HUMBLED HAMILTON : Baseball’s Top Pick Producing and Patiently Waiting For a Trip to the Major Leagues

Josh Hamilton glanced up at the Princeton Devil Rays’ clubhouse television, wondering how Wade Boggs was doing for the parent team.

He didn’t have to wait long. Hit No. 3,000 arrived.

“Oh, yeah!” Hamilton shouted.

“Just to think about something like that happening one day,” he said later. “It’s just really hard to think about, because he’s been doing it for a long time. He’s just now reaching that goal.”

The No. 1 overall pick in June’s baseball draft is just a few months out of high school, content with learning the fundamentals of baseball on his own schedule, at his own pace.

Hit by hit, throw by throw.

“They say it’s going to be totally up to me, how I perform and how I feel at the level I’m at,” he said.

After the draft, Hamilton signed a minor league contract that included a $3.65 million signing bonus payable over 19 months. It is the largest sum ever given to a drafted amateur player who signed with the team that selected him.

The 18-year-old center fielder and his parents then packed up and headed separately to the mountains of West Virginia, where Tampa Bay’s rookie league team plays.

If Hamilton ends up in the majors, his journey won’t be as quick as the last high school player drafted No. 1 overall. After all, Alex Rodriguez needed just a year to become the Seattle Mariners’ starting shortstop in 1994.

“You always want to get there soon,” Hamilton said. “Sometimes I feel I have to prove myself. But other than that, they just want me to have fun and play ball, like I’ve always done.

“The competition gets better as you go up. So I’m looking at two-three years. I’m not trying to rush anything.”

So far, Hamilton has proven himself against players his own age, leading his Appalachian League team in nearly every offensive category.

Vince Namoli, the Devil Rays’ managing general partner, was at a game in mid-August when Hamilton homered, tripled and doubled. The next day, Hamilton was promoted to Class A Hudson Valley of the short season New York-Penn League.

His chances of making it to the majors are good. Only two overall top draft picks in the past decade haven’t made it: injury-plagued pitcher Brien Taylor, picked by the New York Yankees in 1994; and infielder Pat Burrell, taken by the Philadelphia Phillies in 1998. Burrell made the Double-A all-star team this season at Reading, Pa.

“It’s a journey more so than a sprint,” said Tom Foley, the Devil Rays’ director of minor league operations. “How long is it going to take to get there? I don’t know.”

Hamilton’s arm is strong and accurate. At the plate, he rarely walks and has power to all fields.

“He hits everything,” Princeton manager Bobby Ramos said. “I’m just going to put it this way: This guy’s got a chance to be very special. And I’m talking about long term.”

Tony and Linda Hamilton have had a close-up view of their son. They gave up their jobs in North Carolina and rented a home a few blocks from the Princeton stadium.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Mrs. Hamilton says. “That’s why we’re trying to hang in with it. As long as he’s having fun, we’re all right.”

Hamilton has breakfast with his parents before home games, then gets dropped off at the stadium in an SUV he bought for them.

“Most kids don’t want their parents around,” Tony Hamilton says. “He wants us here. There’s a lot of kids out here who would want some support at times. A lot of them, especially away from home, they don’t have it.”

Despite all his money, Hamilton doesn’t show off. There are no thick gold necklaces or fancy jewelry. He wears a watch bought with graduation money. He owns one suit.

“I feel just like I always have,” Hamilton says. “I’m just here to play ball. I haven’t thought about anything else. Just help my parents out, basically. I told them I’d make them debt-free when I got paid. So I’ve done that.”

And he bought himself a 30th edition Firebird Trans Am he had been dreaming about for four years. But the car sits back home because Hamilton doesn’t need it right now.

“If you talk to him and you didn’t know who he was, you wouldn’t even think that he had money or what his status is as a ballplayer,” said Scott Vander Meer, Hamilton’s roommate in Princeton.

Hamilton’s status occasionally wears on him. While he gladly agrees to every autograph request, there are times when he enjoys being anonymous.

During one road trip, a car pulled up and Hamilton and some other players who were walking to a restaurant were offered a ride. They accepted, and a teammate then began to tell the others in the car about Hamilton.

“I said, ‘Man, be quiet, be quiet,’ because it was nice just having a conversation with them not knowing who I was,” Hamilton said. “I was kind of like a regular guy, I guess.”