Books or Bucks? : College or Pro Ball? Prep Baseball Stars Face a Major Decision

Hanford used to be the kind of town baseball scouts combed, looking for the next Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays or Johnny Bench: A town off the beaten path where they discovered phenoms who hit the ball 450 feet or threw 90-m.p.h. fastballs. A place where a boy could be dined, if not wined, then signed into professional baseball.

Times have changed, but prospects are still to be found in towns like Hanford--situated 32 miles south of Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley and just down the road from Selma, the self-proclaimed “Raisin Capital of the World.”

Although civic leaders claim “Hanford Has It,” already it’s the kind of place that might one day pride itself on being the hometown of Ryan Bowen.

Bowen, 18, is a pitcher from Hanford High who was selected in the first round of the major league baseball draft last month. He has an 88-m.p.h. fastball and an oratorical delivery almost as fast. With sloping shoulders and a defined physique, the 6-foot, 185-pound right-hander resembles a compact version of New York Met pitcher Dwight Gooden.

Bowen, who pitched for the West team in the Olympic Festival at Houston, has also been selected as one of 17 players representing the United States in Canada in the World Youth Baseball Championships, under way at Windsor, Ontario.

Like a lot of high school graduates in the class of ‘86, though, Bowen has some important decisions to make about his future.

An above-average student, he has already signed a letter of intent with USC, where he wants to study business and economics. What he’s trying to decide now is whether he can afford to go to school. Or afford to pass it up.

USC has offered Bowen a scholarship worth $16,000 a year. The Houston Astros, who made him the 12th player picked in the June draft, have reportedly offered him more than $125,000 to begin his professional career.

“It’s difficult for an 18-year-old,” Bowen said. “It’s a strain on the brain.”

Sometimes it’s a great deal more than a strain for the high school and college players who are drafted each year.

It usually comes down to a choice between instant cash and an opportunity to begin a professional baseball career, or delaying the start of that career in favor of a college education and the belief that more money will be available a few years down the line.

“I’m a little different from most,” said Bowen, who had an 11-1 record and struck out 149 batters in 76 innings last spring. “I’ve never had a lot of money. The dollars are sweet, but they aren’t everything.

“You have to be comfortable with your decision. It takes a little bit of contemplation.”

Bowen has until Sept. 2, the first day of classes at USC, to decide whether he will attend school or accept an offer from the Astros.

More than one scout has told the story about colleagues who have approached a prospect’s doorstep only to be stopped by the boy’s father, who yelled from a window: “If you’re not going to offer $50,000, don’t come in.”

Money, of course, is a major inducement to turn professional, but many high school seniors also are able to see the value of a college education and wind up in an emotional tug of war.

Roger Clemens of the Boston Red Sox, Barry Bonds of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Pete Incaviglia of the Texas Rangers are all recent examples of players who went to college before joining the professional ranks. All three spent little or no time riding minor league buses on the way to the big leagues.

Said Mike Gillespie, who has replaced Rod Dedeaux as USC baseball coach: “Certainly it’s going to be our position that the guy has to ask the question, ‘What am I going to do after my baseball career is over?’ I think if a guy recognizes that, then the choice to go to school is not that difficult.

“A scholarship at USC is worth $16,000 a year. Even if he doesn’t get drafted as high after his junior year, he’s still ahead.”

The professional teams, though, point to Gooden, Bret Saberhagen of the Kansas City Royals and Kurt Stillwell of the Cincinnati Reds as players who signed right out of high school and shot through the minors to the big club before their 21st birthdays.

“We try to sell players on a career in baseball,” said Paul Weaver, who is a scout for the Astros. “If you want to learn to be a professional baseball player, the sooner you start developing, the sooner you get to the big leagues.”

Caught in the middle are the players and their families.

The Stillwell family, for instance, felt the strain when Kurt, who played at Thousand Oaks High School, had to choose between a scholarship to Stanford or an offer from the Reds, who had made the shortstop their No. 1 pick in the 1983 June draft--the second player selected overall.

