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Baseball handed Allan de San Miguel his first paycheck. The Australian catcher still plays the game he loves for fun, but he no longer plays for free.
He may be the youngest rookie on the GCL Twins' roster, but the kid's a veteran in his game.
His 17-year-old eyes are open. And in his corner behind home plate, he calls the pitches.
"In T Ball when I played my first game, I showed natural athleticism straight away," de San Miguel said. "Then I started skipping levels. You hit a stage where you know, this game is going to be my life."
And at the grown age of 16, de San Miguel skipped his final year of high school as he signed his professional contract. The Perth schoolboy packed two jars of Vegemite (the jam of Aussie champions) and boarded his 28-hour international flight. He didn't just sleep off the jet lag, he had to sleep off the growing pains.
"I'm playing against guys who are older, bigger and stronger," de San Miguel said. "My age means I have to work the hardest. I continually have to train myself at 17 to be more mature. I have to set my standards to the same level as the other guys, or even higher. And I have to keep them."
But the clock plays on his side. His age gives him an edge.
"Other guys have graduated high school, gone to college," de San Miguel said. "I was signed the same time as guys who are 22. If I stay in the GCL until I'm 22, I'll have a six-year advantage on a guy who was just drafted."
De San Miguel has never known what it feels like to not be the youngest. At 15, he played every game for the Australian National Under-17 AA team in the 2003 World Youth Baseball Championship. He hit .400 en route to the team's fourth-place finish in Taiwan.
Now to be a team player, he must take the bench and share his plate with his rival.
"You're competing against one of your best mates, and trying not to think about it," de San Miguel said. "You need nine players to win a ballgame. You cannot be an individual out there. But on the baseball field, you're trying to stick out in your position. You're fighting against another guy for a spot in the big leagues."
Take him off the baseball field and he's on foreign ground. He forgets Americans drive on the wrong side of the road. And he has to remind himself, Americans tip at restaurants.
His native tongue may be English, but he gets a taste of culture shock when he has to repeat his order five times at McDonald's.
De San Miguel was mature enough to stash away his signing bonus, but he spent his first paycheck on a laptop and a Web cam. Now he can see his "Mum" when she tells him to stay out of trouble from 11,300 miles away.
De San Miguel lives at the Clarion Hotel on Cleveland Avenue, home of the GCL Twins.
"The hotel room is good enough to get the job done," said de San Miguel, who plugs in his electric fry pan to cook his specialty spaghetti and chicken. "You get a bathroom, two beds, a roof, a TV, and you have to share."
He may have sacrificed school to play baseball, but before he closes his eyes and goes to sleep, he takes notes in his baseball journal.
"I write things that happened that day, what I learned on the field," de San Miguel said. "Everything has changed in my game. It hasn't gone down. It's slowly getting better. I'm hitting better. My mechanics are better. Every day I learn something new. I write it down in my journal. I cannot go to the baseball field and not learn something." news-press
Edit to add links.
Baseball handed Allan de San Miguel his first paycheck. The Australian catcher still plays the game he loves for fun, but he no longer plays for free.
He may be the youngest rookie on the GCL Twins' roster, but the kid's a veteran in his game.
His 17-year-old eyes are open. And in his corner behind home plate, he calls the pitches.
"In T Ball when I played my first game, I showed natural athleticism straight away," de San Miguel said. "Then I started skipping levels. You hit a stage where you know, this game is going to be my life."
And at the grown age of 16, de San Miguel skipped his final year of high school as he signed his professional contract. The Perth schoolboy packed two jars of Vegemite (the jam of Aussie champions) and boarded his 28-hour international flight. He didn't just sleep off the jet lag, he had to sleep off the growing pains.
"I'm playing against guys who are older, bigger and stronger," de San Miguel said. "My age means I have to work the hardest. I continually have to train myself at 17 to be more mature. I have to set my standards to the same level as the other guys, or even higher. And I have to keep them."
But the clock plays on his side. His age gives him an edge.
"Other guys have graduated high school, gone to college," de San Miguel said. "I was signed the same time as guys who are 22. If I stay in the GCL until I'm 22, I'll have a six-year advantage on a guy who was just drafted."
De San Miguel has never known what it feels like to not be the youngest. At 15, he played every game for the Australian National Under-17 AA team in the 2003 World Youth Baseball Championship. He hit .400 en route to the team's fourth-place finish in Taiwan.
Now to be a team player, he must take the bench and share his plate with his rival.
"You're competing against one of your best mates, and trying not to think about it," de San Miguel said. "You need nine players to win a ballgame. You cannot be an individual out there. But on the baseball field, you're trying to stick out in your position. You're fighting against another guy for a spot in the big leagues."
Take him off the baseball field and he's on foreign ground. He forgets Americans drive on the wrong side of the road. And he has to remind himself, Americans tip at restaurants.
His native tongue may be English, but he gets a taste of culture shock when he has to repeat his order five times at McDonald's.
De San Miguel was mature enough to stash away his signing bonus, but he spent his first paycheck on a laptop and a Web cam. Now he can see his "Mum" when she tells him to stay out of trouble from 11,300 miles away.
De San Miguel lives at the Clarion Hotel on Cleveland Avenue, home of the GCL Twins.
"The hotel room is good enough to get the job done," said de San Miguel, who plugs in his electric fry pan to cook his specialty spaghetti and chicken. "You get a bathroom, two beds, a roof, a TV, and you have to share."
He may have sacrificed school to play baseball, but before he closes his eyes and goes to sleep, he takes notes in his baseball journal.
"I write things that happened that day, what I learned on the field," de San Miguel said. "Everything has changed in my game. It hasn't gone down. It's slowly getting better. I'm hitting better. My mechanics are better. Every day I learn something new. I write it down in my journal. I cannot go to the baseball field and not learn something." news-press
Edit to add links.
