It was the total red-carpet treatment. Or perhaps the blue-carpet treatment.
The Yankees brought 10th-round draft pick Carmen Angelini to Yankee Stadium yesterday afternoon, giving him his own locker in the clubhouse before last night’s 8-2 victory over the Mets.
Angelini participated in batting practice with the team in full Yankees gear, capping what must’ve certainly been one of the most whirlwind days of his life. The 18-year-old, who has already signed with Rice, met Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Joe Torre in the most venerable clubhouse in baseball before the team’s Subway Series finale.
“It is a lot more than I expected,” Angelini told a host of reporters at his locker, between Andy Pettitte’s and Kei Igawa’s. “They told me beforehand that I was going to get to come and maybe – maybe – work out on the field with the guys.
“But to be down on the field in the locker room with the team, get to see my idols I watch on TV every day, it still hasn’t even sunk in. It’s like a dream.”
Angelini’s path to playing major-league ball will officially begin this summer if he gets a signing bonus in the $1 million range, he recently told his local paper, the American Press of Southwest Louisiana.
A leadoff-hitting shortstop, he batted .433 for Barbe (La.) High School with 52 RBIs and 38 steals in 42 attempts. He dropped below where some people projected him as going because he was considered unsignable by some teams.
“We had pretty much discussed it, and I told the Yankees it doesn’t matter which round I’m drafted in as long as I get first-round money,” Angelini told the local paper.
He said yesterday that negotiations hadn’t yet begun, but general manager Brian Cashman and coordinator of major-league operations Anthony Flynn escorted him around. Adding to the local touch, Ron Guidry, aka “Louisiana Lightning,” also spoke with him.
Angelini grew up rooting for the Pirates because his parents are from Pittsburgh and attended Astros games because Houston is the closest major-league city to his home. But being drafted by the Bombers makes pro ball more tempting, he admitted.
“It really does,” he said. “If there’s any one team you’d ever want to play for in Major League Baseball, it’d be the Yankees, for me.
“To have them draft me, it’s really something special.”
Angelini will head to Tampa today to tour the minor-league facilities.