BRIDGEWATER, N.J. - You could see why they wanted him. Anthony Hewitt took batting practice Wednesday, and everything looked right. Hewitt is 6-foot-1 and 215 pounds, his beefy upper body tapering to his feet like a giant V, and at each pitch he took an easy inside-out swing from the right side of home plate. Still, the ball rocketed off his bat: a line drive to the right-center-field gap, a deep fly ball to the warning track, so easy.
As a senior in high school, Hewitt had put on an awe-inspiring batting-practice display that had helped persuade the Phillies to select him in the first round of the 2008 Major League Baseball amateur draft.