight, and Ty Cobb, 12.

Despite this, Carew has suffered the criticism of some sportswriters, and been jeered by some fans. One of the jabs at Carew is, as mentioned, that he does not hit in the clutch - that is, that he doesn't drive in a lot of runs. ''That's damn stupid,'' said Tebbetts. ''He's a lead-off hitter mostly. A guy in that position is supposed to get on base, or keep a rally going - or start one. That's exactly what Carew does.''

Carew's high for runs batted in was in 1977 with the Twins when, batting third and fourth in the lineup, he knocked in 100 runs. Last year, batting first, he had 44 runs batted in.

A team statistic last season showed that Carew batted .239 with men in scoring position. ''That's a phony statistic,'' said Tebbetts. ''The only thing that means anything along those lines is what a batter does with a man on third with less than two outs. Then, it's his responsibility to somehow get the runner in, by hitting it past a drawn-in infield, or uppercutting to hit a fly ball so the man on third can tag up and score. And in 17 years of watching Carew, I have rarely seen him not get the runner in in a situation like that.''

In a clutch situation, Dennis Eckersley, the Red Sox ace starting pitcher, says he would rather face a power hitter than someone like Carew.

''The big hitters air it out,'' said Eckersley. ''You have a chance of striking them out. With Carew, you know he's going to hit the ball - and probably hit it hard. You just hope it goes at somebody.''

This season, Carew has had a better start even than in 1977 when he finished the year at .388 - with 239 hits in 616 times at bat. He was just seven hits short of becoming the first batter since Ted Williams in 1941 to bat .400 or better.

Carew is healthier than he has been in seasons past. He played almost all of last year, for example, with two cracked bones in his right hand, the guiding hand of the bat for a left-handed batter. He was virtually hitting one-handed, and still managed a .319 batting average, third in the league, and at one point hit in 25 straight games, the longest streak in the majors in 1982. And it was the 14th straight season Carew has hit over .300, an achievement bettered by only five other players.

Despite this, at Anaheim Stadium he has been the target at times of the condemnation of some fans. Just before the players' strike in 1981, the Angels were obviously disappointing the fans and were booed. Carew told a reporter that he felt the fans were fickle. Not all the fans, but some. It is not an earthshaking insight, to say the least. Yet the story received throbbing headlines locally, and Carew became a prime target of abuse. It became so foul, in fact, that he had to be escorted by security officers to his car after a game.

Now, with the Angels at the top of the American League West and Carew leading the league's batters, he is cheered. Proving, ironically, his original contention.

The Carews have lived in Anaheim for five years now, ever since the parsimonious Twins traded Carew to California - before he could become a free agent. The owner of the Angels, Gene Autry, who used to warble ''Tumbling Tumbleweed'' for a living, opened his saddle bags, it is said, to pay Carew nearly $1 million a year. It is doubtful that even a one-time cowboy troubadour would keep money in saddle bags, but it is true that he paid Carew that sweet salary.

(An aside: Carew hit only 3 homers last season and has just 87 for his career. Tebbetts, among other baseball people, feels that Carew could have hit 25 or 30 homers a year if he had wanted to - he's that strong. Did Tebbetts think Carew perhaps made a mistake and should have gone for more homers?

(''If you audited his bank account,'' said Tebbetts, ''I'm sure you'd find that he followed the right path.'') This is the last year of Carew's five-year contract with the Angels. Carew has said that he might retire, or that he might move on.

It is unlikely that with, surely, some five good seasons left in his bat, he would call it quits. Especially for the recompense he commands.

Carew is not foolish about money. He is careful with it now that he has it. He has not forgotten his boyhood in Gatun, Panama. He was so poor that at school he would walk beside the wall of the corridor because he was embarrassed at the sound made by the flapping soles of his only pair of shoes.

And with a father who, he said, beat him and abused him and finally left the home, Carew remembers that it was on the ball field that his talents flourished. ''I felt there,'' he said, ''like I was king.''

He has never squandered his abilities. Carew, lean at 6 feet tall, still trains hard. His weight - about 178 - is nearly the same as when he broke in to the majors 17 years ago. ''Sickening, isn't it?'' said Marilyn Carew, with undisguised envy.

