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Facebook Kurt Brown completed a strange set of bookends last week at Dodger Stadium. He watched from the stands as Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants played the Dodgers on Thursday in the same ballpark where he watched B.J. Surhoff, Will Clark, Bobby Witt and Barry Larkin in the 1984 Olympics. And there you have the first six picks in the 1985 draft — Surhoff, Clark, Witt, Larkin, Brown and Bonds. "Bonds is the famous pick and I'm the infamous pick," says Brown, who the Chicago White Sox chose fifth overall as a catcher from Glendora (Calif.) High School. "No regrets," he says as he talks about a seven-year minor league career that peaked at Class AAA Vancouver in 1991. These days he's the investment and treasury manager at Azusa Pacific University, less than four miles from his high school but a long way from the major league careers of the four collegians selected ahead of him and of the one still playing — No. 6 pick Bonds out of Arizona State University. Brown also was picked ahead of Rafael Palmeiro, Randy Johnson and David Justice. Brown was USA TODAY's High School Player of the Year in 1985 and considered worthy as a teen of sliding in the draft between the guys he went to see as a 17-year-old as the USA won the silver medal when baseball was a demonstration sport at the 1984 Games. Now, because Kody, one of his five sons, is a longtime Bonds fan, they went to Thursday's game in which Bonds went 1-for-2. Brown was barely aware of Bonds that June day in 1985 when he got pulled out of class to be told the White Sox had drafted him. "I knew of him mostly because of his name and his father," Brown says. Brown, 40, isn't ready to dive into the controversy surrounding Bonds, saying that even if suspicions and accusations about performance-enhancing drugs eventually were proved, there's no way to measure how much they might have helped. "I think the thing that gets overlooked is that modern medicine has extended many careers. Three surgeries on (Bonds') knee — 20-25 years ago, his career would have been over." Brown's career was over in the spring of 1992 after 586 minor league games on teams that included Sammy Sosa, Frank Thomas and Robin Ventura. He was a solid defensive player but never hit better than .269 or had more than six homers in a season. But it wasn't until 1991, his last season, that he realized the end was near; he had developed a mental block about throwing the ball back to the pitcher. "I managed to hide it," Brown says. He remembers after a game in which he nailed three runners, then-White Sox scouting director Duane Shaffer said to him, "Kid, you're getting close (to the majors)." He was in Oakland's camp as a minor league free agent the next spring. When he revealed his throwing concerns, he says, manager Tony La Russa was shocked. Brown decided that was the time to get out. "I had an agreement with my dad, who died in 1995 — you will get a bachelor's degree," Brown says. Brown completed that degree from Azusa Pacific in 1996 and added a master's of business administration last fall. He doesn't blame the White Sox for taking him over Bonds. "I think the team that messed up was Pittsburgh," Brown says. "They had six good years to look at him before they let him go." Share this story: Digg del.icio.us Newsvine Reddit Facebook Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep the conversation appropriate for interested readers across the map.