Biddle put on show for Phils

Jesse Biddle excelled when it counted the most, for both the Germantown Friends School baseball team and himself.

Toward the end of the 2010 campaign, with the Tigers bidding for another Friends Schools League championship and Phillies scouting director Marti Wolever and pitching coach Rich Dubee watching closely, the 6-foot-5, 235-pound southpaw delivered several eye-popping performances.

In the FSL title game against Shipley, Biddle notched a career-best 19 strikeouts as Germantown Friends captured its seventh consecutive league crown. Three days earlier, in a semifinal against Westtown, the 18-year-old fanned all 15 batters he faced in a five-inning triumph.

Later, in the Independent Schools tournament, the lanky lefthander racked up 15 K's and allowed only an early infield single in a complete-game triumph over Inter-Academic League champion Haverford School.

In addition to Wolever and Dubee, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. (hiding in the shadows at least twice); area scout Eric Valent, a regular this season at the Germantown Friends diamond that sits just off School House Lane, near Wissahickon Avenue; assistant scouting director Rob Holiday; and East Coast supervisor Gene Schall came out to see if Biddle was worth selecting early in Major League Baseball's first-year player draft.

"We knew they were very interested," David Biddle, Jesse's father, said. "And you don't get a private workout with the Phillies if they're not seriously interested. And there was a lot of back-and-forth talk between us and the Phillies in the last month or so."

The two-time defending National League champions, wowed further when Jesse Biddle threw between 30 and 35 pitches in the bullpen at Citizens Bank Park last Wednesday, used the 27th pick in the draft to select the local product.

With that, a lifelong dream was fulfilled.

"It still hasn't sunk in yet," Biddle said Tuesday. "The truth is, I wasn't prepared for the moment. But it felt great when it happened."

The flame-throwing hurler worked out for the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday at Miller Park. A private session with the Atlanta Braves, held at Turner Field, was held late last month.

"The Brewers passed on me with the No. 14 pick in the first round," he said. "I wasn't happy about it, but I said to myself at the time, 'Maybe going to the Phillies and playing here was meant to be.' I was hoping they would take me at No. 27."