Major league dreams

Billy Shoaf knew the odds were stacked against him when he showed up to the Kansas City Royals' tryout camp last week at UNLV.

At 22, the chances of the Las Vegas resident actually earning a spot on a minor league roster are slim at best. As he knows full well, camps like this are designed primarily to give scouts a chance to view 15- to 17-year-old athletes for future amateur drafts.

So what makes Shoaf, and hundreds of players like him every year, continue to come to the ballpark for such events?

"I'm just hoping for that chance," said Shoaf, a right-handed pitcher who graduated from Eldorado High School in 1994 and has been playing in adult leagues around town since. "If I don't make it by 24, that's it, but I've got two good years left."

In the days before teams had easy access to information about players around the country, tryouts like the ones held by the Royals, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Cincinnati Reds in Las Vegas last week were critical for discovering hidden talent.

But in the 1990s, finding a "diamond in the rough" has become next to impossible.

"It's tough to find that pearl, that diamond in the rough anymore," said Lou Pisani, who organized the Royals camp. "They're so well scouted now."

As for whether players like Shoaf or 28-year-old Jarom Thorn, who attended Saturday's Reds' camp, still have a shot at the big leagues, Pisani is realistic.

"The older a kid is, the tougher it is," Pisani said. "They want kids out of high school so they can develop them."

For players like Bishop Gorman's Dallas Pollaro, however, this summer's tryout camps represent a serious opportunity.

A senior who earned all-state recognition as a second baseman for the Gaels, the undrafted Pollaro is hoping for another chance at a pro contract.

"I want to show them what I've got," said Pollaro, who will play at two-year school Dixie College in Utah if things don't work out with a professional team. "But you only get a couple of ground balls and a couple of swings, so you've got to make the best of it."

And, of course, if it doesn't work out for a player, the camps don't have to be a total loss. Down the road, someone's tryout can become the stuff of legend.

"For the rest of his life, he can always tell people he went to a major league tryout camp," Pisani said.

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