Carew says he still takes extra batting practice and still practices bunting diligently. He remains one of the best bunters in the game. He bunts the ball with a backspin, so that almost no matter how close the third baseman plays, he can usually beat out a hit. In the year he batted .388 he bunted safely nine times with two strikes on him. He has also stolen home 17 times, the last time in 1981.

''Now,'' he said, ''the pitchers always stretch when I'm on third. I don't think I'll steal home again - unless I have to.'' He doesn't, of course, run quite as well as he once did, but he says he runs smarter. ''I'm more conscious of where the outfielders are playing when I'm on base, and I don't take such wide turns anymore running around the bases. I'm still learning.''

But it is his hitting that continues to set him apart. A telling example of Carew's virtuosity at bat came in a game last Tuesday night against the Red Sox at Fenway Park. Carew had been on the bench resting a sore knee, the result of a collision at first base a few days before. It was the top of the ninth now, the game was tied, 5-5, and the Angels' manager, John McNamara, sent Carew up to pinch hit.

The pitcher was Luis Aponte, a 28-year-old right-handed reliever with a little more than a year's major league experience. Carew, in the red-billed plastic batting helmet glistening under the stadium lights, gray uniform, and red baseball shoes, crouched near the back of the batter's box. It was probably taken from somewhere in the middle of his batting-stance book.

Carew had faced Aponte before and had observed him. He is aware of how some pitchers will throw a fastball close to overhand, but drop a little for their slider and drop even more for their sinker.

Carew's eyesight is sharp enough to follow the rotation of the ball - at up to 90 miles an hour - from the moment it leaves the pitcher's hand just 60 feet 6 inches away. ''He picks up the ball better than most,'' Eckersley had said. ''And his wrists are so quick that even if you fool him, he has time to recover.''

Now, Aponte threw a slider down and in. Carew saw it clearly and fouled it down the first-base line. ''It was a nasty pitch,'' said Carew. ''A good pitcher's pitch. I knew it wasn't the kind of pitch I could do much with. Some hitters will try to do what they can with even a pitch that's tough. I don't. I can foul it off, or just take it.''

Fred Lynn, the Angels' slugging outfielder, said that every hitter generally gets one pitch each time up that he can hit. The good hitters consistently take advantage of it. He had said that this season, Carew was getting hits on that one pitch. And that first against Aponte was not for him.

Nor was the second, a ball. The third pitch was another good one by Aponte. ''It was a sinker down at the outside corner,'' said Carew. And he fouled it down the third-base line.

The next pitch was a forkball that broke wickedly inside at the wrists. Carew, who had choked up on the bat with two strikes, strode, then halted his swing.

Ball two. ''Last year,'' he said, ''I couldn't have stopped because my hand hurt so much. I'd have punched out and walked back to the dugout.''

''It was a perfect pitch,'' Aponte said after the game. ''I think any other hitter in the big leagues would have gone for that 1-2 fork.''

Now it was 2-2. Aponte threw four more strong pitches. None was to Carew's liking and, with uncanny bat control, he fouled off each one. ''I could sense his frustration now,'' said Carew. ''He had thrown me some great pitches, and I was still standing up there.'' It was true, and Aponte would acknowledge that he had ''thrown Carew everything but the kitchen sink.'' Then Aponte wound up and whistled in a fastball. Carew saw it as clearly as if it were a cantaloupe tossed to him. The ball came in waist high and a little on the outside of the plate. Delicious. Carew smacked it in the alley in left-center. It hit the wall at 390 feet on one bounce.

Carew pulled up with a double, and scored when Juan Beniquez, the next batter, singled. It decided the game. The Angels won by that 6-5 score. ''I didn't give in to him,'' Carew said afterward of Aponte. ''I made him give in to me.'' It was a very fine job - for many baseball followers, the stamp of Rodney Cline Carew.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/16/sports/the-fluid-style-of-rod-carew-in-total-control-at-bat.html?pagewanted=all

Developing Talent in Young People

Source: http://www.kragen.net/uploads/4/5/4/3/4543087/developing_talent_in_young_people_-_book_review.pdf

Kolten Wong's path to MLB paved by his father, coach

The list of Hawaiians who have graced Major League Baseball diamonds is short. But, sooner rather than later, that list is sure to grow by one.

Kolten Wong is the Memphis Redbirds' second baseman, whose path to the big leagues was paved by his coach, who also happens to be his father.

