ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The poster boy for underdogs everywhere -- certainly for the Anaheim Angels -- stands in front of his locker, brushing dirt from his pants on Friday.

Who gets dirty taking batting practice? Who picks up grass stains taking routine infield? Who dives for ground balls a day before the biggest game of his life?

Lil' Eck, that's who.

How do you think David Eckstein got all the way to the World Series from Sanford in the first place?

With his sheer size? He looks as if he's about 13 and is as big as one of Barry Bonds' biceps, listed at a charitable 5 feet 8.

With a glowing resume? Let's see. The Florida Gators told him to walk on and the Boston Red Sox told him to move on.

With skills that would leave Joe Morgan speechless? He has such an average arm that he lunges forward awkwardly -- "a crow hop," he calls it -- to get some mustard on his throws. Yankee fans serenaded him with chants of "Little Leaguer, Little Leaguer."

"I don't do anything spectacular," Eckstein admits. "Nothing that sticks out."

He obviously must have been created by the Walt Disney Co., which owns the Angels. No, Eckstein, 27, made it all the way here to the Angels' leadoff spot by outhustling his doubters and refusing to take no for an answer.

"I'm just going to be the pest," he said.

You think the Angels' Rally Monkey is irritating?

Here's Eckstein in a nutshell: He has become a master at wearing out pitchers, fouling off countless pitches he doesn't like. He once had a 15 pitch at-bat. Florida's A.J. Burnett couldn't take being tortured by the high-energy pip-squeak any longer. Burnett plunked him in the back "just to get done with it," Eckstein chuckles.

Like the Angels, he doesn't give in. When he walked on at Florida, he was at first chased off the field and from the batting cages by returning players and groundskeepers. He kept coming back, waiting to hit after every Gator-on-scholarship had batted.

When the Red Sox organization released him, he kept believing. Even when Angels Manager Mike Scioscia's reaction to him trying out at shortstop was, "Are you kidding me?," Eckstein tied a team record for the highest batting average (.293) for a shortstop this season.

When Tampa Cardinal Gibbons moved its infield in during a state title game against Seminole High when he came to bat, Eckstein burned them for an inside-the-park homer.

"Everybody has always underestimated David," said Eckstein's mother, Pat, from her home in Sanford. "But he never quits. He's special."

David says he learned sacrifice and toughness at home. His mother donated a kidney to his sister, Susan, in 1988. Another of Whitey and Pat Eckstein's daughters, Christine, and another son, Kenny, also were stricken with renal kidney failure while in college at Florida.

By chance, they received donor kidneys on the same weekend. "Christine got her kidney on Monday," Pat says, "and was at a dance by Friday. They said Susan and Christine wouldn't have children; they have five between them.

"That's an Eckstein. David has the Eckstein genes."