A Classic

Displaying poise beyond his years, a level of respect lost by many long ago and a swing that evokes the game's greats, Rocco Baldelli is ...

[Times photo: Michael Rondou] Rocco Baldelli may be a 21-year old rookie, but he has an age old swing and a veteran outlook that belie his years.

Welcome to Rocco World, Rhode Island

The woman, a counselor of sorts, was there to help. Rocco Baldelli was 14, a high school freshman whose world should have been as shattered as his right leg, an injury so severe there was a good chance - almost 50-50 - he'd never play ball again.

Worse, if that's possible, the damage was so bad, the pain so intense, the medication so heavy, he would have to withdraw from school for the rest of the year and repeat the ninth grade.

This, normally, would be a difficult and depressing time. The idea was that the woman, the mother of the friend of his brother, would talk to the boy, try to help him learn to cope, then let Dan and Michelle know how their first-born was handling it.

"They talked three or four times, "How are you feeling about this? I know you're missing school, does it bother you?' That kind of stuff," Dan Baldelli said.

"She came back after the fact and said to us, "Geez, he's an old soul.' I said, "What do you mean by that?' She said, "He's an old soul. He's been here before. This is not his first time around.'

"That's what she said. And she was dead serious. She meant his maturity, that - I guess - maybe it grew from the first time and he learned. I don't know if she believed in reincarnation or something - whatever is whatever, to each their own - but she said that. And it almost made sense, the type of kid that he is."

Rocco a reincarnate?

Maybe there is something to Vince Naimoli's Joe DiMaggio comparison.

The "old soul" idea lived on, in theory anyway, something Dan Baldelli refers to - and was floored when Devil Rays PR chief Rick Vaughn in a recent conversation made, unsolicited, the same reference - and something Rocco shrugs his shoulders at.

If Rocco had seen it all before, that might explain some things. Because the baseball world hasn't seen many like him before.

Realistically, there is something different, something about the way he handles himself, the way he handles the curves, and curveballs, that come with life in the big leagues as a 21-year-old, something as integral to the dazzling things he has done in the first half-season of his big-league career, a .308 average, a team-high 107 hits, 43 RBIs, as his speed, his talent and his smarts.

General manager Chuck LaMar applauds his maturity, the way he has managed the scrutiny and maintained his consistency through the first three months. Manager Lou Piniella credits his demeanor, his ability to stay even-keeled and under control at even the most anxious times. Veteran Al Martin raves about his knowledge, how quickly he picks up little things such as pitching patterns and how well prepared he is.

"You forget he's 21," Martin said.

"He's been very mature from Day One," Michelle Baldelli said. "It's like he was born at a different time."

Rocco Dan Baldelli was born in September 1981 and raised in the neighboring cities of Cumberland and Woonsocket in northeast Rhode Island, which isn't usually the first step toward the major leagues. He started young in sports, and the athleticism was obvious early, surviving a series of broken bones and illnesses and leading to a cache of all-state awards in baseball, basketball, volleyball and track, to interest from colleges nationwide and to a 2000 first-round draft selection by the Rays and a $2.25-million bonus.

But that wasn't what made him special.

Forget being a major-league baseball star; he's every parent's dream. A kid who for whatever reason - A sixth sense? An internal compass?, Deja vu? - always seemed to choose the proper path, almost - here we go again - as if he knew ahead of time what was expected and cared enough to do it.

Do your homework? Done.

Get up early for practice? What time?

Stay out of trouble? No problem.

"It really just comes down to this," Rocco Baldelli said. "There is a right thing to do, there is a wrong thing to do. There's the responsible thing to do and the irresponsible thing to do. In everything I've ever done, there is only one way you can go. I pretty much know what I'm supposed to do and I do it."

Can it be? In this day and age, where playas are more popular than players, where respect and courtesy are long-forgotten virtues, where it's all about how much you have and how you show it, how can there still be a kid like this?

"I don't know," Baldelli said during lunch, as surprised at the question as the questioner is by the answer. "It seems like something that's pretty self explanatory, not something that should take too much effort. I don't know how you explain it. . . . (pause) . . . It's accountability. That's probably the best way to describe it. I don't mind being held accountable for what goes on because most of the time I feel like I prepared well for whatever I'm doing and I gave my best effort."

You've seen this kind of kid before. Just usually not in a major-league uniform.

Baldelli is the kid who aces the test because he studied, then quietly shakes his head when classmates who didn't study complain about the teacher. He's the kid who doesn't blow his signing bonus on a trendy Escalade and bling-bling accessories, opting for a more conservative Range Rover and a laptop and investing with his father in future business properties.

