Hope and Homage : Father’s Death Provides Inspiration for Villanova Prep’s Alfredo Santini

When Alfredo Santini played baseball in front of his parents for the first time during last year’s Southern Section baseball playoffs, little did the Villanova Prep shortstop know that it would be the only game his father would see him play.

The younger Santini’s bid to become a three-time All-Southern Section performer and to lead the Ojai school to a Small Schools Division championship took on a different perspective early in February when Santini’s father was killed and his mother badly burned in an explosion at the family’s home in Navojoa, Mexico.

“One day, you have something and another day it’s gone and you can’t do anything about it,” Santini said. “My dad was the one who really loved baseball. Everything I did was trying to make him proud of me.”

Santini’s father would be proud of his son’s handling of the family crisis. In the classroom, Santini is maintaining his straight-A average and on the diamond, he again is showing the graceful skills that have prompted some to label him as an outstanding college prospect. Villanova Prep, which is 8-5, 6-3 in Condor League play, started the season without Santini and struggled.

“How important is he to our team?” Coach Ralph Christ asked. “With him on the field, we’re 7-2. Without him, we’re 1-3.”

Limited to just nine games so far this season because of the family tragedy and several rainouts in March, Santini quickly is rounding back into form, just in time for the stretch run of the league race. He has hit .526 with two home runs this spring. In only nine games, he has 20 runs batted in and 20 runs scored as Villanova’s catalyst in the leadoff role. In a nonleague game against Valley Christian on Monday in Santa Maria, Santini smacked a grand slam to lead the Wildcats to a 10-2 victory.

“Baseball helps me get my mind off of other things,” Santini said. “I just black out the accident and play for my father.”

Santini has been the centerpiece of a team that advanced to the Southern Section quarterfinals and semifinals in his first two seasons and won the league championship last spring. It usually takes just one look for coaches to start praising the slick-fielding senior shortstop.

“I thought I was watching the magician, the Great Santini, out there,” said Rosamond Coach Jimmy Johnson, whose teams have faced Villanova Prep twice in the playoffs. “He kept making ground balls disappear.”

Santini, who has attended boarding schools in Southern California since the sixth grade, had never played baseball before coming to Villanova Prep, a small private boarding school. But that did not keep then-Coach Mike Bolyog from inserting him at shortstop to start his freshman year.

“I’d never seen an athlete who could do the things he could do,” said Bolyog, now a junior-varsity baseball coach at Oak Park. “I couldn’t believe he had never played before.”

There are plenty of stories of Santini’s spectacular fielding exploits circulating in the Ojai Valley. Bolyog remembered one of Santini’s first games in which the ninth-grader went high in the air to snare “an awful throw from the catcher” on a steal attempt. “He made an upside-down tag and landed gracefully on his feet.”

Bolyog, Santini’s coach for two years, found a willing student. “He wanted to learn and I wanted to teach. I’ve never seen anyone learn so fast.”

“He has a great attitude,” Christ said. “He is the spark plug for the team. He keeps everything stable.”

Santini attributed much of his work ethic to his father, who had built a large wheat farming operation from scratch in Navojoa, a city in southern Sonora, about 30 miles from the Gulf of California.

“He started from the bottom and worked his way up,” Santini said of his father.

The elder Santini was watching television on the night of Feb. 4 while his wife was sleeping in another room. The house suddenly was engulfed in flames after an explosion caused by a gas buildup rocked the structure, collapsing part of the roof. Santini’s mother survived because the roof above her room stayed in place, but she suffered third-degree burns over 40% of her body.

After he learned of the fire, Santini flew to Tucson, Ariz., where his mother had been taken to a hospital burn unit. It was only when he arrived that he discovered that his father had died and that his mother was in critical condition.

A day later, Santini, his 23-year-old brother and 15-year-old sister, who also study abroad, were back in Navojoa for their father’s funeral and to see what was left of their home.

Santini said his family was close-knit before the accident, “but now we’re really close. You have to learn to stick together.”

Santini’s mother has been released from the hospital, but she remains in Tucson as an out-patient. Santini already has been accepted at Stanford, but he said he wants to go to the University of Arizona instead to be near his mother.

“We’re looking forward to having Alfredo walk on with our program,” Arizona baseball Coach Jerry Kindall said. “He has excellent credentials. His academic record caught my eye. He’s No. 1 in his class and that pleases me because we’re in the education business.”

Kindall said that walk-ons have played a key role in his program in his 20 years as coach. Twelve players on the current Arizona roster started in the program as walk-ons and two are regulars.

“We take great pains in giving a chance to players who come here with excellent credentials,” Kindall said.

Santini already has been exposed to college-level ball, joining Westmont College Coach John Kirkgard and a group of 15 other college and high school players on a monthlong exhibition tour of Germany, Austria and Switzerland last summer.

“He isn’t real polished, but with more experience I think he will make an impact at the college level,” said Kirkgard, who has coached at Westmont for eight years. “I’m not sure he realizes how good he is with the glove. He has a big heart and a good work ethic. That and his glove will catch the eye of Coach Kindall.”

The European experience persuaded Santini that he was talented enough to compete at the college level and kept alive his goal of a professional career.

Wherever he plays, Santini will take the memory of his father onto the field with him.