Fill out this form to email this article to a friend

Your name		Your email
Recipient email	You may enter up to 20 multiple email addresses, separated by commas.
Your message
Validation Code	Hear validation code
	Enter validation code

We were unable to send your email.

Click here to try again.

Riverview's Ferrara happy to win them over — again

By Eduardo A. Encina, Times Staff Writer
In print: Thursday, June 5, 2008

Story Tools E-mail this story Contact the editor Print this story Comment on this story Social Bookmarking Digg Facebook Stumbleupon Reddit Del.icio.us Newsvine

ADVERTISEMENT [SKIP O\u2019ROURKE | Times] Lefty Anthony Ferrara is likely to be the first Hillsborough County player chosen in the first-year player draft.

TAMPA — Anthony Ferrara's delivery is smooth. The ball jumps out of his left hand and into the catcher's mitt with a pop, but it has been that way since he arrived at varsity baseball tryouts at Riverview his freshman year.

Mechanically, he is sound, and with the ability to throw three pitches — add a biting curveball and a changeup to a 93-mph fastball — he is the kind of left-hander any major-league team would covet.

Ferrara, who graduated from Riverview on Wednesday, could end up being the steal of this year's MLB first-year player draft. He is projected to be Hills­borough County's first high school player drafted — in the third round.

He has spent a year trying to show he's back.

Last season, after an impressive junior year, he was ranked as high as eighth in the nation. More than 25 major-league scouts would come to watch him pitch — a bullpen session. Scrimmages became circuses.

"It was weird," Ferrara said. "I'm pitching in a scrimmage game and they're looking at everything I do. That took a while to get used to."

But biceps tendinitis in his throwing arm has apparently scared off some teams. Riverview coach Bill Leiby said the injury occurred because Ferrara also played first base.

"We had to watch him on that," Leiby said. "This year we've concentrated more on pitching.

"The injury definitely hurt him. Major-league scouts don't want to take a risk on somebody who is injured. He had to convince them he still wasn't injured, and I think he did that."

The 6-foot-3, 195-pound Ferrara was 4-4 with a 2.74 ERA in 46 innings as a senior and averaged almost two strikeouts an inning. He tallied a 19-6 career varsity record over four seasons. He is signed to pitch at USF. Still, he is ranked as the 189th-best prospect in the nation by Baseball America, a drastic fall from the hype of last year.

"That motivates me," Ferrara said. "I know I'm better than that.

"I don't get angry about it. I just look at it as another way to prove myself."

He has spent the past few weeks auditioning his arm at predraft workouts with the Rays, Orioles and Yankees.

"It was crazy," Ferrara said. "I've gone to a lot of USF games and you see all these college players there, guys from Auburn and Cincinnati, teams I've watched play, and here I am competing against them."

And now opportunity is knocking. Since his first baseball game — a Rays game at Tropicana Field at age 9 — when he saw players using the best equipment, playing in front of thousands, he wanted to compete at that level.

"Whatever happens, there's no way I can lose," Ferrara said. "If everything is right, how can you not go with that offer to play pro ball. … But the way I look at it, USF has one of the best programs in the country in my opinion."