By TED SILARY
Daily News Staff Writer
The high schools are perched along Hunting Park Avenue and separated, maybe, by the length of four football fields.
Come baseball season, their teams might as well be joined at the batting rack. Everyone speaks Spanish and most of These Guys know many of Those Guys.
"Let me see," said Ralphy Ramos, a senior leftfielder for Esperanza (charter) Academy. "I know all their outfield guys, their catcher and their shortstop.
"The centerfielder [Joshua Fontanez] and catcher [Frankie Gonzalez], I consider them family. Frankie grew up one block up from me, and Josh and I always played on the same teams from when we were very young."
In school Friday, knowing they'd eventually be strolling down the street - oops, check that; they did travel by bus - to meet their archest of diamond rivals, Thomas Edison, the Toros must have been paying little attention to classwork.
"Coach [John] Grone always reminds us, we're student-athletes," Ramos said. "School comes first before baseball. You have to spend your day working hard in your classes and then you can worry about what you have to do on the field."
Is it safe to assume, at least this time, the letter of the law was not completely followed?
"Yeah, it was kind of hard," Ramos said, smiling.
Then it was all kinds of fun.
With the 5-8, 160-pound Ramos going 2-for-2 with a double, two RBI, two walks, two steals and three runs scored in the No. 2 hole, Esperanza rolled to a 13-3, five-inning win in the Public A contest.
"Maybe I'll be hittin' Facebook tonight," Ramos cracked.
As many as 100 spectators - some for all of it; most for bits and pieces - watched the game in beautiful weather, and the funny/salty comments flowed freely in two languages.
The atmosphere, not that much was necessary, was enlivened a few pitches into the game when the Toros' Jeff Escolatico ripped a foul ball over the third base-side restraining fence and right over the heads of kids who were standing in portable bleachers. We were thisclose to a tragedy, folks.
Escolatico flied out, but Ramos then scalded a ground-rule double up the small enbankment in leftfield. Jamuel Cruz followed with a double down the line and, just like that, the Toros were ahead for good.
Ramos added a two-run single in a five-run third.
"That pitch in the first was a fastball, and I knew what I had to do with it," he said. "I made good contact and kept on running. It felt good off the bat.
"Second time up, same thing. I wanted to get a nice hit so we could get a bigger lead and keep our pitcher from being scared."
He was referring to inexperienced sophomore Yamil Morera, a slight righthander.
Morera wound up going the distance, allowing five hits and striking out seven. However, after Morera free-passed the first batters in the fourth, Grone strode to the mound and pointed to Ramos, who began a trot toward that locale.
Screech! He had to put on the brakes.
When asked afterward why he'd changed his mind, Grone pointed at Morera and said: "This kid right here. He said, 'Coach, I've got it. Give me a chance.' "
The next three guys went down in whiff-whiff-groundout fashion. Edison also loaded the bases to start the fifth, but scored only once.
"I thought I was gonna pitch, and I was ready," Ramos said. "But that was fine the way it worked out. Whatever coach wants from me, I'll do it. It was cool to see Yamil fight back like that and finish what he started."
Cruz finished 2-for-4 with two RBI. Aderly Perez matched that performance and his brother, Adelso, went 2-for-4 with a double and two walks. Escolatico posted two RBI on a walk and sacrifice fly while his brother, Raul, managed one on the latter.
For Edison, frosh Michael Garcia, who just recently turned 14, went 2-for-2 while also reaching base on an HBP. Mario Rodriguez came within inches of a homer, and that moment left Ramos with raspberries at the inner part of both wrists. In a diving attempt to catch the ball, he landed on a hard surface rather than grass.
"I was worried about hitting my face, so I stopped myself," Ramos said. "I did come within inches of catching it."
Ramos, of East Ontario near B, expects to major in athletic training or criminal justice in college. This won't be his final season at Esperanza's games, however, because his brother, Nicholas, also a baseball fanatic, will be a freshman come September.
He'll savor games against Edison as well.
"You know it's going to be competitive," Ralphy said. "We're all trying our hardest to impress one another."
Exactamente.
