Ludy signs to play at Baylor (11/21/07)

Josh Ludy has been chasing his dream for 10 years.

For someone who is just a senior in high school, that's saying something.

That dream took a big step toward being a reality last week when Ludy signed a national letter of intent to play baseball at Baylor University.

"It's a pretty big relief, especially after I committed," said Ludy, who decided in September that he wanted to be a Bear. "Now actually having it be official is great."

For Ludy, it's been a long time coming.

The Jay County High School senior, who hopes to eventually extend his playing career to professional baseball, said the journey really began when he was about 7 years old. He attended a Ball State hitting camp for the first time, and then began taking lessons from one of the Cardinals' assistant coaches.

Being that young, Ludy says, he was prone to not work as hard as he possibly should have. But it didn't take long for that to change.

"When I was about 10 or so, I went to camps and I realized that I could be just as good as anybody there, that I could play at that level," he said. "I just decided that's what I wanted to do. ... I played some other sports, but it was just for fun. I decided baseball was what I really wanted to do ..."

And so he has, in just about every possible way.

Baseball has been king for Ludy, who also is a four-time letter winner for the Patriots in tennis, in an effort to accomplish his goals. He started working out with a Chicago White Sox scout at age 14 and has played on elite travel teams throughout high school.

Those teams have taken him all over the eastern United States for tournaments in Ohio, Kentucky, Atlanta, Florida, Tennessee and Louisiana, just to name a few.

"The competition we see there is (great)," said Ludy. "We play against kids that are going to be first-rounders to junior college kids, so you pretty much get to see the best in the country. You get to play against that kind of competition and see where you're at ..."

Then Ludy got a big opportunity last winter.

He received an invitation from a New York Yankees scout for a try-out in Dayton this June. He had a great day and made the Yankees' team as part of the 2007 East Coast Professional Baseball Showcase, which is meant for players rated as the top 150 in the eastern half of the country.

For four days at the Detroit Tigers spring training complex in Lakeland, Fla., Ludy got to display his skills in front of everyone and anyone.

There were about 400 scouts at every game, and they were evaluating the players not only on their athletic ability. In addition to the physical and psychological tests he took for the Major League Scouting Bureau, Ludy said many of the scouts passed out personality tests to help guage the players.

"A lot of the scouts were around us all week," said Ludy, "so they would get to know what kind of person we were ... as well as how we played."

As shown by his high school statistics, Ludy's talents on the field are big.

Ludy hit a home run in his first varsity at bat and has not really slowed down since. He hit .310 as a freshman with 14 RBIs and seven doubles - good numbers, but nothing in comparison to what he has done since.

During his sophomore and junior seasons he hit .466 and .488 repsectively, totaling 72 RBIs. He hit 12 doubles and three triples in 2007 while going 14-of-14 on stolen base attempts.

His power numbers are also gaudy.

Ludy hit a school-record 12 home runs in helping lead Jay County to its first sectional championship since 1995. Combined with his nine homers as a sophomore and two as a freshman he is tied for the school's career-mark of 23 with 1991 graduate Shannon Stigelman, who also previously held the single-season mark.

He holds several other records, and will break many more in his senior season. He'll need just five RBIs to break the career record of 88 set by Mike Hunt in 1980.

But his JCHS coach, Lea Selvey, said it's the stolen base numbers that really show what Ludy is all about.

"I'd always pinch run for him, and he hated that," said Selvey, who has coach several other Division I players, including Stigleman (Purdue) and Dan Farrell (Indiana). "He told me he was going to make himself faster.

"Probably the biggest thing that I've seen in that kid ... is his desire to excel. It's just unbelieveable. I've been around kids in college when I've played that didn't have that. It's his willingness to sacrifice and do things just to get better. He's a one-of-a-kind from that standpoint."

Selvey said it's that desire to get better that differentiates Ludy from some of those past stars. He said while Ludy may not have the physical gifts - he stands just 5-feet-9-inches - of some of the previous Patriot stars, he more than makes up for it.

"The biggest thing he's blessed with is his desire to improve," said Selvey, who played under Ludy's grandfather, Ted Habegger, when he was in school. "He's a pretty good athlete ... but he's a kid that when he goes home, he just keeps working."

All that hard work paid off Nov. 14, when Ludy signed to play for Baylor. He was one of six players in the recruiting class for the Big 12 school in Waco, Texas, which has finished in the middle of the pack each of the last two seasons but won the conference and went all the way to the College World Series in 2005.

"Each of them comes from an outstanding baseball background, and each one is an equally strong student," said Baylor coach Steve Smith of the group, which also includes three players from Texas and two from Illinois, in a press release. "They will be good fits for our program and for Baylor University."

He said although there will be a junior catcher in front of him when he arrives, he expects to get a chance to be on the field. With the schedule calling for five games a week, most teams will try to get their starting backstop a game off.

Cincinnati was among the other schools Ludy was considering, but he said his visit to Baylor made it clear that it was the right choice for him.

"When I got down there and was there for a couple of hours I just kind of realized this was where I wanted to be," he said. "The campus was awesome, the academic side was going to be great and then I watched the intrasquad and it's obviously a pretty good team there. They're going to have a chance to do well in the postseason, and that's what I always wanted to do.

"The coaches, I liked every single one of them. ... At Baylor it was like everybody got along with everybody. ... It just seemed like a good group I could play with."

Ludy also mentioned the weather once or twice, looking forward to temperatures in the 60s in the middle of winter.

Along with college, there will be professional opportunities.

Ludy is likely to be selected in the Major League Baseball draft, but he said he's unlikely to go straight to the minor leagues. Instead, he said he's hoping to play several seasons with the Bears and then see if his dreams of playing professional baseball become a reality.

He said there are so many people who have helped him pursue his goals that he can't thank them all. But as he looks ahead to his senior season, his college career and his professional prospects, his parents Max and Sherri sit atop the list of people who have made his dreams possible.

"My parents have pushed me pretty hard academically and athletically," said Ludy. "I've not always agreed with them on some stuff - a lot of times I was a typical teenager - but now everything is starting to pay off ...

"After (signing), this kind of puts it in perspective."[[In-content Ad]]