He's the kid who stands politely off to the side during a spring training promotional event, while a teammate, a beer in each hand, embarrasses himself on the dance floor. He's the kid with the common sense and the responsibility to know how to say no, and to know when it's time to go, the one who makes sure everyone in the group is accounted for.

He's the kid who could be the king, or at least a prince, of the bay area party scene, but six nights out of seven goes back to his downtown St. Petersburg apartment with a pizza and spends a few hours on his computer or watching a movie.

You wonder what he does in his spare time. Help old ladies across Central Avenue, pick up trash and look for stray pets?

"As far as my life right now, you don't want to sound content because then it sounds like you're not striving to be a better person, but do you have a better way to describe being content?" Baldelli said. "I'm not out every night trying to find the bigger and better thing that's going on. A lot of people, no matter how much they have, no matter how wealthy they are or how much they get in their lives, they're always out in search of something better.

"I have my friends. I'm not out trying to meet new people all the time. I'm not going out trying to find the hotter girl every night. That's just what people do. I mean, it's human nature for the most part. But I have no problem being by myself, separating myself from people."

Actually, Baldelli enjoys the quiet. And that's the conundrum that comes with his success. The more he accomplishes on the field, the more attention he gets. And the more attention he gets, the less he enjoys it.

He knows there is a responsibility here, and a balance, not wanting to look like he thinks he's too good, or too cool, but needing to make sure he is comfortable and has the space he needs.

There are times when he won't answer his cell phone if it's not a relative or close friend calling, and he has learned to shun people who approach him at the team hotels. Some days so many reporters and team marketing/community relations types are waiting at his locker for some time or something that he takes his uniform and gets dressed in another room.

He admits that he tries - in a classic veteran move - to be a bad interview, brushing off most questions about his own play and offering bland answers to lessen the chance he could somehow offend someone.

"If you ask me a question I'm not giving you a quote that I want to get in the newspaper. I'm giving you a quote I want you to fake write, to act like you're writing something down when you're really not, and walk away," he said. "That's my goal."

He may be the star in the middle of the lineup, but he does not want to be the center of attention, especially when he knows it will only amplify the steady teasing he gets from teammates. "He never thinks he's better than anyone and he doesn't think he's good," Dan Baldelli said. "He just wants to be one of the guys."

"There's really no ego in this kid," said Paul Danesi, a family friend and vice president of Bishop Hendricken High School in Warwick, R.I. "He never says "Me' or "I' unless he's getting a point across. He's embarrassed with his success and embarrassed with the publicity."

Having graduated with honors in 2000 from the all-boys Catholic-run Bishop Hendricken, Baldelli would be between his junior and senior years at any of the hundreds of colleges (Ivy League schools, Wake Forest, UCLA) that were interested. While he has had a significantly better summer job than most of his friends, he acknowledges he may have missed out on some of the, um, extra-curricular activities. But there's no reason, friends, family, Rays officials say, to think he's another rebellion waiting to happen.

"A part of you says, I'm missing some fun that every kid deserves to be able to go out and have, to have no worries and go out and enjoy it," Baldelli said.

"I've never really had that opportunity. Even when I was in high school, if I ever got in trouble it would have been all over the place - Athlete Arrested for Underage Drinking, or whatever. I was never in a spot where I was just a regular kid growing up. I always felt I had a responsibility kind of to myself and kind of to my parents to not get in trouble."

"He does all the stuff a mature person would do, as opposed to kids his age, going out drinking and partying all the time," said Minh Pham, a best friend since Little League. "It almost seems like he's already done that - even though he hasn't - and he's over it."

"He's a throwback," Danesi said. "It's like he's a generation after his time."

Not that he has been perfect. Baldelli once shot out a car window with a pellet gun, got detention at school (for forgetting his belt!), and has been in on a few schoolboy pranks. He has smarted off to Dan a few times too many in front of others, leading to one memorable Thanksgiving dinner wrestling match. The tattoo above his left ankle - even though it is the Major League Baseball logo - seems significantly out of character.

Baldelli spent most of his high school nights practicing or playing sports, catching up on homework or hanging out at home. During a rare night of party-going, he ended up in the backseat when a recklessly driving classmate decided to try to out-run a police officer instead of pulling over, and the look and the silent treatment he got from his father made the 45-minute drive home from the police station seem like 45 hours. "It was worse than getting yelled at, by far," Baldelli said. "It was as disappointed as I've ever seen him."

If there has been a guiding principle in Baldelli's life, as well as one analytical explanation as to why he is the way he is, it is the importance of family and the value of respect.

