TAMPA PALMS — Jordan Ramus is not just another child athlete.
A self-named Web site touts his accomplishments. He trains weekly with a private hitting coach. A publicist schedules media interviews.
Jordan is one of 10 finalists for Sports Illustrated Kids SportsKid of the Year, an honor that would land him on the December cover of the national magazine. He's done all of this before his 12th birthday, which is next month.
"I'm just one lucky kid that has all this stuff," says Jordan.
His coach might disagree.
"Scares me how hard he hits the ball," says Joe Martinez, an ex-minor leaguer who has worked with Jordan for two years. "Sometimes I think there's a man hitting the ball."
Actually, Jordan just started sixth grade at Liberty Middle School.
His dad cringes when the topic of girls comes up.
Jordan enjoys computer games and his RipStik Caster skateboard. He rushes to tell his mother when he's done well in school. He participates in the Relay for Life in honor of his mom, a breast cancer survivor.
He loves watching Manny Ramirez, dreams of being a first baseman for the Boston Red Sox.
"I like the players on the team," he says. "They're all class acts and none of them ever get in trouble, and they don't brag to other teammates and they're just humble people."
No offense to Tampa Bay, he says.
Too strong for T-ball
To hear Jordan and his parents tell it, he started playing T-ball for the New Tampa YMCA at 5 years old. He hit a ball so hard, it struck a teammate. "Kid had to go to the hospital," Jordan says.
"No he didn't," says his dad, Chuck Ramus. "He fell over and he was hurt. That was the last year we did T-ball."
Jordan went on to the New Tampa Little League, then the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), where he plays for the Scorpion Baseball Academy.
He got a batting coach. In one year, he went from hitting five home runs to 21. Some reached heights of 235 feet.
"Mind-boggling," says Martinez, who plays with the Puerto Rican National Select Team. "They're going over the fence. As an 11-year-old, that is not normal."
All of Jordan's statistics — and grades for the past five years of school — are on the Web site.
What does an 11-year-old need with a Web site and publicist?
Ramus says he had a lot of athletic shots of Jordan and didn't know what to do with them. "It just gets crazy after a while. It was more of a storage portfolio."
But then he saw its potential as a marketing tool.
"We live in a different age," Ramus says. "Today they start recruiting these kids at 13 and 14 years old."
Martinez, 38, acknowledges you would not see such strategies in his day. "Back then, I think it was a little less political,'' he says.
"These days, you have kids that are in high school now that make videotapes of themselves, put them on YouTube and send them to all these schools."
A life lesson
A colleague told Ramus about the magazine contest. "I looked at the criteria for not only being a good athlete, but having good grades and doing good work in the community, and all three of those, for him, seem to add up. I sent it in and here we are."
His goal was to show his son that good results come from hard work. "It's really a life lesson for Jordan. It's not about Jordan being the best. It's about knowing you reap what you sow."
At first Jordan asked, "Do you think I'm ready for this?"
Ramus told his son: "You earned it.''
Now they joke about what they'll wear if he wins, how Jordan will style his hair, what he will say in his acceptance speech.
Seeking to gather enough Internet votes, his family fired off e-mails to family, friends, co-workers. His mother, who works in IT as a sales consultant, has rigged the family computer to automatically vote for Jordan every hour.
"We've been like an animal," says Michelle Ramus. "I sent a blast e-mail out at work. All of my friends are aware of Jordan's talent and what he's been doing through the years."
Jordan, as humbly as possible, has spread the word around school.
"I really want this,'' he says. "This is a big deal for me.
"Before I was just somebody. Now I've completed this big task.
"If I get my name out a lot, then maybe a scout can hear it. That just makes it easier for me to get on a pro baseball team."
Rodney Thrash can be reached at rthrash@sptimes.com or (813) 269-5303.
. Fast facts
Voting booth
Today, four finalists for Sports Illustrated Kids Sports Kid of the Year will be eliminated. Each week after that, two finalists per week will be cut until a winner is selected. To vote for Tampa Palms' Jordan Ramus or any of the finalists, go to www.sikids.com/sportskid.
• To learn more about Jordan, go to www. jordanramus.com.
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