“Nevaeh, groove him some fastballs. We want to see his power,” Lucas called out.
On his first pitch, I discovered that Nevaeh—heaven spelled backward—had a sneaky rise in his fastball. I hit under the ball, sending it into the stratosphere as I tried to crush it.
“Straighten it out,” Moose encouraged.
I glanced back and saw that the stands behind home plate were full of my teammates, coaches, and fellow students. Word had gotten around about me trying out today. It helped that they were getting loud with their support.
Nevaeh offered up ten straight fastballs that I started to hit with authority.
“Throw him the curve,” Joe yelled.
Nevaeh smirked.
“You’re about to learn what a major league curveball looks like,” Kaptain said from behind the plate.
Many star players in high school look mortal when they face a good curveball. Learning to hit that is one of the primary aspects of batting taught in the minor leagues. Instead of watching the first one to get a feel, I decided to be aggressive. He threw a nasty one that clocked at 12 and 6 and dropped suddenly through the strike zone.
Nevaeh’s head snapped around as I hit a line drive that just kept climbing as it exited the park.
“Well, shit. I think he got all of that one,” Kaptain called out to his pitcher.
They let Nevaeh loose at that point so that it better simulated an actual game. He made me look silly at times, but I got my licks in.
“I’ve seen enough,” Lucas said to end the tryout.
“Me, too. Good job, David,” Joe said.
Jeff did a quick interview with Joe while I talked to the Cubs contingent with Moose and Coach Haskins.
“I understand you want to get an idea of what to expect if you decide to enter the draft,” Lucas said.
“I see a lot of talent, and you have a high ceiling. As of right now, I would say you’re at least two if not five years away from getting called up. I think you’re a third- to fifth-rounder as of now,” Mr. MacCallum shared.
“Before we would move you higher on the board, we would have to see how you perform this season. That doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of being a first-rounder and being called up by the end of the season. That’s usually the time when we expand the roster.
“Of course, that’s if you decide to do baseball full time. I understand that you have other commitments,” Mr. Rosenstein said.
“Yes, sir. I have movies to shoot starting in May and finishing around the end of the year,” I confirmed.
“That means that the first ball you could seriously participate in would be winter ball. With that in mind, I doubt anyone will risk drafting you,” Mr. Rosenstein said, which crushed me. “What I will say is that if you decide to enter the draft, we would be willing to draft you in a later round based on what we saw today. The problem with that is your salary would be slotted at a lower starting level than you deserve. We would be willing to renegotiate when you show up and start to produce.”
I just bet he would. He was offering to sign me to a bargain-basement contract. And when it came time to look at compensating me for what I was worth, I would be stuck unless they kept their word. From historical examples of professional sports antics, baseball included, if they could get you on the cheap, they wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of it. A bad first contract might cause me to be underpaid for years, and I might never catch up.
◊◊◊
After the Cubs left, Joe Riggs, Coach Haskins, Moose, and I went into one of the coaches’ conference rooms so we could talk.
Jeff and his cameraman had thankfully left so he could file his article for the paper and get the video of the tryout to Frank and his team. Frank planned to put together different-length cuts and provide them to the news outlets. This was part of his plan to show me as an All-American boy right before the Academy Awards this coming weekend.
I quickly summarized what the Cubs had told me. Joe had a big smile on his face.
“So, it begins,” he said.
Coach Haskins just shook his head sadly.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“About half of what they told you was true. Yes, it may take a few years for you to reach the majors. Even world-class athletes like Michael Jordan can struggle. What they’re worried about is that you haven’t really played enough baseball. You’ve spent the majority of your time on football-related activities. It is true that your natural talent gives you almost no ceiling as to how good you can eventually be. But skills like hitting a baseball usually take countless hours to do at the highest level,” Joe said.
“Who’s Michael Jordan?” I asked.
“Probably one of the top three NBA players of all time. He quit basketball to try to play professional baseball and failed,” Moose explained.
“Oh. I didn’t know he did that. I thought you were talking about someone else,” I said.
