TAMPA — Whether it’s the keyboard cowboys threatening him online before the biggest game of his 25 years or his formerly beloved hometown Boston Red Sox, his opponent in that very playoff game, surprise Yankees star Cameron John Schlittler loves a challenge and won’t back down. Schlittler, the son of a cop from working-class Walpole, Mass., employs a special brand of grit that’s taken him where no one expected him to go.

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He’s a confident guy unafraid of confrontation. In fact, he relishes it.

“Everyone hates the Yankees. If I was on another team, doing what I’m doing and talking the way I’m talking, no one would really care,” Schlittler said. “Everyone’s against us. And that’s something I enjoy.”

Yankees scouting director Damon Oppenheimer saw Schlittler as a raw but “ultra-projectable” prospect when he first scouted him at Northeastern University, a city school known more for academics than the baseball team that shares its field with the soccer squad. In scouting jargon, that meant he has a chance to be get better and maybe even help someday (with a lot of work).