Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 29, 1993 TAG: 9308290128
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: E6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ray Cox
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
These dragnet operations are conducted by every major-league team to unearth prospects and identify those players scouts should keep an eye on. With the sophistication of scouting these days, there are very few prospects who slip through the cracks and go undrafted, but once in a great while somebody actually is signed to a free-agent contract on the spot.
Tryouts may not always spawn prospects, but good baseball yarns are another matter. Jon Kaufman, a former Salem general manager, remembers one particular audition and an unnamed participant who was not signed on the spot, yet made an impression.
Kaufman, who is out of the baseball business now but still living in the Roanoke Valley, was helping Mike Bucci conduct a camp one summer day several years back. Bucci, it will be recalled, was the manager of the old Salem Redbirds and he was auditioning prospects on behalf of the parent Texas Rangers.
Kaufman was doing stuff such as pitching batting practice, organizing the 60-yard dashes and hitting fungoes so that Bucci could stand back and evaluate the athletes.
The usual assortment of high school and college players showed up, all equipped with the requisite gear and a truckload of dreams.
One dreamer stood out. For one thing, although he too had the proper equipment, he was older than the rest of the players. He also clearly was not possessed of an athletic sort of body. Perhaps a few extra helpings of chicken and dumplings or pizza had contributed to the fellow's physique.
Another factor that set this guy apart was that he was the one who began the tryout by sitting on one of the metal benches outside the Municipal Field clubhouse smoking a cigarette.
"I guess that was his way of warming up," Kaufman said.
So on to batting practice they went. When it came time for our guy to take his cuts, he sauntered up to the plate, stick in hand, and assumed his stance in the right-handed batters' box.
It became clear from the onset that this fellow's strong point was not hitting.
"I was throwing the easiest batting-practice fastballs that I could, but he was making me look like Nolan Ryan," Kaufman said. "I was just blowing everything right by him. I think he did foul one off."
Each hopeful was allowed 10 cuts and when the end of this guy's turn came, he announced that he would like to take 10 more from the left side.
"Make a note of that," Bucci dryly told Kaufman. "Switch hitter."
Our flawed hero didn't come close to putting bat on ball from the port side either.
Next came fielding, and the guy took his station at an unlikely spot: shortstop. Much to the surprise of Kaufman and Bucci, he did manage to get to every ball. Throwing was a problem, though.
"Take out the tarp!" Bucci said in baseball parlance, as one delivery was so lofty as to almost bring rain.
Then there was the 60.
Our sprinter took his mark and was off, the sounds of jingling keys and change following him as he bounded to the finish line. About three-quarters of the way home, his keys came flying free from his pocket.
Instead of continuing toward the finish, he bent down, searched out his keys in the grass, and retrieved them. Then he finished his epic run.
"He was not on a real quick pace to begin with," Kaufman said. "But after he stopped, he finished with about a 24.7-second [time]."
A commendable clocking is somewhat less than that.
Through all of this, the younger players were looking on, bemused. They knew not what to make of this courageous but talent-shy individual. Kaufman wanted to laugh, but kept his counsel so as not to cause the man undue discomfort. Bucci had to turn from the field on several occasions to suppress his amusement.
Now it is true that some scouts might not have found this funny, thinking perhaps that their time was being wasted or that this guy was making a mockery of a game they hold dear.
Bucci, on the other hand, took it all in the proper spirit.
"Mike thought it was great," Kaufman said. "He loved freak shows like that. He, after all, was the guy who brought in [a particularly boisterous fan] to coach first base."
Our man, gentle optimist that he was, was undaunted. Years later, he was overheard to say that if it hadn't been for those blasted keys, he might have been in the big leagues by now.
\ BITTERSWEET MEMORIES: Marc Pisciotta, the Salem Buccaneers' stopper, is not one of the bitter ones.
Ten years ago, Pisciotta, then a 6-foot-2, 157-pound 13-year-old who had just edged under the age cutoff for Little League baseball, led an all-star team selected by the players in a league in Marietta, Ga., to the World Series title in Williamsport, Pa.
By any standard, the triumph of East Marietta - as the team was known - was an incredible feat. In its relentless progress to the global title, Marietta went 15-0. Pisciotta was on the mound for eight of the 15 victories, winning the first of three Series games against Illinois and beating the Dominican Republic 3-1 in the title game.
Pisciotta was virtually unhittable in addition to being a remarkable power hitter. The team was one of the best defensive squads at that level many people had ever seen, even recording the rare feat of a double play in the championship game.
Yet as the years passed, the victory somehow came to be viewed as tainted. That was true not so much for how it was accomplished, but who it was accomplished against. Certainly, the Dominican Republic is one of the great baseball-playing lands in the world, but it was not and is not considered to be on the same level as some of the juggernaut programs - particularly from Taiwan - that have rolled out of Asia in the modern Little League era.
"There were a lot of guys that I played with who had a lot of resentment that people looked at it that way," Pisciotta said. "I don't see it that way. I look at it that we won and nobody can take that away from us."
Part of the problem was that East Marietta's victory came the year after the famous victory of Kirkland, Wash., over a team from Taiwan that snapped a string of six titles for teams from the Far East. Asian teams had won 13 of the previous 15 crowns.
"You talk to people up here and they all say they remember [Kirkland star] Cody Webster and that team, but nobody can remember Pisciotta and Marietta," said Dan Connolly, a reporter from Williamsport. "It was almost like Pisciotta and Marietta have been overlooked. How can you overlook a kid who was 6-2?"
How can you minimize a World Series title? That's what Pisciotta wants to know.
"We didn't beat an Asian team? Big deal," he said. "You judge a victory on who you played?"
"Stupid."
\ DEMOCRACY AT WORK: One ballot for the Carolina League year-end All-Star team:
Starting pitcher - Julian Tavarez (Kinston); relief pitcher - Jeff McCurry (Salem); catcher - Joe Ayrault (Durham); first base - Tate Seefried (Prince William); second base - Mike Tucker (Wilmington); third base - Ken Bonifay (Salem); shortstop - Tony Womack (Salem); utility infield - Tony Graffagnino (Durham); outfield - Motorboat Jones (Winston-Salem); outfield - Curtis Goodwin (Frederick); outfield - Jose Malave (Lynchburg); utility outfield - Alex Ochoa (Frederick); designated hitter - Bubba Smith (Winston-Salem).
Most valuable player - Bubba Smith (Winston-Salem).
Manager of the year - Pete Mackanin (Frederick).
by CNB