“There is no way to prepare for it,” said Jan Stillwell, mother of the Reds’ shortstop and wife of Ron Stillwell, a former major league player. “We’d go to sleep at night and I’d say, ‘I don’t know how we can handle this.’ All you can do is weigh the pros and cons.

“We always encouraged our kids to get an education and didn’t think there was any way the Reds would meet the figure we had in mind. But they did.

“What can I say? The kid didn’t want to be a doctor or a lawyer--he wanted to be a baseball player.”

Since the draft began in 1965, only 22 first-round choices have passed up their opportunities to turn professional in favor of either starting or completing their college careers. Most all of those players were first-round picks again when they next became eligible to be drafted.

Danny Goodwin, the first pick of the draft in 1971 by the Chicago White Sox, was the first player selected again four years later by the Angels, after he had attended Southern Illinois University.

Major league baseball and the nation’s four-year colleges operate under an agreement referred to as the college rule. It says that if a player does not sign with a pro team after his senior year in high school, he will not be eligible for the draft again until after his third year of college eligibility or until he is 21 years old. Junior college players, however, are eligible for the draft after both their freshman and sophomore years.

Besides Bowen, two other first-round picks from last month’s draft remain unsigned, Scott Hemond, a catcher from the University of South Florida who was drafted by the Oakland A’s, and Greg McMurtry, a high school outfielder from Brockton, Mass., who was drafted by the Red Sox.

“Signability is almost as important as ability,” said Dave Calaway, the Reds’ scouting supervisor who signed Stillwell. “Drafting a player and not signing him does you no good. My paychecks aren’t coming in because I liked a kid but couldn’t get him and the Dodgers did. I get paid for signing them and sending them out.”

Or as the late Bill Veeck said in “Good Enough to Dream,” Roger Kahn’s book about minor league baseball: “With the hundreds of major league scouts and the new computers, every good farm director--not that all are good--has a file on every good prospect in the country. . . . The problem isn’t discovering prospects anymore. The problem is signing them.”

Many in baseball suspect that it’s getting tougher to sign players because there are people like Scott Boras, a Los Angeles-based former player. Boras, 33, now an attorney, represents major league players such as Toronto Blue Jay relief pitcher Bill Caudill, but he has gained most of his notoriety among baseball executives for advising high school and college players. Bowen is among several No. 1 picks whom Boras has advised in the last few years.

In 1983, for instance, Boras advised Tim Belcher--a pitcher and a college junior who was the No. 1 pick in the nation by the Minnesota Twins--to reject the Twins’ offer and return to school. Belcher was subsequently selected by the New York Yankees in the secondary phase of the January draft, which no longer exists.

“Some baseball people dislike me because I cost them more money,” said Boras, who played in the St. Louis Cardinals’ and Chicago Cubs’ minor league systems before returning to law school and starting his practice seven years ago. “But I’ve had a couple of those same executives tell me after it’s all said and done that they’d want me to advise their son if he were in a similar situation.”

NCAA rules forbid current or prospective college athletes from having agents and from “negotiating” with professional teams. An athlete, however, may retain an attorney for the review of a proposed contract and for receiving advice, but the attorney is not allowed to interact with the club.

Thus, an organization makes a proposal to a player who can say either thanks or no thanks until the next offer is tendered.

“The pressure is immense,” Boras said. “Most families just aren’t aware of what they need to know to make that decision. You have to educate the families to the economics of baseball.”

Some of the numbers that influence the economics, according to Boras:

--The average major league career lasts 3.8 years.

--Only 3.7% of first-round picks have major league careers lasting four years or longer.

--Players drafted after the first round have less than a 2% chance of playing four or more years in the major leagues.

“They need to look at the other side, not just the dream,” Boras said. “The only thing we know about the draft is that half of the top six players are going to make it to the big leagues for a substantial period of time.

“A guy like Ryan Bowen needs to know the factors to make an informed decision. If he stays healthy and comes out of USC in three years, he’s going to be a No. 1 pick and probably get more money.”

