Beane Counter

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: 1 out of 10. Leadership: 1 out of 10. Conscientiousness: 1 out of 10." He keeps on reading down the list, but no matter what the category, the kid's score is always the same.

"S—" Bogie finally says, "does he even have a two in anything?" Bogie is the oldest scout. In 1972, scouting for the Houston Astros, he administered what he believes to have been the first baseball psychological test, to a pitcher named Dick Ruthven. (He passed, then went on to pitch in the majors for 14 years.)

"Bad makeup," says someone else, and no one disagrees. The scouts used several catchphrases 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.

Bad makeup is a death sentence. Bad makeup means "this kid's got problems we can't afford to solve." The phrase signaled anything from jail time to drinking problems to severe personality disorders. Whenever a player is convicted of bad makeup another young man reaches into a cardboard box for a tiny magnetized photograph of a former A's employee named Phil Milo. Milo had worked as one of Billy Beane's assistants for a brief spell and in that time offended pretty much everyone in the organization. When I ask Paul how it was possible for one man to personify so many different personality disorders, Paul says, "Put it this way. On the day I was hired, Milo came over to meet me. The first thing out of his mouth was, 'I've got to be honest with you. I'm really not pleased we hired you.' " Milo was just that kind of guy. During the first few days of the draft meetings the tiny photos of Phil Milo fly like confetti. And the conversations that ended with Milo's picture plastered beside a prospect's name told you something: not just what baseball men distrusted in a player's character but how little they really knew the people they were about to rain money on.

A high school pitcher:

"Where's he going to college?" asks Billy, idly.

"He's not," says the scout who knows him best. "He's a Christian kid and he was given a free ride to UC Irvine. Coach set him up with a couple of his players. Took him to a party and all it was was drinking. Kid was offended and he left and said, Tm not going to school.' "

"Oh, then he'll fit right into pro ball, won't he?" says Billy.

"Put a Milo on him," says Eric.

A collegiate righthanded pitcher: