BOSTON -- Three years before a can't-miss label was affixed to Evan Longoria in 2006, when the former Long Beach State standout was the third overall pick in the draft, one of baseball's brightest young stars was the kid everyone missed.
Despite playing two varsity seasons in the high school baseball hotbed that is Southern California and showing what his coach thought was excellent bat speed and power for a smallish player, Longoria graduated from Bellflower St. John Bosco in 2003 with no college scholarship offers. Nor was he drafted.
Now look at Longoria: cleanup batter and third baseman for the Tampa Bay Rays, who enter Game 5 of the American League Championship Series tonight at Fenway Park needing one win over the Boston Red Sox to earn their first World Series berth.
An AL All-Star, a mature-beyond-his-years 23-year-old who hit .272 with 27 home runs and 85 runs batted in during his first season despite sitting out 30 games because of a fractured right wrist and has already set a rookie record with five homers in these playoffs.
The presumptive AL rookie of the year is a franchise player who -- only six days after being called up to the big leagues for the first time in April -- signed a six-year, $17.5-million contract that includes three option years that could add another $30 million to the deal.
"We have more scouts per square inch than anywhere in the country, and not one of them had the guts to sign him out of high school," said Kris Jondle, Longoria's coach at St. John Bosco and now the coach at Santa Margarita High.
"USC was the only school that came to look at him in person, and they liked him, but they couldn't pull the trigger on a scholarship. They all missed out."
Long Beach State and the Rays didn't.
Eventually. Longoria kept taking ground balls, kept hitting until his hands were raw, and in 2004 he played at Rio Hondo College, where he was all-state as a freshman.
He transferred to Long Beach State as a sophomore, and in two Division I seasons, he made quantum leaps both physically -- he went from a 6-foot-1, 170-pound high school senior to a 6-2, 200-pound college junior -- and on the field.
Longoria hit .353 with 11 homers and 43 RBIs as a junior, earning Big West Conference co-player of the year honors, and signed for $3 million the day the Rays selected him after pitchers Luke Hochevar (Kansas City) and Greg Reynolds (Colorado) in the 2006 draft.
