Tyler Saladino's connection to the skateboarding world

— -- CHICAGO -- The intersection of skateboarding and baseball sits along the road less traveled, a distant area on the map heard of but rarely visited.

It's a place frequented by kids mostly, especially in warmer climates, where riding your board to a Little League game is not only commonplace, it's a necessity for some.

But the skateboarding major leaguer is a rare find.

Chicago White Sox rookie infielder Tyler Saladino is one of the few to frequent this portion of the sports topography, a Southern California native with skateboarding in his blood. His uncle is none other than Doug "Pineapple" Saladino, who made his mark as a pioneering skateboarder in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Those tricks done today with skateboarders sliding down staircase railings on the belly of their board? Doug Saladino was among a bevy of early skateboarders to introduce the rail slide, a move originally done on the lip of empty swimming pools.

The Saladino family hails from San Diego, and it was there that Tyler Saladino started riding a skateboard not long after he learned to walk. He has been playing baseball and riding a skateboard for so long that skateboarding even bleeds into his game, using a low-to-the ground style on defense, sliding and kicking out his leg while ranging for ground balls.

And while Tyler Saladino insists skateboarding days are extremely infrequent now, no doubt a relief to the White Sox, he will admit to an occasional ride in the offseason to the local convenience store.

In his youth, though, the 26-year-old did much more on a board than ride around the block.

"I'd just like free skate, cruise around," Tyler Saladino said. "I was never serious to pursue it [into skateboarding competitions], or anything like that, just because playing baseball ... you can get hurt so easily skating. So I would skate for fun, but I wouldn't go crazy with it."

That's not to say he only rode on occasion. Basically, if he wasn't on the field, he was on his skateboard. Saladino used to yearn for youth baseball tournaments in the coastal community of San Clemente because the baseball complex was adjacent to a public skateboard park and it was a great way for him to kill time between games.

"That was awesome," Tyler Saladino said. "We loved to skate."

For the Saladinos, the marriage of baseball and skateboarding is far from an odd one.

"We come from a baseball family," Doug Saladino said. "Myself and [Tyler's] dad, my brother, we grew up playing baseball. All the grandsons, our sons, play baseball."

Doug Saladino's skateboarding prime came when the sport forever changed. Competing against members of the revolutionary Zephyr Skate Team -- commonly known as Z-Boys -- at the 1975 Del Mar Nationals, Doug Saladino was there as the start of skateboarding's modern era began.

The Z-Boys brought a new style to the 1975 competition, riding crouched and lower to the ground like surfers, instead of using the upright style that skateboarders relied on at the time. It was a style initially met with surprise, then quickly turned inspirational.

With a new style born, the sport soon went vertical as empty pools became the skateboarding venue of choice. The predecessor to the current X Games skateboarding competitions had arrived.

Doug Saladino started spending time with the Z-Boys after forming a friendship with Jay Adams, one of the top Z-Boys skaters in Del Mar. Adams died a year ago at age 53 from what was reported to be a heart attack.

"Over the years we kept in contact, skated with each other," Doug Saladino said of his friendship with Adams. "We spent a lot of time together in the early years. After we got to know each other and I would go up to his house and stay the night and we'd go out and skate and it was a relationship I had with most of those guys throughout the years."

As the Z-Boys turned their attention toward skating in pools, the modest predecessor to modern half-pipe skating, Doug Saladino transitioned from skateboarding competitions to pools as well. Doug Saladino became known for his ability to do rail slides on the lip of the pool.

Essentially, Doug Saladino would ride to the top of the pool at an angle, then slide across the ledge on the belly of his board, between the wheels, then drop back into the pool again. It became his signature move.

"You talk about the handrails [on stairs] and doing board slides down the rails, well, that trick actually was developed out of the board slide rock-and-roll that I was pretty much known for back in the day, doing very long board slides across pools," Doug Saladino said. "A lot of the guys today have taken a lot of the handrail stuff and incorporated it from some of the stuff we did back then."

Doug Saladino rode for a bevy of different sponsors in his skateboarding career, from Bahne Skateboards, Cadillac Wheels, Gordon & Smith surfboards and skateboards, Independent Trucks and Kryptonic Wheels, before his competitive career ended in the 1980s. There were skateboarding magazine covers and photo shoots that helped to document his career.

"At my grandma's house they still have some of the magazines," Tyler Saladino said. "They have pictures from when he was 18 or something like that, a full picture on a magazine page, upside down, inverted, inside a bowl and a whole write-up. I always said, 'Dang, my uncle was good,' when you see those things."

In some ways, Doug Saladino hopes that the end of his competitive skateboard days can be a cautionary tale for his nephew, whose Major League Baseball days are just beginning.

