Panthers undrafted rookie Anthony Scirrotto has baseball backup plan if NFL dream fades

Panthers rookie Scirrotto has baseball backup plan

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — One of nearly two dozen undrafted rookies with Carolina, Anthony Scirrotto faces long odds to make the Panthers’ regular-season roster.

Only the former Penn State safety has a fallback plan: professional baseball.

Sure, Scirrotto hasn’t played competitively since he was a power-hitting high school shortstop four years ago. But it didn’t stop the Kansas City Royals from taking him last week in the 50th and final round of the draft.

“This is my first priority, I want to play football,” Scirrotto said after Monday’s offseason workout with the Panthers. “But I look at (baseball) as a business opportunity.”

How Scirrotto got drafted in baseball and not football is a story that involves a pulled hamstring, a scout who got a bigger job, a high school coach who became a police detective but kept his baseball connections and a round of golf.

Got that?

“It was exciting,” Scirrotto said.

Scirrotto grew up a two-sport star at West Deptford (N.J.) High School outside Philadelphia. He caught the attention of baseball scouts after playing in the American Legion World Series before his junior year.

The 6-foot Scirrotto also pitched and played some third base, but his favorite sport was football. So when Nittany Lions coach Joe Paterno came calling, the gridiron was the easy choice despite the right-handed hitter’s .500 average.

“The (baseball) money sounded good, but I sat down with my parents and weighed the pros and cons,” Scirrotto said. “Just going to college, trying to earn that degree and having an opportunity to play football for Coach Paterno really outweighed the baseball life of riding around on a bus in the minor leagues.”

The baseball scouts, including J.J. Picollo of the Atlanta Braves, backed off once Scirrotto committed to Penn State.

Scirrotto was part of a class that helped bring the Nittany Lions back to prominence. He also pleaded guilty last year to defiant trespass for his role in an off-campus fight. He finished his career as a two-time all-Big Ten selection with 12 career interceptions.

But there were questions if Scirrotto was fast enough to play safety in the NFL. He knew his times in pre-draft workouts would be important.

Only Scirrotto pulled a hamstring and couldn’t play in a postseason All-Star game. He wasn’t invited to the NFL combine and still couldn’t run at Penn State’s pro day.

“It just wound up lingering, lingering,” Scirrotto said of the hamstring. “It was a tough situation. At that point, if I got drafted in the seventh round, that would’ve been a little far-fetched.”

After going undrafted, Scirrotto was contacted by several teams. He chose to sign with Carolina over Miami, Minnesota and San Diego.

“He was a very productive player at Penn State and we thought he fit into what we do at safety,” Panthers general manager Marty Hurney said.

Scirrotto wasn’t thinking about baseball anymore, but his former high school coach kept his name alive in baseball circles.

While Sean McKenna had since become a police detective in West Deptford, he remained close with Picollo, whom he played baseball against in high school and was now Kansas City’s assistant general manager for scouting and player development.

Just over a month ago Scirrotto got a call from a Royals scout, saying they might draft him.

“We had set out at the beginning of the year to target some football players who maybe had a chance to play in the NFL but had baseball backgrounds,” Picollo said. “Anthony sounded open to it. Obviously his first priority is trying to make the Panthers and in no way do we want to impede what he’s doing there.”

But when Thursday came, late on the last day of the draft and a day off with the Panthers, Scirrotto decided to go golfing — just before he was the 1,502nd pick in a 1,521-player draft.

“I was figuring it was the last day, it was getting late, so they just got some other guy,” Scirrotto said. “But I got the call while I was out on the golf course. I was pretty excited.”

Scirrotto’s best shot to make the Panthers will be if he can fill a hole on special teams. But he faces a difficult road and isn’t even assured of a training-camp invite.

Scirrotto said if he’s released he’ll try to hook on with another football team first. If that doesn’t work, there’s always baseball.

“I love Bo Jackson,” Scirrotto said, smiling. “If it really came down to it and I had to hang up the cleats, I’m young and I’d love to keep playing sports.”