At an early age, Kolten Wong's father, Kaha, made it clear...

"It was instilled in me as a little kid," explained Kolten. "My dad always told me never be satisfied where you're at."

It is a message that stuck with him, resonating so loud that even his teammates can hear it.

"He's so determined in everything he does, offensively, defensively," said Redbirds shortstop Greg Garcia. "He'll continue to work as hard as he can to get to be the best."

"I really look up to that. That's one thing I always do is I always try to get better," added Kolten, who says that his dad always made that line between father and coach very clear. "When we stepped onto the baseball field, he told me before every time, before we would start a season that, you know, "When we got on that baseball field, I'm your coach, I'm not going to be that father to you,'" said Kolten.

Kolten understood, knowing that his dad and coach would always have his best interest at heart.

"I really respected that because it allowed me to really play the game and not relax, thinking I could do whatever I want with my dad being the coach," he said.

Now, living and playing baseball 4,000 miles away, there is no reason to take the dad out of coach or the coach out of dad.

"I still call him every day after the game, you know we talk about how the day went, my at-bats, what I did right, what I did wrong, If I did anything good, if I stole some bases, you know, it's still the same situation," said Kolten.

This year, it has been more about what the second baseman has done right.

Wong is pacing the Redbirds in hits, runs, triples, and steals. He is a close second in batting average, meaning a call to the majors is on the horizon.

"I think I'm just going to break down and cry, you know all that hard work you put in your entire life, to finally get that call to the big leagues, I think it's going to be unbelievable and I can't wait," he said.

But the most exciting part will be his call to his family and his father.

"He was playing baseball his entire life, he went to USC and played at the University of Southern California for two years and ended up finishing at Hawaii and played a couple years of independent ball," Kolten said of his father and coach. "And I think he signed a free agent deal with the Indians for a little while, but unfortunately wasn't able to make it."

Fulfilling his father's dream could be the best gift a son could give his dad.
Source: http://www.kctv5.com/story/22623027/kolten-wongs-path-to-mlb-paved-by-his-father-coach

On Father's Day, LaHairs recall path to bigs

CHICAGO -- Cubs first baseman Bryan LaHair and his dad, Norman, were chatting near the batting cage Sunday afternoon at Wrigley Field when a familiar face approached.

"Hey, Dad, do you know that guy?" Bryan asked.

That was the moment Norman LaHair saw his other son, Jeff, and that's when he knew how special this Father's Day was going to be.

"We hadn't all been together on Father's Day in 10-12 years," Bryan said. "It means a lot. It's a special day."

It was one more great day in a season that has been spectacularly fulfilling, not just for Bryan LaHair, but for all the people who care about him and waited so long for this opportunity.

"He's been determined to be in the Major Leagues since he was like 7 years old," Norman said. "That was his ambition. Even though he played other sports, it was baseball all the way. Nothing was going to deter him. We kept him and his brother in sports all the way through."

After nine seasons in the Minor Leagues, including six at Triple-A, Bryan has gotten a chance to play full-time in the Majors this season. He has taken full advantage of it, with 12 home runs, which is tied with Joey Votto and Adam LaRoche for first among National League first baseman. His .940 OPS is higher than every other NL first basemen's except Votto.

This was Norman LaHair's third trip to Wrigley Field, but was made more special because it was Father's Day and because the Cubs were playing the Red Sox. Norman, a Budweiser distributor, raised the boys in Massachusetts, and because they cared about baseball, they naturally cared about the Red Sox.

There was a surreal quality to the whole thing Saturday night when Norman sat inside Wrigley Field as Bryan batted against the Olde Towne Team.

"He felt the energy in the crowd," Bryan said. "For him to experience those kinds of things, it's pretty special."

It was Norman LaHair's love of sports that set Bryan and Jeff on a course for professional baseball. Jeff played four seasons of Independent League ball.

"Ever since he was old enough to stand on his feet, he has been around the diamond," Norman said. "He always wanted to be out there. My boys didn't have toys. They had a glove and a ball. That was it. They didn't want toys.

"I'm a New Englander through and through. I enjoy the game of baseball. I've talked to my sons about baseball since they were old enough to really talk. We talked situations. They'd go to the park, and we'd talk about this and that. They knew it from a young age."

