The 6 Million Dollar Man
Lucius Fox came to our program with his friend Anfernee Seymour in December of 2013. Just a sophomore attending American Heritage in Delray. Both he and Anfernee were recommended by an area scout to come to our tryout and play summer ball with us. So thats exactly what they did.
Before we get into the story of Lucius and Anfernee, its important to understand their background. Both of them were born, raised and live in the Bahamas. They were here on student visa’s, with out parents or family members and lived in a two bedroom apartment in West Palm Beach. Lucius, Anfernee and another Bahamian prospect by the name of Todd Isacs shared a room together while their care taker was in the other room. They all attended American Heritage Delray. They trained together in hopes of a better life and to pursue their dream of playing professional baseball or furthering their studies.
Going back to the first night I met the 3 boys, they approached me as they were getting ready to run the 60’s to introduce themselves. I looked at the 3 of them and thought to myself. “They are pretty skinny but who knows, maybe they can play” It wasn’t 20 min later when I had one of our coaches run to the other end of the field to tell me that Anfernee ran a 6.2 and Lucius had ran a 6.4 in the 60 yard dash. For those of you that aren’t aware a 6.2 in a 60yd dash is pretty much unheard of and so is a 6.4 from a sophomore. I made Coach Soto run them again to make sure it wasn’t a mistake on our end. It wasn’t, they did it again and this time Lucius’ time was faster. After they ran the 60 they were the talk of the night. Todd wasn’t able to run because he was still recovering from an injury but the boys told me he was fastest one out of all of them.
Throughout the weekend, Anfernee and Lucius worked out. Lucius only being able to hit due to an arm injury you were still able to see the talent offensively and his speed when he reached base. The same could be said for Anfernee. Both of them a little raw in terms of playing the game. Hell, they didn’t start playing the game of baseball until they were 13 years old so of course there were some things they needed to work on but man was it fun to watch them play. After the weekend was over the coaches got together to go over our potential rosters. Anfernee’s upside was so big we decided to take a shot an put him on 17u prime although he was kind of an unknown. For Lucius, because we weren’t able to see him defensively we decided to put him to play our 16u slugger with Coach Jose Peidra.
Here is where things got interesting and you could tell the type of player and person Lucius is. In our organization our “Prime” team has been considered the top team of each age group in terms of prospects. That team is mostly made of up players that we already know about and so do the colleges. Players that are new to our program and we don’t have much background on are usually put on our other teams to find out what type of player they are. Often times parents get infatuated with if there son is good enough to play prime or not, and thats not the way we select our teams. We try to put our players in the best position to be exposed by colleges. Doesn’t make sense to put 6 SS on one team. A lot of our players are good enough to play on prime but if you’re not committed to a college or not well known you might be better off playing everyday on a team like Select or Slugger. Those are the teams that colleges are out watching the most vs a 17u prime team where 95 % of that roster is already committed. Not to mention our “other teams” have won several PG titles but this is a whole other subject for another day. The most interesting part about this all is that Lucius didn’t bat an eye when his invite came to play with us. He was grateful for the opportunity to play in our organization. No issues, no questions on why or where he was playing. Just gratefulness.
It wasn’t long before Lucius started turning heads on his 16u Slugger team. Colleges took notice and were blowing up our phones to get him on campus. Now because of the factor of Lucius’ parents not being here he wasn’t in a rush to take visits and make a decision on a college just yet. I didn’t blame him as I told him that this should be family decision. During this time Lucius and I would talk often via text. Maybe because I knew Anfernee and Lucius where here in the states pretty much by themselves I made it a point to reach out to them more than most just to check up on them. In one of those conversations with Lucius I asked him where would he really want to go to school. He told me he’s not really sure but he’s always liked NC State and he would like to get out of Florida. Now its important to understand, here’s this kid from the Islands who wants to get out of Florida and I don’t think he’s ever seen or experienced weather below 50 degrees so naturally I told him “Lucius, you know it gets really cold the further north you go. It even snows up there.” His response was laughable but also tells you a lot about him “Coach, thats ok. I like snow” Lucius have you ever seen snow? I asked. “No, but if I did I know I would like it and probably go outside and play in it”. Obviously I couldn’t hold back my laughter and he had a laugh as well but at the time I didn’t realize how much that conversation would tell me about Lucius.