If Bowen does decide to spurn any of the Houston Astros’ subsequent offers, he will join a small fraternity of former USC baseball players who did the same thing.

In 1970, the Trojans landed two No. 1 draft choices--Randy Scarberry, a pitcher from Fresno, and George Ambrow, the Southern Section player of the year at Long Beach Poly.

Scarberry had been the No. 1 pick of the Astros as a high schooler, but he signed with the A’s three years later, when he was again selected in the first round.

Ambrow decided to forgo a $55,000 offer from the Mets to become a Trojan. Three years later, his college baseball career was ended by injuries.

In 1976, Bill Bordley, a left-handed pitcher from Torrance Bishop Montgomery High School, was the first-round pick of the Milwaukee Brewers. Bordley went to USC instead and signed with the San Francisco Giants three years later as a first-round pick.

“The risk of not being drafted again is less for a pitcher than for an everyday player who may get beat up all the time,” said Don Buford, a USC assistant coach and former USC player who played 10 years in the major leagues.

“I think the key thing for Ryan is that he will be offered six figures after his junior year. If he stays healthy, he’ll play in the big leagues. If he gets hurt, he has college.”

That was the kind of thinking Stillwell had used before turning down the scholarship to Stanford and choosing instead to begin his professional career.

“I look back and I was committed to an education, too,” Stillwell said. “I wanted to go to school. That’s just the way I was brought up.

“But you have to look at the money. I made the right decision for me, but it’s the toughest decision any 18-year old could make. I had to weigh all of the options. It’s a little bit of an advantage to get started earlier. In baseball, it’s definitely an advantage to be young.”

Earlier this month, McMurtry, the No. 1 pick of the Red Sox who was also a highly recruited high school football player, decided to postpone professional baseball, accepting a football scholarship to the University of Michigan.

“This gives me the best of all worlds,” McMurtry said when he announced his choice. “If I don’t make it in football, I can always try baseball. If baseball doesn’t work out, I will still have an education at an excellent school.”

Ed Allen, who grew up in Compton and went to Verbum Dei High School in Los Angeles, faced a similar decision in 1982. The Royals selected him in the third round of the draft and told him that he could be chasing down fly balls with Willie Wilson in a couple of years.

Allen turned down a baseball and football scholarship to Arizona State after the Royals offered him the largest signing bonus in the organization’s history before this year’s signing of Bo Jackson.

“It was a tough decision, but deciding which school I was going to attend if I didn’t sign was even tougher,” said Allen, who is playing for Fort Myers, the Royals’ Class-A affiliate in the Florida State League. “Sometimes you think about what might have been, where you would be.

“I have no regrets, but I wish I had my schooling. They always tell you that they’ll send you to school. But there really isn’t time.

“I still have that desire to make the major leagues and I think I will.”

By selecting Bowen in the first round of the draft, the Astros were demonstrating their belief in his ability to pitch in the major leagues.

“Ryan has expressed to us--and we have no reason to think otherwise--that his initial interest is professional baseball,” said Dan O’Brien Jr., the Astros’ director of scouting. “It is also Ryan’s and his family’s intention that he earn a college degree. We’re trying to work within their framework. With that as a backdrop, the negotiations have progressed slowly.”

Gillespie, meanwhile, has a spot waiting for Bowen in the USC pitching rotation. Gillespie won’t be able to pencil Bowen’s name into the lineup, though, until he sees the pitcher in class on the first day of school.

“The Astros have up until the time Ryan first attends class,” Gillespie said. “Obviously, we are not out of the woods. Realistically, they are going to make another offer. Now that he says he’s coming here, it may force their hand. If it does, good for him.”

Bowen insists that a college education is important to him and his family. The college experience, he says, will prepare him for making decisions in the future. First, however, he must decide where his immediate future will be.

“I’m a teen-ager,” Bowen said. “I try to laugh and smile because sometimes it’s not the easiest thing to do.

“You can look back and say, ‘Hey, I overcame it,’ or ‘Hey, it got the best of me.’ Maybe in 30 years I can write a book about the whole experience.”