I tried to be diplomatic when I mentioned to Rowley the report that Quantrill had filed on him. I expected some hard push-back offered through clenched teeth with pulse rising and testosterone surging. Instead, Rowley agreed: “I’m a right-hander with a 92-mph fastball when some average guys in the majors — or even in triple-A — throw 95 or harder. Then again, the best pitcher in recent history, Greg Maddux, threw 90, 91, maybe 92. Not having the velocity means I have a narrower margin for error in a game, and in the organization as a whole. I need to have success at every level I pitch at. Fact is, probably 40 per cent of guys in the majors have been told at some point that they had zero pro value.”

And the fact was that Quantrill had attached a qualifier to his assessment. I read it back to Rowley. “It’s not what any young pitcher wants to hear,” Quantrill had told me. “A lot are used to hearing how great they are and when they hear otherwise they hang their heads or want to pack it in. I heard the ‘zero pro value’ when I was starting out and I thought I took it pretty well. But Chris was smart enough and mature enough to understand the message completely.”

That night I went out for beers and bar grub with Rowley and a few other officers from his West Point graduating class. One had been on the varsity football team. Another had been a letterman on the hoops squad. Their athletic careers were in the rearview mirror and they were looking ahead at their full five-year commitments and maybe staying on for long careers after that. I was struck by the fact that, when it came to personality traits, the lot of them were of one piece. They were all outgoing but respectful, confident but not outrageously so, forward-thinking but not getting ahead of themselves. They were smart as hell, intimidatingly so. If a pro scout could order up the make-up of prospects, he would use this group’s as his default setting. Yeah, the time out of the organization did Rowley no favors and neither did the radar gun, but if there was a way to get an exemption from his five-year commitment, if there was any way to get back to the Jays organization, I figured he’d take a pretty healthy run at making it to the major leagues.