Red Sox 9th-round pick just said Ted Williams is his all-time favorite. That’ll play in Boston.

It is one thing to get drafted by the Boston Red Sox. It is another thing entirely to show up already knowing exactly how to talk to the fanbase.

Martin Shelar, a ninth-round pick by the Red Sox in this past weekend’s MLB Draft, made it very clear where his allegiances lie. In a video posted by YouthProspects, the high school infielder from the Marist School in Georgia pointed to a pair of autographs he owns: Barry Bonds and Ted Williams.

He called them his two favorite players of all time. But when asked whose game he tries to mirror, he didn’t hesitate.

“I mean, kind of honestly, Ted Williams for that reason,” Shelar said. “Hitting’s definitely my favorite part of the game, and I think he just kind of…the first book I ever read was The Science Of Hitting. Kind of geeked out about it. I really liked studying hitting, but he was definitely the first guy that was kind of like, you know, watching him do his thing. It was just really cool to kind of see him study the game, see how seriously he took it, and I try to idolize my development after that for sure.”

For a Red Sox organization that still practically worships Williams as a deity — the greatest hitter who ever lived, a man who literally left the game to fight in two wars — this is the kind of quote that ends up on a poster in the clubhouse. Shelar is 18 years old, drafted in the ninth round, and he already knows the first hitting book he ever read was The Science of Hitting. Which is the Ted Williams book. The one every Red Sox prospect gets handed on day one.

High school kid, big honks, and a college commitment

Shelar had originally committed to play college ball at Mississippi State. Whether he signs with Boston or takes that route remains to be seen. Ninth-round picks don’t always get enough slot money to buy a kid out of a SEC commitment, but the fact that he’s already name-dropping Williams and talking about his hitting philosophy like a 10-year veteran suggests the Red Sox might want to find a way to get him into the system sooner rather than later.

There’s no guarantee Shelar ever makes it to Fenway. Ninth-rounders are long shots by definition. But in a draft class that will be measured by how many of these kids actually pan out, Shelar has already won the first battle: he sounds like he was born to play in Boston.

The video, shared by Tyler Milliken, shows Shelar casually holding up the Williams autograph. It’s a small moment. But in a city where Ted Williams is still the standard, a kid who idolizes the Splendid Splinter is going to get a lot of rope from the faithful.