Lynner’s grandson, pitcher Tyler Beede, rejects $2.5M signing bonus with Blue Jays

When Tony Conigliaro was 17 and fresh out of St. Mary’s High School, he received a bonus for signing with the Boston Red Sox. He got an estimated $20,000 and bought himself a fancy car.A few days ago, another 17-year-old, a pitcher who is Lynn resident Richard Palleschi’s grandson, was offered $2.5 million as a signing bonus with the Toronto Blue Jays.”And my grandson, Tyler Beede, turned it down!” Palleschi said.Palleschi, a former president of the Hub International insurance company, agrees with Tyler.”Yes, I do,” he said. “He made a good decision. Tyler is smart and very talented, and has instead decided to attend Vanderbilt University, a great school, to get a valuable education and play college ball. I agree with him wholeheartedly.””Toronto was far off with their bid and we valued a Vanderbilt education more than that,” said Beede, who stands at 6-4 and weighs 215 pounds. “It was obviously the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make, but I’m tremendously excited.”As a senior fastball pitcher at Lawrence Academy (in Groton) this year, he went 8-0. In two seasons there, he was 14-1 with an 0.80 ERA and 189 strikeouts in 96 innings.Brendan Mannion of Lynn was Beede’s teammate at Lawrence Academy.”Tyler’s fastball is clocked at 92 to 95, and he has a great curve,” said Mannion, a first baseman.Palleschi adds, “Tyler’s changeup is great, too.”Palleschi’s daughter, Cheryl, is Tyler’s mother, and it was her husband Walter Beede, a former Chicago Cubs minor leaguer, who gave Tyler his baseball instincts. Walter often visited Lynn in past years.Toronto had until last Monday to sign Beede after selecting him 21st in the nation in the MLB June high school draft. Every first-round choice was signed except Beede.Next month, Beede, riding a four-year scholarship, will enter Vanderbilt, in Nashville, Tennessee, which is Grand Ol’ Opry country. One of his baseball teammates will be Mike Yastrzemski, a grandson of Red Sox legend and Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski. Mike Yastrzemski is a graduate of St. John’s Prep, and also a product of the Lynn Invitational showcase.Besides his grandfather, Tyler Beede has more Lynn links.Palleschi said, “Tyler’s great-grandfather, Anthony Palleschi, my dad, played for the undefeated Lynn English football team back in 1932. In fact, that entire team was inducted as one group into the Lynn English Hall of Fame.”Beede’s Lynn aunt, Janice Palleschi, who currently works part-time in the Lynn school system, said that her father, Anthony Palleschi, was founder of the West Lynn National Little League in the 1950s ? back when the league played at Barry Park, and later at a field by the Saugus River, called Edmunds Field.Grandfather Palleschi recalled his own sports days.”I played sandlot baseball at Connery Park and went to St. Mary’s boys school in Lynn, grades one through 12,” he said. “I lived on Blossom Street and hung around the Brickyard, where there were many great families involved in sports all the time.”Palleschi (pronounced Pal-leski) is a St. Mary’s fan.”I remember Tony Conigliaro playing for St. Mary’s and signing with the Red Sox a few years after I graduated,” he said. “The coaches were Nipper Clancy and later Charlie Ruddock.” (Others on those teams included Tommy Iarrobino, Tony Nicosia, Frank Carey and Gerry Waldron.) “I still live in Lynn today and love coming to Fraser Field.”Palleschi visited Fraser Field for this year’s Lynn Invitational, where Beede’s cousin, Thomas Palleschi, a 6-9 first baseman/pitcher from Haverhill, competed.Richard Palleschi’s brother Bob, who played baseball at St. Mary’s, is Chief Financial Officer of the Smithsonian Institute, and now resides in Saugus, while brother James was a standout hoopster for St. Mary’s when the team was known as the Marians.Janice Palleschi was proud to recall that her father “was one of the workers who helped build Fraser Field in 1940.”With the draft out of the way, it is now time for Tyler Beede and the Palleschi family to learn some bas