Diamond Nation Magazine

Five-Year-Old Slugger on cover of SI

Thanks to the video of Ariel Antigua hitting an 85-mph fastball, the five-year-old slugger has turned into an internet curiosity and media star.  Seen on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live, Antigua is now featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated (top right).

But before Anitgua's media tour took off, he was at Diamond Nation, hitting in the indoor cages, taking a tour of the facility and featured in Diamond Nation Magazine's April Issue with Sparkly Lyle on the Cover. Visit DNM's archives page to read the article on p. 54 titled "The 5-year-old Phenom."

Below is the article from Sports Illustrated by Thomas Lake:

THE NEW YORK YANKEES' top prekindergarten prospect lives in Jersey City and plays baseball with his three brothers in the dusty courtyard behind their apartment. They made me umpire. You're the empire, they said. I was a bad empire, studying my notebook as plays unfolded, but I was watching when Ariel Antigua lined a home run onto the roof and stumbled on his way to third and lay in the dirt, crying, while his brothers retrieved the Wiffle ball by using a shovel to pull down the ladder of the fire escape. After the game, when Ariel had cheered up, he cracked open a can of Coors Light.

"Want some?" he asked me, smiling wide enough to reveal his sharp white baby teeth.

"Ariel!" his mother, Jessica, said, mortified to see her five-year-old son dispensing alcohol. That night she showed me his birth certificate, unsolicited, which saved me from having to ask. Yes, Ariel was five. He would not turn six until Oct. 25. On this point his father was telling the truth. Luis Antigua's other claim would be proved or disproved in 48 hours, with a measuring tape and a radar gun, in the same batting cage where Ariel became an Internet celebrity at some cost to his family's reputation.

This all started last October, when Ariel's father set out to show his friends he was not a liar. The evidence cost him $150, most of a day's wages from his job with the sheet-metal union, payable to a videographer. The videographer made a highlight reel that ran two minutes and 39 seconds over a sound track of heavy drums and rising strings that brought to mind an action-adventure film. It began with a name in white capital letters. ARIEL ANTIGUA, it said. THE ONLY FIVE YEARS [sic] OLD BOY TO HIT A BASEBALL AT 85 MPH. "How you doin', everybody," said a jolly man in a baseball cap. "My name's Edwin Ortiz, owner of The Hot Corner, batting cage and training facility for baseball and softball. Have my little man Ariel, he's about five years old, one of the most incredible sights you'll ever see. Sits on my top pitching machine, it's about 86 to 88 miles an hour, and the kid consistently hits it lefty and righty."

The kid stood before the machine and swung righthanded with such force that some of his follow-throughs twisted him slightly away from the plate, as if the adult-sized bat were swinging him. Nevertheless he made solid contact nine times with pitches that screamed in like tracer bullets. "It's gonna be a pleasure to have him in our facility for the next 14 to 20 years," Ortiz said, with plain sincerity.

To read the rest of the story, visit: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1173629/index.htm

Boston Red Sox sign Ranaudo

It went down to the wire, but late on Monday night, August 17, -- the deadline for signing selections from the MLB First-Year Player Draft -- the Boston Red Sox came to terms with right-hander Anthony Ranaudo on a $2.55 million contract.

Boston took Ranaudo, a New Jersey native and LSU product, in the sandwich round (39th overall) back in June. Ranaudo dominated the Cape Cod League this summer with the Brewster Whitecaps as he allowed 10 hits without an earned run over 29.2 innings after being selected by the Red Sox.

Represented by agent Scott Boras, Ranaudo's negotiations came down to the final minutes before the August 17 midnight deadline. If the Red Sox hadn't been able to strike a deal, Ranaudo would have gone back to the draft in 2011, and likely pitched his senior year at LSU.

Now, he will go pro. The Red Sox hope he will be the latest in a recent string of power arms who have gone on to have success in Boston, joining the likes of Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon and Clay Buchholz.

"He has a chance to really repeat his delivery and pitches with a plus fastball and a plus breaking ball and an average changeup, and [he] is someone who obviously went through a little bit of adversity this year but he bounced back and started to really put it together at the end," said Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein the night of the draft. "He's somebody we really think is on the [rise], and went into the year as one of the top college pitchers in the draft."

To read more about Ranaudo, check out the upcoming issue of Diamond Nation Magazine as Ranaudo will be the featured cover story.