Here's a story about how the film industry helped change the way baseball does business. "I didn’t think it was going to be such a big deal," Paul Pettit says. "I mean, over the years, it just keeps coming back." Pettit is 88 now. I grew up with his youngest daughter, and when we were kids, I called him Mr. Pettit. Until recently, I had no idea that Mr. Pettit was important to the history of baseball. I only knew that he had played the game when he was younger. "I was kinda good at throwing a ball, and I always threw it a little bit harder than most kids, so I just automatically gravitated to pitching," Pettit says. Pettit wasn’t yet in high school when people first started noticing his talent. "There were a lot of leagues at that time in Southern California — amateur leagues," says Dan Taylor, author of the baseball book "Fate’s Takeout Slide." A High School Phenom "His best friend was his catcher later in the high school team, Gar Meyers," Taylor says. "And Gar had gotten on an amateur team and encouraged Paul to come to a tryout, which Paul did. "The coach of this team was a scout for the St. Louis Browns, and he changed Paul’s pitching mechanics. Almost instantly, Paul went from kind of a mediocre type of talent to a phenom." Pettit’s style was similar to that of baseball great Sandy Koufax, who would come along much later. Once he got to high school in the mid-to late-1940s, Pettit helped his school’s baseball team go to several citywide championships. He pitched six no-hitters and struck out 390 batters over 140 innings, including 27 in a single game. "I didn’t lose a game the last couple years, myself," Pettit says. "I was fortunate enough to be one of them that didn’t lose." Legendary scout Rosey Gilhausen, then with the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League, heard about Pettit from another scout.

"Paul went from kind of a mediocre type of talent to a phenom." Dan Taylor

"When Rosey saw Paul, he was certainly sold on him and befriended him," Taylor says. "And Gar and Paul really took a liking to him. And, after school, they would ride their bikes to Rosey’s house, and Rosey would regale them with baseball stories. And he would take them to Gilmore Field, and take them to Hollywood Stars games. And he would take 'em downstairs into the VIP lounge." "He just showed us, you know, baseball attracts some real successful people," Pettit says. "And that’s what's so exciting to me." Little did Pettit know that he’d soon have his own fans. "When Paul was in his senior season at Narbonne High School in 1949, the administration of the school had to bring bleachers from the football field over to the baseball field, because there were so many people coming to watch him play," Taylor says. "You go back and you look at the six daily newspapers in Southern California at that time and, you know, Paul was written up as much as any of the Rams, any of the Hollywood Stars, any of the top athletes of the day. I contend that Paul was the greatest amateur player in America at that time. And teams had multiple scouts following him. "And the scouts weren’t just evaluating him. Scouts would go out, and they would go to the coaches at [U]SC and UCLA and arrange for Paul’s high school team to play them, so that they could gauge Paul pitching against stronger competition. And all the players on both teams were told, 'Not a word of this is ever to be breathed to the media.' And I think the college coaches were most appreciative of that, because Paul’s team beat ‘em." Pettit says the scouts and all of the attention didn’t make him nervous. "I worried more about winning the games and pitching well than I did the scouts," Pettit says. Before his senior year of high school, as Pettit was warming up for a game, Pittsburgh Pirates scout Babe Herman came over and watched him pitch for a while. "He says, 'You know, you should get at least $90,000 to sign.' And he says, 'If you don’t, there’s something wrong,' or some words to that effect," Pettit recalls. "And I kept that in my mind. So, right after that, I started getting offers. I used that knowledge not to sign with them." This was before Major League Baseball had a draft. Instead, teams would lure top amateurs with signing bonuses.

"He says, 'You know, you should get at least $90,000 to sign,' and he says, 'If you don’t, there’s something wrong.' " Paul Pettit

But while Pettit was in high school, the Major Leagues passed something called the "Bonus Rule." "The objective was to level the playing field to prevent the big-money teams at that time — the Yankees, the Detroit Tigers, for example — from spending lavishly and corralling all the best amateur players," Taylor says. "So, as kind of a penalty, any player out of high school, college who signed with a team, received a bonus of $4,000 or more, had to spend their first season in professional baseball in the big leagues." These "bonus babies", as they were called, often warmed the bench and lost out on valuable playing time they could have had on semi-pro teams. That’s when Frederick Stephani comes into this story. Stephani was a Hollywood producer, best known for co-writing and directing a popular science fiction serial film in 1936, "Flash Gordon." This was an era full of baseball movies like"The Story of Babe Ruth," "It Happens Every Spring" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. Stephani wanted to make a baseball movie. "He couldn’t get Ted Williams or Joe DiMaggio or any of the big stars," Pettit says. "They wanted too much money. So he tried to pick somebody else while they were an amateur before they got into pro ball." "And, of course, reading the newspapers every three or four days, they were seeing the name 'Paul Pettit,' " Taylor says. "Paul’s father received a telegram one day, and it was from Stephani, wanting to arrange a meeting. And they didn’t know what it could possibly be about. So Paul and his dad and his mother and his girlfriend, Shirley, all went to Stephani’s office. And Stephani told him that he wanted to lock up Paul on a multi-year contract to do exclusive pictures for Stephani's company. The contract called for $85,000." But Stephani didn’t plan to pay Pettit the money called for in that contract himself. He planned to get baseball to do it. The First '$100,000 Bonus Baby' "It basically gave Stephani the rights to negotiate on Paul's behalf with big league teams, which had never been done before," Taylor says. "There was no such thing as player agents at that time. Paul was really the first player ever to be represented by an agent." So Stephani shopped Pettit around to teams. "And Paul and his dad went to Frederick Stephani’s office," Taylor says. "And, when they were ushered in, there were executives of the Pittsburgh Pirates there — the general manager Roy Hamey and a few of the scouts. And Hamey reached out to shake their hand and said, 'Congratulations, we've purchased your contract.' And I believe he made mention of the $85,000 figure and Paul’s father said, 'Not so fast. My son's not signing for a penny less than $100,000.'

"Not so fast. My son's not signing for a penny less than $100,000." Paul Pettit's father