"At the end my skateboard career, it became more of a job," Doug Saladino said. "There was obviously the next generation of kids coming up that were taking skating to the next level, pushing us out. So getting to the skate park every day, learning new tricks, I felt like I had to do it, and I felt like it was a job at that point. And at that point, I lost the love of what I was doing."

For Tyler Saladino, there is no such worry at the present time. Called up to the major leagues for the first time on July 10, his stay figured to be a short one. As the White Sox headed into an interleague series across town against the Chicago Cubs, Tyler Saladino was initially called up to give the manager Robin Ventura lineup flexibility in a National League park.

A shortstop in the minor leagues, Tyler Saladino started at third base in his first major league game, a position that he had scant experience. He went hitless in his first game, but looked comfortable on defense at third, and in his second game delivered an RBI triple for his first career hit.

That triple ended up being the start of a seven-game hitting streak and Saladino has been a member of the White Sox ever since. Lately, he has been splitting time at third base with Mike Olt, whom the White Sox claimed off waivers from the Chicago Cubs at the start of September.

Tyler Saladino has since cooled from his hot start when he was batting .355, with a .613 slugging percentage after eight career games, but his well-above-average defense has justified his playing time, as has his penchant for situational hitting.

Two months into his big league job, there are days when Tyler Saladino would look more at home playing in board shorts and a T-shirt than a baseball uniform. On occasion, he will bring skateboarding moves to the baseball field, doing it more instinctively than anything.

On defense, Saladino has made plays both to his left and right when he reaches out for a grounder and then slides and spins at the same time to halt his momentum and point him toward first base to make a throw. The slide-stop is not an uncommon move for infielders, but Tyler Saladino adds his own flair by kicking out his leg and you can almost picture the skateboard at his feet.

And then there was the time, not long after he was called up, that while advancing to second base on a wild pitch, he overran the bag to get a look at the play. In order to stop his momentum, he went into a slide while kicking out his right leg to head back in the other direction again. The circular scrape in the dirt, made with his cleats, was not unlike the skid pattern at any local skate park.

"[Minor leaguer] Drew Garcia down in Charlotte, he's from San Diego and he always jokes it being like a Z-Boy move," Saladino said. "When they'd skate, they'd do power slides and stuff. Maybe they would be going up an embankment, or it could be on flat ground, but you'd get that big power slide, tail slide kind of thing; just a redirection and go back the other way."

Doug Saladino has been watching his nephew from across the country with pride these days. Now 52, he is back skateboarding again, inspired to do so as he watches his now 19-year-old son embrace the sport. He has even gotten back into the skateboard business.

Doug Saladino has worked with the Black Label skateboard company in Huntington Beach, California, to design a modern concave board. Now there is talk of reissuing his old Pine Design signature model from the early 1980s, complete with modern graphics.

Tyler Saladino said he still has a Pine Design board of his own at home with a pineapple graphic in the center. The pineapple is representative of Doug Saladino's nickname from his competitive days.

Known as "Sally" by his teammates, Tyler Saladino's nickname is less colorful. But maybe something new will be on the way as his profile grows.

At 26, Saladino is older by rookie standards, but with a 52-year-old uncle who skateboards, maybe he has the genes to have a lengthy career. It's possible that Tyler Saladino could be the White Sox's starting third baseman come Opening Day next year, or maybe there will be a chance to grab a job even more suited to his skill set.

With a $10 million team option on shortstop Alexei Ramirez, the White Sox could take a pass and move Saladino to shortstop full time. That could put Saladino in position to be the bridge until highly touted shortstop prospect Tim Anderson arrives.

Whatever the case, Saladino's versatility gives the club options for the future. His defense is better than the White Sox could have hoped, leaving him the chance to focus his energies toward improvements with the bat.

His uncle believes that he has what it takes to make any adjustment he needs.

"I think where Tyler is very special is that he continues to be a student of baseball," Doug Saladino said. "And then you read some of the comments from the people that have been coaching him over the years, Tyler is a hard worker.

"And he lives with humility and I think humility allows you to get better at whatever you choose to do. I think some of what he has comes from my father, his grandfather, and that's the hard work and dedication, commitment and loyalty; loyalty to do what you love to do."

Hard work. Dedication. Loyalty. It works in skateboarding and it works in baseball. Maybe the two disciplines aren't so different after all.

"I think that skateboards, for me, created a different level of athleticism, sliding and footwork and balance and being able to recover athletically," Tyler Saladino said. "Like if you're playing defense and a ground ball is hit a certain way, you can use a drop step and things like that.

"There are similar moves that you're doing when you're playing baseball and skateboarding. I think I kind of got a little bit of my own style doing that, I guess."