It was natural enough for a kid who graduated from Archbishop Carroll High in Radnor, a vision shared by thousands of local kids.

Then he batted .547 his senior year and was named the Daily News player of the year in 2002. His odds improved dramatically.

Then he was drafted in the second round in 2005 by the Phillies out of Coastal Carolina University after becoming the first two-time Big South player of the year in conference history. The dream, once such a longshot, was well on its way to becoming a reality.

Then, of course, he was traded. In November, the Phillies traded him to Houston in the Brad Lidge deal. Five weeks later, Houston traded him to Baltimore as part of the Miguel Tejada deal.

"It was a big-time shock," Costanzo, who is now playing for the Triple A Norfolk Tides, said before Tuesday night's game at Lehigh Valley. "No one really expects to get traded. There were no indications of me going in that trade. When they called me, I was like, 'Wow, I'm an Astro.' And 30 days later I was like, 'Wow, I'm an Oriole. When am I going to get traded next?'

"[Playing for the Phillies] would have been icing on the cake. But my goal now is to play major league baseball. That's how it goes, you know. It's a business and I learned that the hard way."

That's not all that has changed. With the Phillies, he was being groomed as a third baseman. The Orioles organization has him playing first as well as third. He's being used at designated hitter and is even doing some catching.

"It's a really good situation for me," he said. "I'm excited. They've got me playing multiple positions here. There's a DH in the American League, so that's another spot. So the future looks pretty good."

Noted Tides manager Gary Allenson: "That's what they want. So we're trying to move him around. You know, a lot of times a guy comes up in one position from the minor leagues, but the guy ahead of him is a pretty good player. And they don't want to switch him, so they've got to play somewhere else. So it's just getting his feet wet at other positions.

"I'll tell you what: He plays hard. He hustles everything out. And that's saying something nowadays because not a lot of guys do that. And that's a shame. But he does hustle, he works."

Costanzo, a lefthanded hitter, got off to a slow start this season. He was batting .200 at the end of April. Going into last night's game he had 49 strikeouts in 129 at-bats and was hitting .233 overall with three homers and 11 RBI.

Lehigh Valley hitting coach Greg Gross, who had Costanzo at Batavia in 2005, Clearwater in 2006 and Reading last season, isn't surprised.

"He usually does that early in the season," Gross said. "And then as the year goes along he cuts down on the strikeouts and his numbers go up.

"I saw improvement each year that I had him. I've had him since he signed, so I've seen a natural progression each year. I've seen the improvement in the quality of at-bats and things like that. So I would expect him to have another pretty decent season [in the International League] and I would expect it to run that pattern where the second half is better than the first half."

Allenson said he already has seen Costanzo getting better at-bats but that he needs to be a little more patient and consistent. "His best asset is obviously his power," the manager said. "And a lot of times with guys that have power, they're streaky. Hit a couple balls hard that don't go out of the ballpark, they start thinking about it, they're in a funk.

"In defense of him a little bit, we're in a tough ballpark. The wind blows in the first couple months of the season and it's tough to hit home runs. And you end up trying for them and you compound the problem.

"It's like playing golf. When you walk out on the practice range, you don't take your driver out. You take your wedge out. Get your rhythm down. Then you work your way to your driver. That's what he's got to learn to do, just shorten up a little bit, get your timing down and a lot of times you'll hit a home run."

Added Gross: "Initially he was a guy who had a tendency to try to pull everything. And I think he got into his head somewhere along the line, right after he signed, that he was going to have to hit a lot of home runs to make it to the big leagues.

"But he had a very, very good natural stroke to left-center and centerfield. That's where most of his power was. When he realized that he had enough power to hit the ball out in left-center, there was less and less of hooking the ball to rightfield, less and less of pulling of pitches, less and less of chasing breaking balls."

Outwardly, a lot has changed for Costanzo. Inwardly, he said, it's still pretty much the same game.

"Take it day-by-day and go at it like I was in the other uniform," he said before laughingly noting one difference:

"I'm just not a Phillies fan. I'm an Eagles, Sixers and Flyers fan," he said with a grin. *