Hewitt’s Tree Grew In Brooklyn

Posted by Tim Malcolm, Tue, June 17, 2008 01:18 PM

Mike Sielski of PhillyBurbs.com has a pretty good piece about Phillies first-round draft choice Anthony Hewitt. The 195-pound shortstop/third baseman came from a violent area of Brooklyn, climbed out of it and is thriving as a raw-talent player.

There have been questions about Hewitt’s ability to hit, but Sielski spoke to Hewitt’s high school coach, Mark Leavitt, about this:

‘Leavitt, who spent 11 years as a scout for the Seattle Mariners and Montreal Expos, then quickly testified to Hewitt’s talent. “In a pre-season tournament,” he said by telephone, “he faced some big publics from Virginia, and he handled them without issue. I’ve seen him hit an 89-mph fastball 480 feet and then hit a 77-mph curveball just as far the next at-bat without batting an eye.”’

Sounds good for now. It’s nice to see Hewitt has made something of an upbringing that could’ve been pretty damaging.

On a related note, it’s great to see the Phils pulling hard for African American ballplayers. Already the Phils have two of the most recognizable black players in Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard. There’s hope for Greg Golson and Dominic Brown in the system, among others. Hewitt adds to this nice portfolio of diversity.

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4 Responses to “Hewitt’s Tree Grew In Brooklyn”

  1. Phil Says:
    June 17th, 2008 at 1:22 pm

    I am a big supporter of that. There are less and less African American baseball players these days, and it’s nice to see some more starting to play, and the Phillies signing them.

  2. Jeffrey Says:
    June 17th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    Not only do the Phillies have two of the biggest African American stars in baseball, their roster seems to have a larger share of American-born players of any race than most clubs’.
    The 25-man roster includes just four foreign-born players (Ruiz, Féliz, Romero, and Taguchi).
    And on June 10, the starting nine were all American-born (Myers-Coste-Howard-Utley-Dobbs-Rollins-Burrell-Victorino-Jenkins).
    How rare is that in today’s major leagues?

  3. Phil Says:
    June 17th, 2008 at 2:03 pm

    Very, very rare. Speaking of having black players, I had a friend that went up to Shea stadium for a Mets game and he was black, and they got called a word I would rather not say by some white Mets fans, and they got in a fight with them. I was on MLB’s message board, and the Mets fans were backing up Willie’s firing and saying they weren’t classless and that the Phillies fans are for throwing batteries. So I told that story to them, and they’re trying to say that it was totally okay for the Mets fans to call my black friends the word I would rather not say. How fucked up is that?!?!

  4. phan_in_babylon Says:
    June 17th, 2008 at 2:46 pm

    as a former resident of crown heights (even now, i’m just a block from the border), i’m glad to see someone in the philly-area press get the kid’s home right. on draft day everyone had been reporting that he was from the bronx.

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