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A home run of 400-plus feet would have been enough. But there was also a two-run triple and, while playing rightfield, a spectacular catch and one-hop bullet right to the plate.
What a way to go out!
Or not.
Wait. Hasn't the 6-1, 200-pound Ferdinand, freshly graduated from Archbishop Ryan High, signed with Bloomsburg to help the football team as a wide receiver? Indeed. Whether he still will be playing that sport beyond the 2008-09 school year is very much up for debate, however.
You know how most kids spend the summer sunning and funning? Well, later this month, Ferdinand will head for Bloomsburg and proceed to knock out seven credits.
Not because he has to. Because he wants to.
He figures he will benefit from getting a head start academically since he intends to remain a two-sport athlete at least through his freshman year.
"The Bloomsburg people know my plans," Ferdinand said. "Yes, I'm being brought in for football, but I want to stay with baseball, too, and they're OK with it. After the first year, we'll see where things stand.
"I've talked to the wide receivers coach. He was a two-sport guy in college. He told me, 'I won't lie. It's not easy. But it can be done.' "
Yesterday morning at Penn's Meiklejohn Stadium, hard by the Schuylkill Expressway, Ferdinand went 2-for-3 with three RBI as the Catholic League fell to Burlington County, 10-7, in the first round of the Carpenter Cup Classic.
The 16-team tournament, sponsored by the Phillies, involves all-star squads from the tristate area. Our Philly squads (also Public and Inter-Ac/Independent) went 0-for-3 for the third time this decade (also 2000 and '02).
Don't blame Ferdinand.
After flying out to center in his first at-bat, in the fifth, he led off the seventh with a shot that cleared the 20-foot fence in dead center, right above the 380-foot sign. One frame later, he hammered his two-run triple to left-center - the ball short-hopped the fence - and capped the event with a lengthy, kick-up-the-dust, headfirst slide.
In the visiting seventh, Ferdinand caught a liner going to his left and uncorked a laser. The throw was in time, but the ball squirted free as catcher Bill Pace (Cardinal O'Hara) applied the tag.
Of his homer, Ferdinand said: "I didn't think it was going to go out, honestly. I just knew I hit it well. I kept running, then I saw the second-base ump making the [twirl-the-index-finger] signal. Good feeling."
Understandably, the triple also created goose bumps.
"You don't think about getting those kinds of hits," he said. "In a competition this good, you're just hoping to make hard contact every time."
In football last fall, Ferdinand earned first-team Daily News All-City honors after making 44 catches for 572 yards and three touchdowns. He also notched a TD snag last month in the Daily News-Eagles City All-Star Football Game. In baseball, he was the leading vote-getter among outfielders on the Red coaches' All-Catholic team. He was also second-team honoree at pitcher.
Carpenter Cup participants can pitch or play the field, not both.
"I like pitching, but outfield's where I'm best," Ferdinand said. "I knew that's what I wanted to play here.
"This was fun, just like the football all-star game. You always like matching your skills against other good players. And being teammates with them, too."
Though CL found itself in a 5-0 hole through 5 1/2 innings, sophomore third baseman Brian O'Grady (Archbishop Wood) certainly did something about it.
Following singles by Tim Edger (St. Joseph's Prep), Rob Benedict (Monsignor Bonner) and Jon Schmidt (Ryan), O'Grady delivered an oh-baby in the form of a grand slam to right. The ball hit above a 345-foot sign.
"When I hit it, I thought it would get in the gap," O'Grady said. "Then, when I looked up, I could see it was going to clear the fence. I just waited for it to splash off that netting.
"Do that in my first at-bat in the Carpenter Cup? That's probably my No. 1 baseball feeling. I was nervous, too, because I was replacing [Kennedy-Kenrick's] Christian Walker and he's probably the Catholic League's best hitter."
In the ninth, singles by Benedict and O'Grady at least caused Burlco fans to squirm as the tying run came to the plate. Neumann-Goretti's Mike Riverso on-the-screwsed the first pitch! . . . Right to the centerfielder.
At Bloomsburg, although he will enter as undeclared, Ferdinand figures he eventually will major in business. And, at least to start off, he will be quite busy sportswise, as well.
"I just like football and baseball too much not to try them both in college," he said. "If I do cut back to one later, I want to know I'm making the right choice." *
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