Lucius, although from a tiny island wasn’t afraid to dream big. He wasn’t afraid to meet new people and make friends. After all, he spent most of his teenage years raising himself without an adult. It was different coaching a player like this. Not just because he was extremely talented but there wasn’t mom and dad there to bring Gatorade to the dugout whenever he was thirsty. No one was there to make an excuse for him if he had a bad game. He had to own all of it, and he did.
Fast forward to the following summer, Lucius was now on the map. He was chosen to play on 17u Prime coached by Alan Kunkel. Once again, Lucius turned heads but this time it wasn’t from just colleges. It was from professional organizations. A LOT OF THEM.
About a month and a half into the summer his advisor, Roger Tomas who just happens to be a very close friend of mine was now advising Lucius. He and Lucius met because Roger was advising Anfernee Seymour who was drafted by the Marlins after playing his 17u summer with us in the 7th round. Until this day I have never seen one player improve as much as Anfernee did in such a short period of time. Anfernee, like Lucius was one of my favorite players that I have ever been around or had the pleasure of coaching.
Anyhow, right around July of that summer Roger had approached me that Lucius’ father was doing his research and was thinking about testing the international draft and that may be the best option for him for several reasons. Myself as well as some of the other Elite Squad coaches thought this was a crazy idea. For no other reason that we were ignorant to the international draft because we really don’t have many international players and the year before Anfernee had been drafted in what we feel is a favorable round and it worked out for him, right? Why not just go the same route? After all Lucius did just commit to NC State so if the american draft didn’t work out he’d get to see snow! Well, little did we know what would take place….
At the end of the summer, it was finalized. Lucius and his father decided it would be best for him to test the international waters. So he went back to the Bahamas to train and even went to the Dominican a few times to work out for MLB teams. Honestly speaking as his coaches we weren’t 100% behind the move because like I mentioned our ignorance but more so because we couldn’t coach him in the fall, his last few tournaments with us. Its hard to put into words what a joy it was to be around players like this. Players that are just grateful for you to give him a chance, and thankful for everything you are doing for him. Lucius was always smiling, always thanking his teammates and coaches as if he was just happy to be on a baseball field and living in the states. It was impossible to tell if Lucius had a bad or great game because of his attitude. It wasn’t a secret, he was a favorite amongst his teammates for these very reasons.
In the spring of 2015 things were heating up for Lucius. Several teams were talking about giving him big money to sign with them. (It important to understand the International Draft and the American draft are two very different things. 1. You can sign at 16 2. Its pretty much a bidding war and that player usually goes to the highest bidder. There is no real order in which teams select. Its more of free agency)
It had been a while since I had seen Lucius but I got the call that he was going to be doing a workout for the San Fransico Giants. When I arrived at the field I saw Lucius and he looked awesome. You can tell he had been training his tail off. He had gained about 20 pounds of muscle and it appeared he had grown a few inches too. The hard work showed in his game and in that workout. San Fransico flew in all their brass from the likes of GM Brian Saben to ambassadors like Felipe Alou were all there to watch Lucius workout. They loved him. So much so, that on July 2nd (international draft) they offered Lucius a signing bonus of 6 MILLION Dollars. The most money given for a non-cuban in MLB history.
There are some articles written about Lucius to give more details about the signing bonus in which I will provide below. However, its important to understand what type of person Lucius is and what makes him deserving of this type of payday. Here’s a kid, who at a very young age, left his family to better his and possibly their life. Who was grateful for every oppournity that was given to him. Grateful for whatever team he was selected to play on, grateful for whatever position he played and where he batted in the order. His perspective on baseball and life was different….it was refreshing.
Often now and days we get caught up in rankings, blogs, twitter or where your son is playing or hitting in the lineup. NONE of this matters and Lucius Fox is proof of that.
Since his signing Lucius has made several charitable donations back home to his church in the Bahamas and will be getting special jersey’s for the Elite Squad boys for the WWBA Tournament in October in memory of Coach Sergio Ambros.
Lucius, when you read this know how proud of you we are. You made our coaching experience that much better just by your presence. We miss you and wish you were around us and our younger players more but we cant wait to see your career unfold. There is certainly greatness in your future but there will be some tough days as well. Just do what you always did with us, just keep smiling.
Your coach always,
Richie Palmer
Other Lucius Fox Articles:
http://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2015/7/2/8883543/sf-giants-lucius-fox-scouting
http://www.baseballamerica.com/international/giants-lucius-fox/
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/giants/2015/07/08/mature-18-year-old-lucius-fox-gives-the-giants-an-exciting-prospect/