There was plenty of disappointment along the way for Bryan, who surely must have wondered if he'd ever get another shot to play in the Majors after a brief stay with the Mariners in 2008.

"My dad just continued to tell me to keep working," Bryan said. "He had the same questions I had. It got to the point I had no more answers. Being a dad, he was so frustrated with the system and how it was playing out for me. It put a little pressure on me at times, too, because I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what was happening. We all supported one another."

Norman said he sometimes didn't understand why Bryan wasn't getting another chance, but he never advised his son to give up on his dream.

"He's determined," Norman said. "He has been in Mexico, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic. He played for Team USA and the Olympic Qualifying Team. He played for the team that beat the Cubans for the first time in 20 years. He just loves it. He thrives on it. He's put the work in."

Bryan is fifth among first basemen in voting for the National League All-Star team, and it appears manager Tony La Russa's decision for a Cubs' representative will come down to LaHair or shortstop Starlin Castro.

"I think it's just an honor for him to be mentioned," Norman said. "It would be a fantastic story. It would be storybook. At least he's being recognized by other Major League players and the fans."

Regardless, this Father's Day was a moment for the entire family to cherish.

"He disciplined me. He was tough on me. He pushed me," Bryan said. "At a younger age, I didn't do very well in school. He sat me out some games to make me focus on my grades. He taught me never to be satisfied with my success. To continue to want to do better. To work hard. I appreciate all the sacrifices he and my mom made so my brother and I could play sports."

Source: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120617&content_id=33482558&c_id=chc

Baseball: A lasting bond between fathers and sons - and daughters

For me, it was the green. The color, the sheer magnitude of it, overwhelmed me. And all I could do was stare at that wall.

The first time my dad, Bruce, ever took me to a major league baseball game, it was at Fenway Park. The Boston Red Sox were playing the Baltimore Orioles. And while I’m sure the outcome mattered to plenty who filled the seats at the ballpark that day, as an 8-year-old, I was not among them.

I couldn’t tell you who won, who pitched, what happened or even what else we did that day. I just remember we sat in a roof-deck seat, I had my dad all to myself — a rarity, with two sisters — and that massive green wall in left field.

Sometime during the game, we made our way down to the lower bowl for a few minutes. Our seats were fine, but there was something else my dad wanted me to see. As we poked our heads into a pricier section, we waited and watched as a pitch was delivered. You could hear it whizz by and pop the catcher’s mitt. “Isn’t that amazing?” my dad asked me. “Can you believe how fast it looks from down here?”

That was the moment that I fell in love with the game. Still to this day, it’s one of my favorite memories with my dad.

Major League Baseball spent Sunday awash in blue as it celebrated Father’s Day by using the day to bring awareness to prostate cancer. And spurred by the annual day to celebrate Dad, a few Nationals players were kind enough to share some of their favorite memories of their fathers with us.

Here they are, in their own words:

Adam LaRoche; Dad: Dave (former MLB pitcher)
“Our whole life was baseball. We had a batting cage in our backyard in Texas, outside of Houston, and he’d come out there and throw to us for hours. Hours. And then as we got older he’d say, ‘All right, I’m going to throw to you guys. If you pull one ball, if you hit one ball on this side of me, we’re done.’

“So he would throw and throw and we’re just fighting to go the other way. He might throw one inside and you’d pull one and he’d just walk out of there. Walk inside. Try it again tomorrow. This was when we were a little older. When we were young he’d let us do whatever. But it used to drive us crazy because we’d all be ready to hit and he’d bail on us, so we’d be throwing to each other. Which is funny because now I can’t hit the ball the other way, but back then that’s all I did was hit the ball the other way.

“That and all the spring trainings coming just like [my son] Drake does now, just coming to the field. That’s why I bring Drake as much as I do because I remember what it meant for us. We’d just run around and shag fly balls. We’d run to all the fields. If there was something going on on the half-field, run over there and help out, run to the cages, just running all over the complex.”

Craig Stammen; Dad: Jeff
“He would stand on the driveway and I would stand out in the grass and he’d just hit me ground ball after ground ball after ground ball and make me dive for them. He’d hit some slow, hit some hard; it was just fun hanging out. He’d come home from work [selling farm equipment] and just spend as long as I would go out there in the yard playing ball. That’s probably the best memory.

