Sports: Now for the boring part

Now for the boring part

Toe Nash becomes a normal Rays minor-leaguer - except for all those reporters.

By JOHN ROMANO

ST. PETERSBURG -- This is the part that ends up on the cutting room floor. The part you never will see in the big screen adaptation.

When they make the Toe Nash story into a movie -- and the Hollywood people were calling agent Larry Reynolds again Monday -- this was the kind of day that gets lost in the transition between gripping and uplifting.

In other words, this is the rest of the story.

The teenage phenom has begun working out with more than 100 other minor-league players at the Devil Rays spring training complex. He is far removed from the Louisiana bayou portion of the script and even further away from the bright lights he hopes to see before the closing credits.

This is the reality that can muck up Hollywood's version of the truth. It begins this week with his first spring training, and it is not likely to change much for the next three or four years in the minors. Nash has proven to be an outstanding story. Now he must prove he can be a major-league ballplayer.

"If he goes out and hits .230 this year -- and I'm not telling him this -- that's going to be a good year," Reynolds said. "It's a developmental game. I just don't want people to think he's supposed to hit 30 home runs and hit .350 right away. It's probably not going to happen. But that will have nothing to do with him developing into a major league-caliber player."

So the legend goes to work on becoming legendary this week. He will wake early like the rest of the minor-leaguers in the hotel and hitch a ride on a Rays van (he does not have a driver's license and said getting one is low on his list of priorities). He will work at the complex from about 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and then return to the hotel, where a team dinner is served from 5-7 p.m.

"We're going to treat him like every other player, which is the way it should be," Rays minor-league field coordinator Tom Foley said. "Are there circumstances here that might force us to do some things a little differently? Yeah, there are. But we are aiming for as close to normality as possible, which is only going to benefit him."

So the normal player got off to a normal start Monday. He took batting practice in the face of 25 mph wind and hit the ball hard, if not long. He shagged balls in the outfield and worked out in the weight room. Along the way, he tried his best to ignore the seven television cameras and the dozen or more newspaper reporters who followed him around for hours.

If you do not know the complete Nash story by now, you have been reading the wrong newspapers. And only a few of those are left. From the front page of USA Today to Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago and New York, they have sought the story of a Little League legend who dropped out of school in the eighth grade, ran into some legal problems and was discovered by a scout last summer living in a trailer and playing ball in a sugar cane league, hitting tape-measure home runs from both sides of the plate.

Nash, 19, is rooming at the team hotel with Frank Moore, a 22-year-old infielder with three years of pro ball behind him. Nash said they have spent the past couple of days getting to know each other better.

"He said he had read about me," Nash said. "So I was telling him the true story."

At times, the true Nash story can be a moving target. Though acquaintances seem eager to tell their stories of Toe, he remains almost painfully shy. That combination tends to result in more gross exaggeration than true examination.

So Nash stood for 15 minutes for television cameras and then sat for 20 minutes with print reporters Monday to give his version of life.

Even Reynolds was surprised by some of Monday's revelations. And he has spent months with Nash, even having his client move in with his brother, former major-leaguer Harold Reynolds, for the past few weeks in California.

It is true that before coming to St. Petersburg for the instructional league last fall that Nash had no idea how to get a pizza delivered. And he did get lost in the Atlanta airport, not realizing his luggage had been checked through on a connecting flight. He did not have a telephone in the trailer he was living in and has never surfed the 'Net.

Yet, though it has been reported he has no contact with his mother -- who left him and his little sister when Nash was 12 -- he said he occasionally talks to her in Baton Rouge. He also said he kept up with major-league baseball on cable television as a youngster and is a fan of video games.

Reynolds and his brother have worked with Nash in recent weeks to prepare him for pro ball and living on his own. He attended a baseball camp in California with Reynolds, Tony Gwynn and other major-leaguers. He has talked on the telephone with Ken Griffey Jr., among others. Reynolds expects to get Nash a tutor and have him take a high school equivalency test in a year or two.

Spring training ends in three weeks, but Nash likely will remain in St. Petersburg for extended spring. Even though the Rays say his raw tools are equivalent to a high first-round draft pick, he has little experience against quality competition. In June he probably will be sent to Princeton, a rookie league team in the Appalachian League that will be dominated by teenagers taken in the June draft.

Nash said he does not think about the potential millions to be made in pro ball. He was happy to bank his $30,000 signing bonus (he said he bought some clothes and gifts for his sister), although he likely would have commanded a bonus in excess of $1-million had Reynolds or another agent discovered him before the Rays did.

Instead, Nash said he feels like he already has been given a second chance in life and is not worrying about what he may have missed.

He was asked if he ever lies in bed and reflects on the good fortune of the past 12 months:

"Just about every night."