Since Aiden Ruiz was 2 years outdated, his mother has needed to battle along with her little slugger to take off his baseball uniform, which he wore with delight after each Little League sport.
“He would combat with me to take his cleats off,” Christina Ruiz advised The Put up.
“I needed to let him take a nap so I might get his cleats off, so he might go to mattress.”
It was a transparent foreshadowing that the Stony Brook Faculty’s standout shortstop had a brilliant future on the diamond after senior 12 months, as Ruiz has numerous noise round his title forward of the 2026 MLB draft in July.
“That was all the time a dream,” mentioned Ruiz, the Thirty eighth-ranked draft prospect by Main League Baseball.
“I’ve all the time had that self-confidence after I step on the sector that I can flip the sport round,” added the soon-to-be highschool grad, who is nineteen due to a double eighth-grade 12 months as a consequence of COVID.
With ease for Ruiz
Ruiz is not any stranger to large moments and greater personalities; the Vanderbilt commit received gold with Crew USA within the World Championship and was named All-World shortstop in 2025, has performed with the Yankees Space Code workforce, and educated along with his “mentor,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor.
“We all the time speak about fielding,” Ruiz mentioned of attending to know Lindor. “It’s all the time cool to satisfy your heroes.”
He’s additionally shut buddies with former teammate and College of Virginia ace Jayden Stroman, son of former Yankees and Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman, who had a stint at Stony Brook earlier than transferring to play public college ball at Patchogue-Medford in 2025.
“That bond over time, pushing one another to be higher and studying the sport collectively,” Ruiz mentioned. “It positively strengthened our friendship.”
He and Stroman have been on the identical groups and within the reverse dugouts since they have been each 12, and so they’re keen to combine it up once more within the NCAA sooner or later — ought to Ruiz have to attend a bit to listen to his title referred to as for the bigs, that’s.
“It could be sick. That’s positively one thing we’ve talked about earlier than.”
Heading for house
Ruiz is subsequent in a household lineage that handled baseball as second solely to God of their Woodhaven, Queens, house. It’s there the place he would area hard-hit balls meant for his older brother, Daniel, as a toddler.
“I had a bat and glove in my hand for so long as I might bear in mind,” Ruiz mentioned, including that his entire household rooted for each the Yankees and Mets within the curiosity of watching good baseball.
His dad, Sam, performed within the minors for the White Sox within the Eighties; Daniel performed in faculty at Ohio Northern a decade in the past; his sister, Alyssa, was a aggressive highschool softball participant; and his mother was a longtime softball coach within the World’s Borough.
Ruiz proudly wears No. 45, as Daniel and Alyssa did.
Most of all, Ruiz’s late grandfather, Sandalio, actually put the love for the sport into Sam and Aiden since he left Puerto Rico for a brand new life in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, many years in the past.
“My dad was there for each single sport because the sandlot,” mentioned Sam, who additionally performed second base and outfield within the Mets and Marlins methods however by no means reached the majors.
Sandalio, who was additionally at every of Aiden’s video games, predicted a brighter future for his grandson.
“My father would have a look at me and playfully say, ‘You understand he’s higher than you, proper?’ ” Sam laughed.
Ruiz mentioned dropping his beloved grandfather and “the glue to our household” in center college was probably the most troublesome stretch he ever fought by. Sam added that he deeply regrets that Sandalio isn’t right here to see his grandson’s promising days forward.
Happily, coping with the loss isn’t one thing Aiden needed to do alone, as Sam was all the time there and gladly carried on the household custom even years later.
“He would drive up right here daily this entire 12 months to work out with me earlier than observe,” Aiden mentioned.
“Simply being on the diamond with my dad, it was particular. … We spent hours a day, each single day, on the sector collectively,” he added of their years collectively.
The household is bursting with anticipation for the full-circle second, hoping to obtain excellent news in July reasonably than ready for Ruiz’s subsequent alternative, which might come after his sophomore 12 months with the Commodores.
Hardly anyone is extra excited than Ruiz’s grandma, Hilda, Sandalio’s longtime spouse.
“She all the time mentioned she’s holding on to observe me get drafted,” mentioned Ruiz. “She’s my motivation to maintain working arduous and play the sport.”