“We did that all the way until even when I was in high school. If I wanted him to hit me ground balls that was where we’d go. He would stand on the blacktop and hit me one-hoppers so all the balls had blacktop all over them from all the ground balls. I never really pitched that much. I had a brick wall I threw up against, but at that point I wanted to be Barry Larkin, so we were trying our hardest to do that. We would do that and then we’d play pepper in the yard. He’s part-owner of the business now. But he’d work all day, pretty tough work, and come home and play ball with me.”

Anthony Rendon; Dad: Rene
“When I was younger we’d have this little chalkboard. I don’t even know how big it was, no bigger than [a piece of paper], and he’d draw a little diamond and we’d go over plays and situations. It was kind of funny.
“Like, ‘Hey, if there was a person on first and you’re at shortstop and a ball gets hit to left, where do you go and what happens? What do you do?’ That’s kind of what we’d do. I was probably 9 or 10 years old. It helped me out a lot. It’s funny how I remembered that. We’d do it every now and then. It was when I was first learning the game and trying to figure out, ‘All right, what do I do?’ I was starting to take it seriously and I would go up to him and ask him to do it because I hated looking lost out there.”

Drew Storen; Dad: Mark
“When he’d come home from doing the 6 o’clock news, he’d play catch with me in the shirt and tie right after dinner. We just had a regimen we’d do. Play basketball, shoot around a little, he’d hit some grounders. That was always our dessert: catch.

“We’d always eat at the same time and it just became automatic. I think one of the funny things with him when I was like 12 or so, we were throwing at an indoor baseball facility and there was a dad there catching his [high school-aged son] in catcher’s gear and my dad was like, ‘Oh, I’ll never have to do that.’ And gave the guy a hard time. So by the time I was in high school and I was that kid’s age, I’d blow him up [with how hard I was throwing]. I played catch with him a couple years ago, he was like: ‘I don’t know how anybody ever gets a hit.’

“But that was probably my favorite thing, just when he’d come home and play catch with me. Knowing now how uncomfortable suits are, I can’t believe he did it in his. Very impressive.”

Steve Lombardozzi; Dad: Steve (former MLB infielder)
“We’ve spent hours on the baseball field training. As I grew up, he coached me. We’ve got a real good relationship. He’s like a best friend to me. But one thing he would do is he’d bring me to big league games or bring me in a big league locker room when he was done playing, if he knew some of the coaches on one of the teams or whatever.

“He’d bring me around and let me ask questions to the big leaguers or pick their brains about something. To be able to do that, that made a big impact on me. That started when I was in elementary school and then as I grew up, we’d do it.

“When it was my first big league camp, first game of spring training — I think it was against the Braves — he flew down. I didn’t know. I was stretching out on the field and he hollered at me down the line. That was really cool, since it was my first big league spring training.”

Kurt Suzuki; Dad: Warren
“He used to catch my, I guess you could say, bullpens. When I was younger, I was a pitcher and I’d always go in the front yard and practice pitching to him and I used to throw as hard as I could. Now I think, ‘God. I could’ve killed him!’ But when I was younger, I was just trying to throw it as hard as I could, trying to hurt his hand, you know? He would always catch back there. Now I’m thinking, ‘Holy smokes.’ No gear, nothing, no cup, nothing, just out there catching. I used to do it all the time.

“We used to go on trips in the summer and I’d miss practice, so we’d bring our gloves and find a grassy area and we’d play catch. Find a batting cage and go hit and stuff. … I’m sure I got him a couple times. I don’t remember a good one but I remember trying to hurt his hand all the time.”

Jayson Werth; Stepdad: Dennis (former MLB infielder)
“My stepdad coached all of our teams growing up. So from when we were 8 to 17, we’d travel around the country and kick everybody’s [butts]. We’d just roll around the country and just bang on people. He was the manager or the head coach or whatever. We had a lot of fun. Our teams were really good and it was epic.

“We just played a lot. And we had big league instruction so, it was good. … We had a guy who’d played a ton of baseball himself and knew a lot about the game and could transfer knowledge.”

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/16/baseball-lasting-bond-between-fathers-and-sons-and/#ixzz34WEQAHGn

Recruiting: 10 reasons to be a multisport athlete

There’s seemingly constant debate about whether athletes should play multiple sports or simply focus on one sport year-round. This debate has particular relevance for baseball players in New England, where weather and other considerations have a big impact on our decision.

