Moneyball - Michael Lewis [13]
They begin that first morning by weeding out the pile. Some large number of amateur ballplayers were, for one reason or another, unworthy of serious consideration.
“Lark,” says Erik, for instance. Erik is Erik Kubota, the new young scouting director Billy hired to replace Grady. Erik used a giant wad of Copenhagen to disguise the fact that he was a brainy graduate of the University of California Berkeley, whose first job with the Oakland A’s had been as a public relations intern. That Erik had never played even high school ball was, in Billy Beane’s mind, a point in his favor. At least he hasn’t learned the wrong lessons. Billy had played pro ball, and regarded it as an experience he needed to overcome if he wanted to do his job well. “A reformed alcoholic,” is how he described himself.
Lark is a high school pitcher with a blazing fastball. He’s a favorite of one of the older scouts, who introduces him in a language only faintly resembling English. “Good body, big arm. Good fastball, playable slider, so-so change,” he says. “A little funk on the backside but nothing you can’t clean up. I saw him good one day and not so good another.”
“Any risk he’ll go to college?” asks Erik.
“He’s not a student type,” says the older scout. “I’m not sure he’s even signed with a college.”
“So is this guy a rockhead?” asks Pitter. Pitter (Chris Pittaro) is a graduate of the University of North Carolina who roomed with Billy when they both played for the Minnesota Twins and who Billy had long ago identified as a person willing to rethink everything he learned, or thought he had learned, playing baseball.
“Ah,” says the older scout, thinking about how to address the question. It’s possible for a baseball player to be too stupid for the job. It’s also possible for him to be too smart. “He may be too smart,” is a phrase that will recur several times over the next week.
“He’s a confident kid. But—”
“But,” says Erik.
“There might be some, uh, family issues here,” says the old scout. “I heard the dad had spent some time in prison. Porno or something.”
No one on either side of the room seems to know what to make of that. You can see thirty men thinking: is porno a crime?
“Can he bring it?” someone finally asks. The air clears.
“I can see this guy in somebody’s pen throwing aspirin tablets someday,” says the older scout. “The guy has a cannon.” This old scout is pushing fifty-five but still has a lean quickness about him, as if he hadn’t completely abandoned the hope that he might one day play the game. The old scout likes high school kids and refuses to apologize for that fact.
“I’m worried about the makeup,” says someone.
“What does his profile say?” asks someone else.
A young man sits quietly off to one side at the room’s lone desktop computer. He punches a few keys. He’s looking for Lark’s results on the psychological test given by Major League Baseball to all prospects.
“Not good,” he says, at length. “Competitive drive: one out of ten. Leadership: one out of ten. Conscientiousness: one out of ten.” He keeps on reading down the list, but no matter what the category the kid’s score is always the same.
“Shit,” Bogie finally says, “does he even have a two in anything?” Bogie is the oldest scout. In 1972, scouting for the Houston Astros, Bogie administered what he believes to have been the first ever baseball psychological test, to a pitcher named Dick Ruthven. (He passed.)
“Bad makeup,” says someone else and no one disagrees.
The scouts used several catch phrases to describe what they need to avoid. “Rockhead” clearly isn’t a good thing to be, but the quality can be overcome. “Soft” is also fairly damning—it connotes both “out of shape” and “wimp”—but it, too, is inconclusive.