BY NOAH GRIFFITH
FOR THE OBSERVER
AUBURN — In the stands at Yankee Stadium, a young Angelo Santiago sat beside his father watching Didi Gregorius dig into the batter’s box, struck by how easily the shortstop seemed to own the moment.
While he’s no longer a little boy and playing 853 miles south of where he first dared to dream, that same confidence now belongs to him.
It was on full display when the Auburn High School third baseman caught hold of a pitch against Fairhope High School on April 2.
When he sent it well over the fence, Santiago didn’t bolt out of the box, but rather stared it down while parents in the stands hollered at him to run.
He just had to watch it fly.
A self-described chill, nonchalant kid away from the diamond, Santiago said the recognition for his senior season carried weight.
“It feels pretty good,” he said. “I worked my butt off this past offseason, and I came to school trying to prove a point and that I’m the best.”
That confidence helped make him the Infielder of the Year, which was the finishing touch on a career that began a long way from Alabama.
In a standout senior season, Santiago tallied 62 hits — the most among qualified batters in The Observer’s coverage area — for a .405 batting average, six home runs, 48 runs and 30 RBIs.
Santiago’s love of the game traces back to his father, who put a bat in his hands at 3 years old and took him to the field to hit nearly every day.
A devoted Yankees fan from the day he could sit up, he knew baseball was his passion at 10 when he hit his first home run.
Then came a turn no scouting report could predict.
In 2020, with a family member already settled in Auburn and singing the town’s praises, Santiago moved south and lived with relatives before his parents followed months later.
The culture shock was immediate.
“It was very weird when I came down here because everybody had country accents and I was the city boy,” he said, laughing as he recalled classmates teasing him for the way he pronounced coffee. “But I love the people down here and I met so many new friends.”
On the field, he grew up under two coaches.
From the program’s old guard, Matt Cimo, he learned to work hard and never quit. Under current AHS head coach Tommy Carter, he said he learned to play the game better and to believe in himself.
Carter, who watched Santiago arrive as an unproven transplant and leave as one of the area’s top infielders, said his work ethic and versatility made him stand out on a championship-caliber roster.
“He just has this wow factor, and there’s his knowledge of the game and just how he played,” Carter said. “When you’re throwing [batting practice] to him, you have to watch out. He has that something that you can’t really teach. And he’s just a versatile player. He’s really talented and the kind of player that coaches love to have on their team.”
Santiago said he came into the season out to prove he was the best, and the biggest gains he made were mental.
He also met the big moments head-on, like in the program-defining series against Enterprise High School in the second round of the playoffs this year.
“I love pressure because I’ve always played under pressure,” Santiago said. “In the batter’s box, I just think I’m the best player on the field.”
Before every game he walks to a corner of the outfield to pray, then steps in carrying that same belief.
The journey leaned on the people closest to him: his father most of all, along with his mother, his little sister and an uncle who died a few years ago.
He also pointed to a piece of advice that shaped him: anybody can have talent, but if they don’t work hard, somebody’s going to pass them.
Now graduated, Santiago will continue at Chattahoochee Valley Community College, hoping to transfer to a bigger program after a year or two.
He plans to study business management and dreams of owning his own baseball-related business someday.
Regarding the legacy he leaves at AHS, where a senior-heavy roster reached the state championship series for the first time since 2021, Santiago kept it plain.
He arrived an outsider and struggled before closing his career with two monster seasons.
“I always played hard, that’s the legacy I leave,” he said. “How you come off a bad season, you just work your butt off, and you see the results.”