"You met his father," Danesi said, trying to explain. "I think his father's a traditional guy - the father's the breadwinner, that southern European attitude. Respect is drilled into the kids, they should be seen and not heard, that type of thing.

"Rocco was brought up the right way. Wherever he is, he just has the respect of everybody because he gives respect."

Dan and Michelle Baldelli wouldn't have it any other way.

"We raised him to respect everybody and everything and that's pretty much the bottom line to everything - it's respect," Dan Baldelli said. "I think he respects everybody, and that's important. You respect people, and it comes back and they respect you.

"And he's sensitive. He takes after my wife somewhat in that respect. Not that I'm not, but when you're the father you have to be a little harder. Tough love is more my end of it. Her end is more the loving motherly end, and he's very sensitive to that, which is good. With respect and being sensitive, I think the combination of the two makes him what he is."

So, too, does a little fear.

"I've seen some explosions from my parents, nothing out of the ordinary that anyone else hasn't seen, but I've seen it and I don't like to see it," Rocco said.

"I've just always been scared. My dad's a little guy but when I was little he was intimidating. He probably wasn't even trying to intimidate me, but it was just my personality. Whatever I did, I didn't want to make them mad. No matter what it was - school, playing with my friends outside, playing baseball - because my dad was my coach for years. Whatever I did, my goal was to do well and to do the right thing."

That thought process has grown into a dogged determination to not disappoint his parents. Not in what he says, what he does, how he does it.

Dan remembers reading a paper Rocco wrote as a sixth-grader about a soccer game. "It brought tears to my eyes," Dan Baldelli said. "It was exactly that - about disappointing me. I never worried about him disappointing me because he never did.

"I think maybe he knows what type of person that I am - to drive toward things and try to be as good as you can at everything, don't waste a day, don't look and say, "I should have done something.' Either you do it 100 percent, or don't do it. Get out of it."

The family is close, like - depending on which stereotype you prefer - Italian families are, like New England families are. (Though nothing like the smothering omnipresence of Josh Hamilton's parents.)

Dan, who owns a combination coffee/check-cashing/pawn shop and several other businesses in Woonsocket, and Michelle - "she's a domestic engineer," Dan says - do whatever they can to help, allowing Rocco to concentrate on baseball and helping eliminate what pressure they can.

When they came down near the end of spring training, they found and leased him an apartment, bought his furniture, helped him pick out some suits at Nordstrom's. Dan handles all financial issues (Rocco doesn't even know how much is in his checking account), serves as a go-between with agent Scott Boras, weighs offers for card and memorabilia signings and takes care of mundane but time-consuming things such as ordering Rocco's extra contact lenses.

"He'll call and say, "I've got a problem, can you get ahold of so-and-so,' and I just do it," Dan said. "It's hard enough to concentrate on the game and perform, so we try to take everything else out of the picture and slowly implement the things he has to do at some point. When he gets real comfortable with baseball he'll look forward to getting on the computer and doing his finances, banking online. He'll do all that for himself at some point, but until then we'll take care of all that."

The Baldellis, who have two younger sons, Nick, a sophomore ballplayer at Trinity College, and 5-year-old Dante, have made a few trips to see Rocco play, St. Petersburg for the opener, Boston for his homecoming, a couple other stops.

Most nights, they gather in their plush home in Cumberland, tune in the satellite dish, turn on the big-screen TV and watch Devil Rays baseball, cheering on Rocco and the Rays - not unlike Little League parents - analyzing the hows and questioning the whys.

Their home is not a shrine to their son - as if he'd allow that anyway - but more of a historical exhibit. A poster-sized frame sits atop the fireplace filled with baseball cards Dan is collecting as a keepsake for Rocco's future children. Rocco's upstairs bedroom is relatively standard, though with a framed photo of Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams on the wall above his bed. There is a stack of bats in one corner, a drawer full of baseballs, and so many award plaques that some sit in a pile. A chest in the corner has his old high school uniform.

Because Rocco acts so old, it's easy sometimes to forget he's so young.

When Danesi had Rocco over for dinner before he left for spring training, he showed up at the door with a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread. "What is this?" Danesi asked. "I'm not sure," Rocco replied. "My mother told me I had to bring this."

When Rocco left for spring training in 2002, he left his dad a note promising he would make it to Double-A Orlando by the end of what would be his third pro season. "That," he wrote, "will be your Christmas present." When he headed out this spring, he left notes around the house telling Michelle how much he loved her.

Maybe, the ultimate question is this:

Is he too good to be true?

"He does seem too good to be true," Danesi said. "But I can tell you, knowing him as a person, this is not an act. No one could be this good an actor."

Not even an old soul.