Although the correct answer to this debate depends on the individual player and his interest in other sports, I will try to make my case for the multisport baseball player in 10 short reasons:

1 Variety is fun.
I love pizza — by far my favorite food. I could eat it a lot. I could eat it three times a day. But if I ate it every day or three times a day, I’d likely quickly get sick of it, miss out on lots of other tasty foods, and of course, have to buy bigger pants. Being a one-sport athlete, you lose your variety and your one sport can get stale and not be as fun as it could be.

2 Playing other sports will help develop your baseball skills.
Yes, playing soccer can make you a much better baseball player. How? Why, you ask? Well, soccer is great for endurance, vision, footwork and a multitude of other skills that will help you improve in many aspects of baseball. In fact, as a college baseball coach, I often have my guys play hockey, basketball, football, soccer, do yoga, etc., so that it’s not only fun but also builds conditioning and skills you can’t get just playing baseball.

3 New coaches, new teammates.
When you get out of your one-sport mentality, you get the chance to be on a variety of other teams, with different coaches and coaching styles. You get to meet new people and make friendships you likely would not have made it you simply played baseball 24/7/365.

4 Competing beats practice.
Sure, we all need practice to develop our skills, but nothing really takes the place of competition. You can go to the batting cage all day, every day and get a lot done, but if you don’t take it out on the field in game conditions, you really don’t know where your game is. To simply continue to practice all season, when you could have been on a team that competes on a regular schedule, is to miss out on your chance to grow as a person as lessons are learned in every game, match or event.

5 The big boys all did it.
If you have some time, look up the bio on your top 10 favorites players in any sport. You will see that most were multisport athletes, many still follow and love other sports, and the majority of them specialized in their primary sport only later in childhood. The best example I can think of is Tom Glavine (Billerica, Mass.), one of my all-time favorite New England players. The left-handed pitcher is going into the Hall of Fame shortly. What else did he do growing up besides baseball? Hockey! He was a tremendous all-around athlete — which showed on the baseball field, where he also was a good hitter and fielder — and I am sure that he would credit hockey for his growth in baseball.

6 There is still time for baseball.
If you really love baseball as your main sport, there is plenty of time to work on it during the year. Whether it be in the summer season or another season, you can still make time for what you love most.

7 It doesn’t have to be varsity.
You could play other sports on a rec league, pick-up games, YMCA league, town league, after school, intramurals, etc. It doesn’t matter. Just the idea of mixing it up will be exciting to your body and mind.

8 You will specialize soon enough.
If you are a talented high school athlete, chances are you will play at some level of college. While some can and do play two sports in college, it is rare. Just based on the time commitment and talent level, and often a scholarship demanding your dedication, one sport is the route nearly all college athletes take. So the point is, if you are going to specialize at 17 or 18, why rush it at 9 or 10?

9 College coaches like multisport players.
Speaking of college, you will find that most college coaches love to recruit multisport players. First off, multisport athletes are less likely to be physically or mentally burnt out in that sport. In addition, it often means the athlete hasn’t really peaked yet due to their pursuit of other interests. This is great. We’d like you to peak in college, not 10th grade.

10 Lifelong experiences.
If you are focusing on football, for example, my guess is that after college (assuming you don’t go to the NFL), your football days will be numbered. You might play some pick-up or flag games here and there, but you probably are not going to be on an office team in pads on weekends. However, you might be playing softball, bowling, tennis or golf, or swimming or biking, etc. It certainly doesn’t hurt to learn these things at a younger age as opposed to picking up your first golf club at age 27.

Wayne Mazzoni is the pitching coach at Sacred Heart and the author of “You vs. You: Sports Psychology for Life.” As a thank you for reading this column, use code COACHMAZZ and receive 20 percent off the Get Recruited Baseball package at BaseballRecruitOnline.com.

Source: http://baseballjournal.com/news/players/recruiting/Recruiting_10_reasons_to_be_a_multisport_athlete

College or Pro? --- Rhode Island's Bill Almon

Bill Almon, tall and lanky at 6-foot-3, 165 pounds, was a basketball talent at Veterans’ Memorial High School in Warwick, R.I. There was no one taller, so Almon got to play center and forward.

