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Zunino heads to Seattle ready to sign and begin his professional career in Mariners organization
Sunday, July 1, 2012 | Baseball, Women's Swimming & Diving, Scott Carter
Dick Howser Trophy winner Mike Zunino is ready to embark on next leg of career in Seattle.
LUBBOCK, Texas -- Mike Zunino didn't make just one trip to the stage at the College Baseball Night of Champions on Saturday night.
He made two. When you have a season like Zunino had, there is a lot of hardware to pick up.
Zunino was honored for winning the Dick Howser Trophy (nation's top player) and the Johnny Bench Award (nation's top catcher). The Gators junior catcher hit .322 with 19 home runs, 28 doubles and 67 RBIs on the way to becoming the highest-drafted player in school history.
The Mariners took Zunino with the third overall pick in June's MLB amateur draft. He headed to Seattle on Sunday morning with his parents, Greg and Paola, and his fiancée, Alyssa Barry. They planned to attend Sunday's Seattle-Boston game at Safeco Field and Zunino is scheduled to undergo a physical on Monday.
If all goes well, he is expected to sign with the Mariners on Tuesday, take batting practice, and then depart the next morning for New York and the Golden Spikes Award announcement.
Zunino is enjoying the fruits of his labor but is ready to get back on the field. He is expected to begin his professional career with the short-season Class A Everett (Wash.) AquaSox later this month.
"I'm ready to get going,'' Zunino said. "It's only a week and a half out of playing [in Omaha], but I'm ready to get going again and get ready for some new experiences."
During his Florida career, Zunino led the Gators to three consecutive appearances in the CWS.
"He was our rock,'' Florida coach Kevin O'Sullivan told a live audience on Saturday night.
Zunino was a 30th-round draft choice coming out of Cape Coral Mariner High, but developed into one of the nation's top players at Florida.
"All his dreams came true,'' said Paola Zunino. "The last three years have just been amazing. We couldn't have asked for a better experience than what he had at Florida."
The 21-year-old Zunino admits his head is still spinning a little bit from all the hoopla of the past few weeks. He met former Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda at a Bench Award camp last week. He talked baseball with Bench, considered one of the finest catchers to ever play the game. He'll be taking batting practice with Ichiro on Tuesday.
Still, Zunino tried to keep it all in perspective as he prepared for his first visit to Seattle.
"I still text all the guys back and forth,'' he said of his Gator teammates. "We had a good run. We came in and did what we wanted to do. We were a winning class. We wanted to put our stamp on the university of Florida as a program and I think we did that."
He hopes to do the same in Seattle one day.
