Katie Talks Beer Pong And "Grease" With Anthony Rizzo
Donna Torres and Laurie Rizzo, both longtime Broward County residents, have spent decades attending their sons" baseball games, first traveling all over South Florida and in recent years all over the country to do so.
Until this week, though, they hadn"t been to too many of the same games.
Torres" son is Cleveland Indians first baseman Mike Napoli, a Hollywood-born Flanagan High alumnus. Rizzo"s son is Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo, a Parkland native and former Douglas High standout. The pair of Broward boys are facing off in the World Series, tied 1-1 as it shifts to Chicago for Game 3 on Friday.
"To watch him play as a small child in T-ball and now he"s in the major leagues and has gone to the World Series three times, I"m pinching myself constantly," Torres said. "If this is a dream, don"t wake me up."
Both families have temporarily abandoned Broward to spend much of the month on the road. For the Rizzos, it has been mostly Laurie and Anthony"s father John, with brother Johnny and his family including 9-month-old Vincent, Anthony Rizzo"s nephew jumping on board for the World Series. Vincent, by default one of the youngest members of the long-suffering Cubs fan base, has already been to Opening Day and the World Series (and four major league stadiums in all).
Napoli has a rotating contingent of 8-10 family members coming to watch parents and stepparents and siblings and cousins and it"s become something of an annual tradition. Napoli has made it as far as the ALCS in 2009 with the Los Angeles Angels, the World Series with the Texas Rangers in 2011, and the World Series again with the Boston Red Sox in 2013 with shorter playoff stints mixed in before this one.
Throughout his years as a ball-playing vagabond, Napoli has developed a certain reputation: fun-loving off the field and baseball-mashing on it, blending in seamlessly to any clubhouse he walks into.
In fact, the description Tyler Munro the Flanagan coach in the late 1990s and early 2000s offers of a teenage Napoli mirrors the one you might hear today of the 34-year-old version: a natural leader who was really good at baseball and really good at cutting loose. Oh, and he had a more legitimate beard than pretty much anyone else in the dugout, coaches included.
Munro coached Napoli for two years before the Angels drafted him as a catcher in 2000. Between those seasons, Munro asked Napoli to shed some weight. Napoli showed up for his scholastic swan song as a "svelte 205" pounds, as Munro put it, and batted leadoff something Munro wanted him to do after opponents pitched around Napoli too often the season prior.
That spring, Napoli totaled twice as many stolen bases (30) as he did home runs (15) as the Falcons won their first district championship.
In May of Napoli"s senior year one month before he went pro the movie "Gladiator" came out. The Flanagan baseball team went to see it as a group. It struck Munro that one of his players was a lot like Russell Crowe"s character, Maximus, who was forced to fight to the death in Roman gladiator arenas.
"We had the Gladiator," said Munro, who now teaches and coaches in Colorado. "Napoli would grab the bat to be his weapon, and everybody else would follow."
Seven years later and a few minutes up the road, Rizzo put the finishing touches on his sparkling Douglas career. His last two years of high school, before the Red Sox took him in the sixth round of the 2007 draft, Rizzo decided he wanted to give up football to focus on baseball.
Elliot Bonner, then and now a coach for the Douglas football and baseball teams, understood.
"When he told me he wanted to go from one to the other and stick with baseball [it made sense]," Bonner said. "Obviously, I was a baseball coach. I could see he could play."
Rizzo"s decision was a good one. In the nearly decade since graduating, he has beaten cancer, gotten traded to the San Diego Padres, established the Anthony Rizzo Family Foundation to support cancer research, been traded to the Cubs, and emerged as the first of Chicago"s many cornerstone pieces.
Now, he is competing against Napoli, the two continuing a recent trend of Broward first baseman playing in the World Series.
Last season, Eric Hosmer (American Heritage in Plantation) won with the Kansas City Royals. The year before that, Hosmer"s Royals lost to the San Francisco Giants and Michael Morse (Nova High in Davie), a part-time first baseman. The year prior to that, Napoli won it all with the Red Sox.
Even aside from the first basemen, this World Series has a decidedly South Florida flair.
On the Cleveland side, reliever Andrew Miller among the stars of these playoffs is a former Marlin, part of the return in the Miguel Cabrera/Dontrelle Willis trade with the Detroit Tigers in 2007. Reliever Dan Otero is a Miami native and Ransom Everglades High product, while catcher Yan Gomes played at Miami Southridge High and Barry University.
For the Cubs, outfielder Albert Almora Jr. is from Hialeah and suited up for Mater Academy Charter. Another outfielder, Chris Coghlan, was the 2009 NL Rookie of the Year with the Marlins.
Several other players on the teams have ties to other areas of Florida.
After the series, Napoli and Rizzo will both eventually return to Broward. Napoli has tended to bounce around in recent offseasons, but his mother said he never misses a Christmas.
Rizzo still calls Parkland home during the winter, with all three Rizzo clans the parents, Johnny"s family and Anthony living within one mile of each other.
That"s just how Mom likes it.
"The old Italian way," Johnny Rizzo said.
For now, though, more baseball and more travel. And more bits of Broward on baseball"s biggest stage.
"We"ve been going to baseball games since he was little," Laurie Rizzo said. "And we"re still at baseball."
thealey@sun-sentinel.com, @timbhealey
Source: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/fl-world-series-south-florida-1028-20161027-story.html
