EXTRA INNINGS Lugo signs with Expos

Great performance for Hoboken Connie Mack team seals dealIn the eyes and mind of Chris Lugo, there really wasn’t another option. Sure, the Hudson Catholic standout baseball star and 2004 Hudson Reporter Most Valuable Player talked a nice game about the possibility of going to a junior college in Florida, but once the Montreal Expos made Lugo their 28th round draft selection last week, all Lugo thought about was the idea of becoming a professional baseball player.
“I sat down with my Dad [Alex Lugo] and Coach [Derek] England and we went over all the pros and cons of pro ball,” Lugo said. “I definitely had my mind set all the way that I wanted to give pro ball a try. But then Mr. [Michael] Ben-David (the girls’ soccer coach at Hoboken) said something and the way he said it made it clearer for me.”
The Expos pretty much laid it all on the table for Lugo. He could either go to junior college and play for a semester in sort of a “watch-and-see” mode or sign with the Expos now and report to the organization’s Rookie League team in Melbourne, Florida as soon as possible.
Dana Brown, the director of scouting for the Expos and former Seton Hall University standout, told Lugo that he was interested to see what Lugo had in his scheduled outing in the Hudson-Bergen Connie Mack Baseball League. So Brown and scout Larry Izzo, who drafted Lugo a week earlier, came to Hoboken last Thursday night to see what Lugo was made of.
“They pretty much told me before hand that they would make the offer based on what they saw Thursday,” Lugo said. “I knew what I had to do. I also knew what I wanted to do. I was ready to sign.”
So it basically came down to a one-game audition for Lugo. With the main scout and the scouting chief watching every pitch and every move, charting the velocity throughout, Lugo put on a show.
“I was throwing 91-92 [miles per hour] and I was consistently at 89,” Lugo said. “The scouting director told me that I shouldn’t be pitching in a Connie Mack league, that I should be pitching in pro ball. It made me feel confident. I was ready.”
Five days later, Lugo was putting his name to a contract, one that includes a contingency plan for Lugo to attend college while under contract with the Expos.
“I plan on going to school,” Lugo said. “I can play the rest of the summer, come home, go to college somewhere for a semester and then go back. I can kill two birds with one stone. It’s the best of all worlds.”
On Wednesday morning, Chris Lugo was already on a plane to Orlando, ready to take the first step of his professional baseball career.
“I’m a little nervous,” the 18-year-old Lugo said. “I won’t have my mother there to hold my hand. It’s the first time I’m going to be away from home. But I’m eager to get in there and show them what I can do.”
The Expos also think very highly of Lugo, because of sending the teen to Instructional League to hone his craft, he’s being assigned to pitch competitively in rookie ball right away.
“That’s what they told me,” Lugo said. “They want to get me in the rotation down there as soon as possible.”
So one minute, Lugo’s firing his fastball and bending his knuckle-curve in a Connie Mack League, the next, he’s headed to pro baseball. Not a bad life.
“Definitely, all the hard work has paid off,” Lugo said. “All the days I spent, working with my father, going to the batting cages, throwing, working on my fielding, it’s all paid off now. I’m so grateful to my Dad for what he did, the time he spent. Everything is so perfect right now.”
He’s well on his way.
It means that two former Hoboken Mickey Mantle teammates, Lugo and Joel Rivera, will both be playing professional baseball at two different ends of the country this year. Rivera will be playing for the Milwaukee Brewers’ affiliate in Helena, Montana while Lugo is in Florida with the Expos’ Rookie League team.
Lugo now joins the same organization as Brian Ellerson, the last Hudson Catholic product to earn the Hudson Reporter Most Valuable Player honors. Ellerson is playing for the Brevard County Manatees of the Florida State League (Class A).
This is the first of the summer-long EXTRA INNINGS features, which will appear here every week for the remainder of the summer.
The EXTRA INNINGS feature focuses on the best stories that come from local baseball and softball leagues throughout the area. If you have any noteworthy information to contribute to the EXTRA INNINGS, feel free to contact Jim Hague by voice mail at (201) 798-7800, ext. 751, by general mail at 1400 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ 07030, or via e-mail at OGSMAR@aol.com. Please include a telephone contact name and number, in order to secure further information for a possible story.