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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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Rays take Beckham’s brother

Posted Jun 6, 2008 by Marc Lancaster

Updated Jun 6, 2008 at 03:01 PM

DALLAS—Quick note on Day 2 of the draft as I’m running through the list: The Rays took first-round pick Tim Beckham’s older brother, Jeremy, with their 17th-round selection.

Jeremy Beckham, a second baseman, hit .333 and posted a .434 on-base percentage in his senior season at Georgia Southern. He stole a team-high 24 bases and was caught just five times.

When I talked to Beckham’s high school coach, Jamie Cassady, last night, he predicted the Rays would take Jeremy as well, and he was right. The Rays obviously saw something they liked in the elder Beckham, because the 17th round is a little too high for a courtesy pick. Those usually come in the 30s and 40s.

One other name jumped out at me from today’s selections: eighth-round pick Anthony Scelfo, a second baseman out of Tulane University. Scelfo played in every Green Wave game this spring and was an all-conference pick after leading the team with 12 homers, seven triples, a .578 slugging percentage and a .453 on-base percentage.

So what? Well, last fall he started eight of Tulane’s 12 games at quarterback, throwing for 1,396 yards and six TDs. Don’t see many legit baseball-football athletes at that level these days.

His father, Frank, is a longtime football coach who is currently the offensive coordinator at Louisiana Tech, and his uncle, Chris, was the head football coach at Tulane from 1999-2006. His uncle, I should add, is one of the finest people I’ve dealt with in this business. We crossed paths when he was the offensive line coach at Georgia and I was covering the Bulldogs.