[BeanSobie]

I could never tell him, but I am envious of the position Wesley was in last year as an 8th round pick college senior. Wes agreed to take his slotted amount of $152,000 and call it a day. I remember thinking at the time how much money Wes was receiving, and here I was being offered over seven times as much and considering turning them down.

$1,090,000 was the offer from the Nationals. On the first of July Washington signed their second round pick above his slot value. They told me that day that $1,090,000 would be their final offer. The signing deadline is the sixth, otherwise known as tomorrow. Wes was the only person I ever knew who went through this process and he was all the way in the Dominican Republic; I couldn’t bother him with a phone call. It would be too much like rubbing it in.

So I called my adviser. John McGrath was a mid level agent with Wasserman Sports Agency. They were the group Wes went with last year, and they hooked me up with an adviser this year. If things go well and I do decide to sign with the Nats John will transition into my agent. Right now he couldn’t speak to Washington on my behalf, but he could tell me where my value was and according to him it was not at $1.09M.

“This is your one chance to play hardball in the next 5 to 7 years. This sets the stage for how the team will view you moving forward and whether or not they think they can low-ball you, kid. When it comes time for arbitration they will remember if you roll on your back here or not,” even over the phone I could just see John throwing a stress ball up and down methodically. He is your textbook agent, a real Ari Gould type.

“What if I try to raise the price and burn that bridge.” I could feel my face growing red as I worked myself up, “Couldn’t this make them see me as a trouble maker?”

“Kid,” I swear I heard him catch that stress ball with a thwack. “You were taken in the first round of the MLB draft, a failure to sign you would be a massive disappointment for the Nationals. You hold the biggest bargaining chip, the ability to walk away. To me it’s $1.22 or bust.”

$130,000. That was the hold up. Less money than Wes made in his 8th round signing bonus. I don’t want to call that a small sum of money, but when we are talking a million dollars regardless it starts to look like six of one half a dozen of the other.

I realize I have been tapping my finger on the table for a couple minutes. It was a nervous tick. I had no idea what to say back to that. McGrath knew way more than I did, it would be so much easier for me if he could just do all the negotiating; but if I signed him as an agent I would forfeit my NCAA eligibility and screw myself over if the deal wasn’t good enough.

I must have gotten inside my head too long because John broke the silence, his voice softened. “Scott,” the sound of my name calmed me down and I exhaled. “They like you. They want to sign you. The ball is in your court. I think you can fight this and go get some more money, or you can say you want to play ball and take the offer on the table. Talk it over with your family and let me know when you decide.”

“Thank you.”

“Take care, Kid.”

The phone sat there on my table, my lifeless lifeline staring back at me. Wes and I had already talked a few times on the phone this past month. He called to congratulate me on my draft. I called to ask him about how his process was and what I could expect. He called to tell me about a hitting slump he was dealing with. He called to tell me about a Dominican girl he was talking to. I’m not sure how many long distance hours we’d put into Pop’s phone bill because of this, and he wouldn’t tell me if I asked.

I dialed the next best number I could think of. “Luke, hey how’s Arizona?”

“Scotty!” Luke’s dad was a world class asshole so Wes’ teammate, ex-teammate, lived with us over the winter, we got pretty close during that time together. “I can’t talk for long I’ve got batting practice in an hour. What’s up?”

“I was wondering why you didn’t go back to college last year after you got drafted.” Luke began his professional career out of his junior year, at the ripe young age of 20. “Didn’t you feel like the 19th round was too late for you?”

“Yeah, I for sure could have gone back to college for another year and try to prove myself to some teams.” I looked around my bedroom at all the awards my brothers and I had acquired over the years. “But I wanted to be a baseball player. I wanted to play as much of this game as I could, money be damned.”

“You won the MVP though,” I picked up Bobby’s U-18 Baseball World Cup Gold Medal that hung off one of my old travel championship trophies. “You had to have known you were better than a 19th round pick.”

“MVP last year, and no runs or extra base hits this year.”

“We play a fickle game,” I mused as I cleared off a space on the shelf to hang the Gold Medal.

“And we love it regardless,” we both laughed.

“Before I let you go can I ask you if you think $130,000 is enough money to not play baseball?”

“Scotty. If I could I would pay $130,000 just to be a professional baseball player.”

I packed my bags as I thought about what Luke and John had told me. If I did decide to take this offer I would have to be in West Palm Beach tomorrow morning. The day dragged on as my mind was in a constant back and forth.

“You know you can’t take that offer right?” Bobby was now standing in the doorway of my room. He was sweating from his workout with Mark Catts, I was the one with a professional sports contract on the table and he was the one who had been working out all day.

“How do you figure?” I continued moving clothing into my suitcase.

“You can get more money,” he shrugged as if it were that simple. “Hold out until tomorrow, tell them if they don’t give you at least $1.5M you will be returning to West Virginia next season.”

I closed the suitcase and moved it next to the door. “And what if I don’t want to play for West Virginia next year?”

“Of course you don’t want to play for West Virginia next year, but you at least have to get the Nats into thinking you are willing to. It is all about the game, and the game is getting paid.”

The game is getting paid. Yeah, that’s what dad thought.

As soon as I thought it I could hear Wes’ voice, echoing Pap’s words. Pap learned to not talk poorly about his dead son to his grandsons, but growing up with dad “around” Wes heard the bulk of Pap’s criticisms. He wasn’t afraid to repeat them either.

“You feed my cows yet?” Pap himself was now in the hallway as well, staring down Bobby who was still in his work out clothes.

“Geez old man I just got home.”

“Meaning my girls haven’t eaten all day,” Pap had a way of exaggerating when it came to his cows. Bobby grabbed a pair of jeans to toss over his gym shorts and left us alone. “You check Twitter to see how Wesley did today? Hit another homerun, like yesterday”

“Nah I’ve been busy packing,” I had shown Pap last year how to check Twitter for game updates for prospects. You can at least find boxscores fairly regularly, and when you are lucky a video although those were far more common last year when Wes was in Arizona

“So it looks like I’m taking you to the airport tomorrow?”

“Maybe.”

“Still mulling over the bonus?” He sat down on Wes’ old bed and started sorting my socks.

“Yeah I just wish I could have talked more to Wes about it.” If nothing else this process had me appreciating my relationship with my older brother.

“Well that’s easy.” Pap slumped down and mimicked chewing and spitting sunflower seeds, “Hey Scott. It’s me your brother Wes.”

I had to smile as I shook my head. “You do know that Wes doesn’t talk like that right?”

“Sure I do,” he spit another batch of invisible seeds.

“Okay, Wes. What do you think I should do about this signing bonus. Do I take what’s there and become a baseball player, or do I try to hold out for more money?”

“What do you mean become a baseball player?”

“You know what I meant.”

“No I don’t,” Wes cut me off. “You are a baseball player Scott. You’ve been one your entire life. Whether or not you sign this contract doesn’t change that.”

I spent the rest of the night packing by myself. When I let myself take a break I checked Twitter and was pleasantly surprised to see that Luke had hit his first homer of the year. If I were a superstitious man I might take the home runs of my two best friends on the same day as a sign. I told Pap at dinner I was still mulling things over but only 15 minutes later I had John on the phone and I let him know.

“I am a baseball player. I play baseball for the Washington Nationals.”