Almon led the league in scoring and made all-state. “I enjoyed basketball very much,” he says. “I could score from 15 feet in. I had short jump shot.” He went on to play basketball at Brown, the Providence-based Ivy League school. That would’ve made for a nice little athletic career in itself. But there was more to it. Much more.

Almon was all-state in baseball, too. He could hit and field, and by his sophomore year big-league scouts were keeping an eye on him. “There were a lot of teams pursuing me. I had the dream to be a major-league player. It started to take some weight at the end of my sophomore year of high school. More and more scouts were coming to the games. They’d talk to you and give you their business card.

“At least half of the (big-league) teams were consistently at my games. They wanted to know if I’d sign. I didn’t want to string them along. I’d made up my mind I was going to Brown. I was 18 years old. There were a lot of things I didn’t understand.”

Not that there wasn’t temptation. The San Diego Padres drafted Almon when he was a senior, in 1971. Almon didn’t jump at the offer. He discussed his future — sign or go to Brown — with his parents. They decided college was the way to go. Down the road, it would prove to be a prudent move.

At Brown, Almon played hoops for two years, but he was getting better and better at baseball. In his junior year, he was named national college player of the year. He starred in the Cape League with the Falmouth Commodores. Every big-league club knew who he was.

The Padres’ interest in Almon never waned. So 40 years ago this month, in 1974, with the first pick in the amateur draft, San Diego selected Almon. He had heard that he might be a first-round pick. But being the first overall pick was too good to turn down. Almon signed a year before graduating. He went back to get his bachelor’s degree in sociology during the offseason.

“Signing (with the Padres) was very exciting, but the draft didn’t have quite the hype that it has now,” says the 61-year-old Almon. In fact, a half-hour before the Padres contacted Almon, he’d received a call from the Providence Journal sports department telling him he was going to be the top pick. There was no ESPN back then. No MLB Network. No bobblehead nights.

“Still, it was very flattering,” Almon says. “I never looked at being the top pick as pressure. I just went out and played the game.”

OK, how about being the first New England player ever drafted No. 1? “There was a little pressure,” Almon concedes, “but I didn’t feel it so much because I just loved playing the game.”

Brown coach Woody Wordsworth would later say that Almon had “the best range and arm of any college shortstop I’d even seen.”

After Almon signed, the Padres flew him up to Jarry Park in Montreal, where the Padres were playing the Expos. “They introduced me to the San Diego media. I was on the field and watched batting practice. Willie McCovey came over to meet me. I was very impressed.” McCovey’s best years had been with the San Francisco Giants, and having been a teammate of Willie Mays, Almon wanted to hear everything about the all-time great. Mays was his favorite player.

After a short stint in the minors, the Padres, who weren’t in a pennant race, called up Almon on Sept. 1. The team was in Atlanta. The next day, Almon played his first game He went 0-4 against Phil Niekro. In the next game, facing 18-game winner Buzz Capra, Almon got his first big-league hit. “A single to left. It felt good. I still have the ball.”

Almon played six years with the Padres. In 1977, he led all major-league shortstops with 303 assists. “Randy Jones, a sinkerball pitcher, was on that team. I had a lot of chances,” says Almon, who also led the National League that year with 20 sacrifice hits.

In 1979, he was traded to the Expos. That began a nomadic baseball life for Almon, who kept using his free agency years to move on to what he believed were better opportunities.

He played for the Mets, White Sox, A’s, Pirates, the Mets for a second time. Almon’s last season was a short stay — 20 games — with the Phillies in 1988.

He played 15 years in The Show, hitting .254 with 846 hits. His best year was in 1981 with the White Sox when he hit .301 and finished 19th in the MVP voting.

Almon had made some good friends in Pittsburgh. When the Pirates honored Ozzie Smith the year the brilliant Cardinals shortstop was retiring, they asked Almon, who’d been a teammate of Smith’s at San Diego, to present him with a gift.

Almon still lives in Warwick. He’s worked at Claflin, a medical supply company, for 35 years. Ever the athlete, Almon and his wife, Katie, golf, ski, are active church members and since 1981 have been involved in Rhode Island’s Special Olympics.

“I’m very blessed,” Almon said. “Looking back, I wouldn’t change anything.”

Source: http://www.baseballjournal.com/news/players/features/Bill_Almon_MLB_Draft_first_overall