Since Aiden Ruiz was 2 years outdated, his mother has needed to battle along with her little slugger to take off his baseball uniform, which he wore with pleasure after each Little League sport.
“He would battle with me to take his cleats off,” Christina Ruiz advised The Publish.
“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 shiny future on the diamond after senior 12 months, as Ruiz has numerous noise round his identify forward of the 2026 MLB draft in July.
“That was all the time a dream,” stated Ruiz, the Thirty eighth-ranked draft prospect by Main League Baseball.
“I’ve all the time had that self-confidence once 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 resulting from COVID.
With ease for Ruiz
Ruiz is not any stranger to massive moments and greater personalities; the Vanderbilt commit received gold with Staff USA within the World Championship and was named All-World shortstop in 2025, has performed with the Yankees Space Code crew, and educated together with his “mentor,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor.
“We all the time discuss fielding,” Ruiz stated of attending to know Lindor. “It’s all the time cool to fulfill your heroes.”
He’s additionally shut friends 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 faculty ball at Patchogue-Medford in 2025.
“That bond over time, pushing one another to be higher and studying the sport collectively,” Ruiz stated. “It undoubtedly strengthened our friendship.”
He and Stroman have been on the identical groups and within the reverse dugouts since they have been each 12, they usually’re keen to combine it up once more within the NCAA someday — ought to Ruiz have to attend a bit to listen to his identify referred to as for the bigs, that’s.
“It will be sick. That’s undoubtedly one thing we’ve talked about earlier than.”
Heading for residence
Ruiz is subsequent in a household lineage that handled baseball as second solely to God of their Woodhaven, Queens, residence. It’s there the place he would discipline 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 keep in mind,” Ruiz stated, 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 Nineteen Eighties; Daniel performed in school 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, really put the love for the sport into Sam and Aiden since he left Puerto Rico for a brand new life in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a long time in the past.
“My dad was there for each single sport for the reason that sandlot,” stated 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 take a look at me and playfully say, ‘ he’s higher than you, proper?’ ” Sam laughed.
Ruiz stated shedding his beloved grandfather and “the glue to our household” in center faculty was essentially the most troublesome stretch he ever fought via. Sam added that he deeply regrets that Sandalio isn’t right here to see his grandson’s promising days forward.
Fortuitously, 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 every single day this entire 12 months to work out with me earlier than observe,” Aiden stated.
“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 somewhat 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 stated she’s holding on to look at me get drafted,” stated Ruiz. “She’s my motivation to maintain working arduous and play the sport.”
