No Minor Leap

The phone started ringing at 7:30 Wednesday morning at Robert Stock’s house in Agoura. When his father, Gregg, picked up, first-year USC baseball Coach Chad Kreuter was on the line with some big news.

“He’s in,” Kreuter said.

Stock, 16, who is among the top baseball prospects in the nation, had been accepted to enter an early admissions program at USC.

His parents woke him up and drove him to USC to register, and he attended his first class Thursday, officially bypassing his senior year at Agoura High.

It capped a whirlwind August for Stock, who decided to turn down the chance to be a possible first-round choice in the Major League Baseball draft next June. Now that he plays for a four-year college, he won’t be eligible for the draft until 2009.

“It’s something I wanted to do,” Stock said. “My goal is to play major league baseball, not get drafted high, and I feel through college I can achieve it.”

Added his father: “We’ve talked to a lot of people and hashed it around with everything we could think of. There were pluses and minuses. It ensures he gets three years of college and enters professional baseball at 19. He has the best of all worlds.”

For Kreuter, a former major league catcher with little college coaching experience, landing Stock and getting him eligible immediately is a recruiting coup as he tries to rebuild the Trojans’ program.

“We’re fired up,” Kreuter said. “It’s real special that the family wanted to do this. They put their trust in USC baseball to develop him as a catcher and give him a maturing process to ready him for the June 2009 draft.”

Stock isn’t the first high school player to pass on his senior year to attend USC. Quarterback John David Booty graduated high school in Louisiana a year early to join the Trojans’ football team, and basketball guard Daniel Hackett of Bellflower St. John Bosco is waiting to learn if he’ll be approved by the NCAA Clearinghouse after taking summer classes to graduate early.

Booty said that other than experiencing a little homesickness, he had little trouble leaving high school early. “I didn’t miss homecoming or the prom or any of that stuff,” he said. “I did miss my family, [but] if these guys are from here and near their families I think they should be fine. That makes a difference.”

Stock, The Times’ player of the year as a junior, helped Agoura reach the Southern Section Division I championship game as a pitcher and hitter. On Aug. 12 at the AFLAC All-American High School Baseball Classic in San Diego, he was the starting pitcher for the West team, throwing 94-mph fastballs. He also hit a home run.

Stock, an honor student at Agoura, was accepted to USC’s Resident Honors Program.

Classes began Monday, and Stock had to leave home so suddenly Wednesday that his father joked about having to “put together some toothpaste and deodorant in a bag” and send him off to college.

He was scheduled to move into a dorm Thursday.

Stock’s baseball coach at Agoura, Scott Deck, said he didn’t learn of the decision until a phone call Thursday.

“I’m a little shocked,” Deck said. “Obviously, it’s a pretty big blow to our team.”

Stock doesn’t have a cellphone or driver’s license, but Kreuter plans to watch over him closely.

“I know there were a lot of people who passed on him thinking he was going to be a June draft pick,” Kreuter said. “He adds not only extra depth catching but also a left-handed bat and a guy capable of closing.”

Stock was already working on a six-page essay assignment for a writing class.

“I feel comfortable,” he said.

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Times staff writer Gary Klein contributed to this report.