Look Who’s a Prospect : After Checkered Past, Thompson’s Baseball Stock Rising

Jason Thompson isn’t plugging away in the San Diego Padres’ farm system for the money.

“I’m in Class-A ball making $1,000 a month; that stinks,” said Thompson, who expects to join the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes when the Padres break spring training. “Barry Bonds gets a check for $300,000 a week, so he makes more in an hour than I do in a year.”

And Thompson, an outstanding student who might eventually enroll in law school, didn’t choose professional baseball for the game’s intellectual allure.

“I’ve turned into an idiot,” the Laguna Hills High School graduate said. “You play every night for 150 games, hang around guys in the same context every day . . . I used to think I was intelligent, but I’ve lost all of my vocabulary. I’m just not using it. What do you say on a baseball field?”

Thompson, who needed an auto club Triptik to get through college--he went to USC, Saddleback, Pepperdine and Arizona--had other options. He’s only four classes away from a degree in finance, he had a 3.4 grade-point average in college and he thinks he could hold his own in a courtroom.

But he’s still playing baseball because someone wants him to, and when you’ve had so many doors slammed in your face and overcome long odds to get where you are, it’s only natural to play out the string, see how far you can go.

“I don’t have any pressure,” Thompson said by phone from the Padres’ spring-training complex in Peoria, Ariz. “A lot of guys are supposed to be great from the start and they play with a lot of pressure, but me, heck, no one expected me to be here.

“You go to practice and see 130 guys on the field, including six other guys at your position, all fighting to get where you want to go, and you think you’ll never make the major leagues. But I’m just going to play hard and see what happens.”

Good things finally began happening last year for Thompson, who hit .353 with 20 home runs and 74 runs batted in at Arizona and was named a second-team All-American by the Baseball Coaches Assn., quite an accomplishment for a walk-on.

The left-handed first baseman was a ninth-round pick of the Padres and hit .300 with seven homers, 26 doubles and 38 RBIs for San Diego’s short-season Class-A team in Spokane, Wash.

But until 1993 . . . well, it’s no wonder, when asked about his background, Thompson chuckles and says: “It could get ugly.”

Thompson, now 6 feet 4, 205 pounds, didn’t become a varsity starter until his senior year at Laguna Hills. Despite his .350 average in 1989, he hardly stood out on a 25-4 Hawks team that included Chris Sheff, Mike Helm and Mike Smedes.

Not one four-year college or community college coach wanted Thompson. He enrolled at USC in the fall of 1989 and tried walking on to the baseball team but was cut after a two-day tryout.

Pondering his future over Christmas break, Thompson decided to call Jack Hodges, his high school coach who had been named head coach at Saddleback College.

Hodges assured Thompson that he’d have a chance to play, so Thompson transferred. He had a good-enough year at Saddleback in 1990 (.299, six homers, 30 RBIs) to earn a partial scholarship to Pepperdine, which he jumped at.

“I was overwhelmed that somebody wanted me,” Thompson said.

The Wave coaching staff was underwhelmed by his performance, though.

A zero-for-31 streak, which grew into a three-for-60 skid, dropped his average below .200, and the right fielder finished batting .231 with three homers and 29 RBIs.

Pepperdine Coach Andy Lopez told Thompson after the season that he could return, but that he wouldn’t figure in the team’s 1992 plans.

“He gave me a chance and I couldn’t come out of it,” Thompson said. “I hit .231 with an aluminum bat--that’s terrible. I could understand Lopez’s point. I had to make a decision, but I didn’t really have anywhere to go.”

Bob Schellenberg, a family friend and Saddleback assistant, did. He had some contacts at Arizona and made a few calls. Lucky for Thompson, the only good weekend he had all season for Pepperdine came against Arizona, when he was eight for 12 with a homer in three games.

Arizona Coach Jerry Kindall didn’t offer a scholarship but did offer Thompson a roster spot. So it was off to Tucson, where Thompson did most of his development during a redshirt season in 1992.

“When I got to Arizona, I didn’t know if I could play the game anymore,” Thompson said. “But Jerry Stitt, the hitting coach there, was really good for me. I wasn’t mechanically sound, but we worked on one thing a week and spent most of the year in batting practice. I did well, and I didn’t have a chance to fail in games. That helped my confidence.”

Thompson played in Alaska that summer, then returned to Orange County for a few tuneup games before heading back to Tucson for his senior year.

“He looked bigger, stronger and more confident,” Hodges said. “He played in a summer-league game against us and hit three of the longest home runs I’ve ever seen at Saddleback. I told him then, ‘You’re ready.’ ”

Thompson was a smashing success last season at Arizona. The designated hitter was a first-team All-Pacific-10 Conference selection and was Arizona’s winner of the Pac-10 medal, an annual award honoring the school’s outstanding senior athlete for his or her citizenship, academic performance and athletic ability.

“It’s been a rocky road, going from a guy who was cut by USC, told he wasn’t good enough at Pepperdine, to the point where a professional organization thinks you’re as good as there is,” Thompson said. “It was really scary, because at times I felt like I was out on a boat by myself.”

Thompson’s ship finally came in, though. His transformation from .231 hitter to college All-American can be attributed, in part, to his physical development.

Hodges said Thompson was “a little gangly, a little awkward,” in high school, but a weight training program he began at Saddleback helped Thompson grow from a scrawny, 6-1, 150-pound high school junior to a powerful 22-year old today.

Mental maturity also played a major role.

“I was unstable at Pepperdine--I couldn’t handle failure,” Thompson said. “I’d go 0 for four and carry it into the next day. But at Arizona, it was all confidence. They kept saying, ‘You can hit, you can hit, you can hit.’ I struck out seven straight times there once but it didn’t matter. I knew I could hit.

“I guess I reached a stage of maturity. At some point, around the age of 21, I finally realized it takes more to play this game.”