Angel Lopez, from Puerto Rico and Pennsburg, begins pro career

The dorm food was not good. The bed was not comfortable or big enough. And when Angel Lopez woke up at Perkiomen School in Pennsburg, his parents were a plane ride away.

He was not used to leaving his home in Puerto Rico for more than a couple of days. He missed it. But since he was 9, he wanted to become a professional baseball player. Last week, he was drafted by the Cleveland Indians, and he planned to sign his first contract Tuesday. Leaving home five years ago, Lopez knew, was the best route toward that result.

Even as a kid, "I thought if I kept working hard and not giving up on anything, then I could make it," Lopez says now. At 15, he went to Perkiomen to board and play baseball. Undrafted out of high school, he played two years at Northampton Community College, hit .411 as a sophomore and entered the draft again last week.

"I can't wait any longer," Lopez said.

He had to wait. The Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers — who sent him to their facilities for pre-draft workouts, called him several times leading up to the draft and expressed interest — told him to keep his phone charged on the second day of the draft on June 13. Lopez received no calls.

Five more teams called him before the third day started. The last was the Indians, who had shown little interest previously. That afternoon, they made Lopez their 13th-round pick.

The 20-year-old catcher plans on leaving for the Indians' facility in Arizona on Wednesday. Life is changing quickly for Lopez, though he is used to that by now.

The athletic center at Perkiomen is almost always open, and coach Ken Baker recalls seeing Lopez hitting and lifting in his spare time. That is true of many of the 1,215 players drafted last week. But Lopez, who came to the United States through a longtime relationship between Perkiomen and Puerto Rican baseball academies, also had to spend that extra time on English. He would spend his free period in Baker's office practicing reading, to the point at which he's now fluent.

In 1995, Baker received an "off-the-cuff" phone call from the Roberto Clemente All-Stars, asking the coach to bring his team down to Puerto Rico to play. But Baker did not have enough time to put the trip together. The man on the other line had a new idea: Could Puerto Rico send players to board at Perkiomen, adjust to life in the United States and prepare for pro careers?

A pipeline formed, bringing some four dozen players from Puerto Rico to Pennsburg in the last two decades. Lopez is one of a handful to be drafted.

Baker and Lopez stay in touch, and they spoke recently about the difficult road ahead. The excitement of signing professionally will wear off. The training will be tough. The bus rides will be grueling. All of the players will have the same goal.

It will not be easy. But Lopez has already come a long way.