Byron Buxton grew up on a dirt road in Appling County, where cell phones don’t work and the tallest building is the local water tower.
Yet Sunday afternoon, Buxton managed to look at home standing in the middle of the Big Apple.
The No. 2 overall pick of last year’s draft by the Minnesota Twins - and according to this week’s Baseball America, the top prospect in the minor leagues - spent five innings of the Futures Game, a showcase game for baseball’s best prospects, patrolling center at Citi Field, where the All-Star Game logo in the outfield grass was mowed into the shape of an apple.
“I can’t believe I made it this far in such a short period, but it’s been fun,” said Buxton, 19, sitting at a locker in the Mets clubhouse after the US team defeated the World team 4-2.
Buxton went 0-for-2 with two strikeouts. But that doesn’t tell half the story. Buxton is a five-tool player. His speed and athleticism are obvious. He’s just beginning to scratch the surface with his power (nine home runs in 83 games combined in two A ball stints.) But what fans - including his parents and friends cooking out back home Sunday in Baxley - could see on ESPN2 was his uncanny plate discipline.
Buxton gave a pretty good indication of why he hit .341 in 68 games of low-A Cedar Rapids, and got a promotion to the Fort Myers Miracle of the Florida State League, where he hit at a .300 clip in his first 15 games.
In his first at-bat Sunday in an exhibition setting - where players come ready to pounce on pitches and show off upper deck power - Buxton took the first five pitches he saw before striking out on the sixth. He took four of the six pitches he saw in his second at-bat, before swinging and missing for his second strikeout.
“I’m going to hit my pitch,” said Buxton, who then let his South Georgia accent fly. “Ain’t going to change my approach no matter what game it is. If I don’t like it, I’m not going to swing. If I like it, I’m going to swing.”
Buxton’s bio lists his hometown as Baxley, Ga. population 4,400. But he actually grew up in nearby Graham, Ga., population 291.
Playing in front of a crowd of 39,188 people Sunday, in a city where he would only look up at the Empire State Building from the sidewalk (“I’m scared of heights,” he said) give another indication of why scouts project his ceiling so high.
He’s going to be the same person.
After a trip to Minneapolis last June to sign his $6 million bonus with the Twins, Buxton came home to Appling County and decided to keep a side business he had going of cutting lawns, on the suggestion of his father. Felton Buxton drives a truck and his wife Carrie runs a daycare out of their home.
“I wanted him to go do (the lawns), but he said he had to work so I went ahead,” said Buxton of his father, with a smile. “I don’t have too much else to do besides. My sister is in school and my brother is in the Navy, so there’s nobody home. Gave me something to do.”
Every Saturday this past offseason, in between trips to Atlanta to work out, Buxton spent the day on his riding mower cutting lawns.
With his bonus, he bought his parents a house in Baxley, his dad a new truck, and himself a new Ford F-150 truck. But he also kept his old four-wheel drive truck too.
He’s not getting ahead of himself, and that includes projections he could be in the majors with the Twins as early as September of 2014.
“I try not to think too far ahead of myself,” Buxton said. “But when I make it up there, I’ll take it all in, just be myself. Don’t feel any pressure and all will be good.”
Buxton’s only plan is to hit the big-time like he did the big city.
“You really can’t prepare yourself,” Buxton said. “You’ve got to come in and get a grasp of it and take it and run with it. Just have fun and see things you never saw before.”
Note: Another Georgia product, Delino DeShields of Gaston, Ga., and a 2010 first round pick of the Astros, started Sunday's game at second base for the US team. He went 0-for-2 with a strikeout.
