''Wily Mo was taking batting practice, and everybody came out to watch -- Ken Griffey Jr., everybody," a scout who was there said yesterday. ''The balls he hit were still rising as they cleared that big scoreboard in center field in Legends Field. He has as big a power as anybody in the game."
Last season in St. Louis, the righthanded-hitting Pena hit a ball that traveled an estimated 492 feet, the longest ever by a Cardinals opponent. He hit two home runs, including a walkoff three-run blast, on Wily Mo Pena Bobblehead Night in Cincinnati. Filling in for an injured Griffey in 2004, he hit six home runs in a span of eight games, and last spring he took Randy Johnson deep in an exhibition game.
''I'm telling you one thing, I've seen that man hit some balls in the minor leagues that were McGwire-like," said Mike Easler, the former Reds hitting coach who is now a minor league hitting coach for the Dodgers. ''A great kid, too. Lots of enthusiasm. I don't want to tell other teams how to pitch him, but that ballpark is going to be great for him.
''And he's going to be around Manny, Big Papi. I just think it's a good move for Boston. And remember: The man is still just a baby. This man is ready to play some ball now."
So why did the Yankees give up on this 245-pound strongman less than two months after his 19th birthday, trading him to the Reds in 2001 for Drew Henson and Michael Coleman, the one-time Sox prospect self-dubbed ''Prime Time" until he ran out of time? Part of it is that they gave him a five-year, $3.75 million big-league contract as a 17-year-old, after the commissioner's office ruled that the Mets and Marlins had both signed him illegally.
