Hayes: Baldelli's Baseball Life

[Seth Stohs]

The Athletic's Dan Hayes traveled to Rhode Island last month to visit with Twins manager Rocco Baldelli and people around his life. 

 

https://theathletic.com/802803/2019/02/11/rocco-baldelli-twins-manager-baseball-life-woonsocket-rocket/

 

The article also talks about his legendary high school years:

 

 

Without a running start, they say, Baldelli could touch the top of the white box above the rim on a basketball backboard. His vertical leap was so good — his best friend, Minh Pham, estimated it to be 40 inches — that Baldelli often was hitting the ball with his elbow above the net on the volleyball court. And for several years after he graduated, people were still finding baseballs on the roof of Bishop Hendricken Catholic High School in Warwick, R.I., that — legend had it — Baldelli had deposited during batting practice.

 

He was taken with the 6th overall pick in 1999. Mike Radcliff remembered scouting him.

 

 

“Really athletic,” longtime Twins scout and current vice president of player personnel Mike Radcliff recalled of Baldelli. “Great-bodied athlete. A lot of projection potential. He could maybe impact the game in all phases. He was one of those ceiling guys, tool guys and he had the makeup as well.

 

There is more on his playing career, the injuries, the World Series and life since he retired as a player.