Humble Garbe Touches All The Bases

MOSES LAKE'S B.J. GARBE IS WEIGHING THE POSSIBILITY OF A MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR BASEBALL CONTRACT OFFER, BUT IT HASN'T GONE TO HIS HEAD.

MOSES LAKE - The waitress wasn't sure it was B.J. Garbe. Not yet. Not until she asked him what he wanted to drink with breakfast.

"Milk," he said. "A large."

It was the All-America clue she needed.

"You're B.J., right?"

He nodded. The national high-school baseball player of the year is on a first-name basis with just about everyone in town. Even those he's meeting for the first time.

Garbe is the small-town story too good to be true. Dad calls him the perfect son and town residents rave about his politeness. He's so talented opponents have sought his autograph after a game and so humble he thanks anyone who asks him to sign.

He is 6-foot-1, 200 pounds with a 3.8 grade-point average and a 93 mph fastball. But it's his skills in the outfield and at the plate that could mean millions of dollars in the baseball draft. A full-ride baseball scholarship to Stanford is signed and awaiting his decision.

But studies hit a holding pattern tomorrow. The local hero will be playing hooky from Moses Lake High School. His teachers understand. Garbe has to take a phone call at about 10 a.m., when he learns which team chose him in baseball's annual first-year player draft.

Baseball America and Baseball Weekly project Garbe as the fifth overall pick, predicting he will be chosen by the Minnesota Twins. J.D. Drew, last year's No. 5 pick, signed a four-year deal with the Cardinals worth a guaranteed $7 million. His signing bonus: $3 million.

Garbe can't comprehend that kind of money.

"It's crazy to think that a figure like that might be thrown out," he said. "I can't imagine being 18 and having something like that."

Big-league talent and salaries with six zeroes haven't eroded his small-town roots. He's a kid who drinks milk, likes to hunt and worries about leaving his friends and family.

Small-town kid

Garbe isn't breaking new ground for the Columbia Basin. Thirty years ago, Dave Heaverlo - then a senior at nearby Ephrata High - told his guidance counselor he wanted to attend college and then play baseball professionally.

"He told me I better get good at pumping gas or working on my Dad's ranch," Heaverlo said. "People around here weren't used to the possibility of playing in the pros."

Heaverlo said he's the first Grant County native to make the major leagues, playing seven years with the A's and Giants.

These days his personality threatens to burst out of the ground floor KBSN studio where he hosts a sports-talk radio show. He shaves his head, wears a Fu Manchu mustache and trumpets the values of his small community in Eastern Washington.

His son, Jeff, also is a potential first-round selection after pitching for Washington the past three years.

The Columbia Basin image hasn't changed much since Heaverlo was drafted in 1973. Agriculture drives the economy. Diesel trucks, dirty fingernails and summer jobs on a local ranch are a way of life for some kids and an essential part of the town's rural self-image.

Garbe is more hip-hop than country music. His sideburns come down to his earlobes, blending into his short haircut. The beginning of a goatee speckles his chin and he drives a pearl-white Eagle that rides low to the ground.

But don't think Garbe is itching to leave the sun-soaked town of 13,700, which hugs the shores of the lake it is named for. This is Garbe's home.

"The community got me to where I'm at right now," he said.

Bill Hayes has lived in Moses Lake for 41 years, working in the cattle business. He has never met Garbe, but he has read about Garbe and his Moses Lake High teammates in the paper.

Earlier this season, he took his granddaughter, Addy, to watch the team play at Larson Park.

"Some day I'll get to look back and say, `I saw him then,' " Hayes said.

Garbe isn't the only attraction. Teammates Jason Cooper and Ryan Doumit also are pegged to be drafted tomorrow.

Cooper, also an outfielder, signed a scholarship to Stanford in November and he is projected to be chosen in the first round. Doumit, a catcher, could go by the fifth round.

They are a source of community pride. Their accomplishments have fueled a feeling that Columbia Basin kids are as good as any in the nation.

It has been an entirely positive story for a community that endured the shooting at Frontier Junior High in 1996.

"People see the satellite trucks rolling into town and they assume the worst," Dave Heaverlo said. "They turn on their TV and instead of something about a school shooting it's a story about these kids."

The trio has been together since kindergarten, when Pete Doumit was in his first year as principal at the school. He has seen the beginning when Ryan and Garbe were 5-year-olds sent to his office for a milk fight at lunch.

He was the coach when the Moses Lake Bambino League All-Stars won the Washington state title in 1993 and when they took third place in a national Junior Babe Ruth tournament as 16-year-olds.

Doumit also was there for the end when his Moses Lake team lost 3-1 to Selah on May 22.

"It's kind of sad," he said. "Everything is ending. School's getting over with. My baseball season is done with."

His prom was May 7. Graduation is June 10 and tomorrow his life will change forever with the draft.

But Sunday, Garbe was focused on his final season of Senior Babe Ruth. It will be his fourth with the Columbia Basin River Dogs, which won last year's national tournament in North Carolina.

He sifted through the pile of teal and navy uniforms, searching for No. 14. He has worn the same number all four years with the team. He's not sure how long he will wear it this year.

"If I sign, it will only be a matter of days before I leave," he said. "I'll miss playing with these guys, but it's one of the sacrifices I have to make if I choose that."

Football is a sacrifice he already has made. Garbe was an all-state quarterback, rushing and passing for 1,000 yards as a senior, but he won't be playing even if he attends Stanford.

The road ahead

In the summer of 1975, Mike Lentz arrived in Walla Walla to begin his professional career with the Padres. The left-hander with a 97-mph fastball out of Juanita High was chosen with the second overall pick, drafted higher than any high-school player in state history.

Five years later his baseball career ended at AA Amarillo after shoulder and knee injuries cut down his velocity.

Lentz remembers the piercing stares when he first stepped into camp.

"Everyone is sizing you up," he said. "When you're a high draft pick and you get a lot of money, you are under the microscope by every other player in the organization."

Last year, his son Ryan was the one looking over other top-round picks after being drafted in the fifth round by the Giants.

Garbe is ready to test his abilities and dedication. Since he was 13, he has been thrown into a talent pool some feared would swallow him up. His Dad, Kerry, thought maybe it was too much when B.J. started Junior American Legion baseball at 13, just one year removed from Little League dimensions. He was fine.

Garbe played for the River Dogs at 15, so young some of his 18-year-old teammates gave him a teddy bear and blanket on the team's first trip so he wouldn't be lonely.

"It's good to be thrown in over your head," he said. "You see what happens. I'm going to be in the same situation, playing against the best, whether it's at a pro camp or at college. I have been in that situation before."

Baseball America rates him as the best pure hitter coming out of high school. He is rated No. 3 in terms of arm strength and overall defensive play.

But Lentz cautioned that it's a whole different game in the pros. One he wasn't quite prepared for.

"If I had the attitude, it would have been different because I definitely had the physical tools," Lentz said.

Garbe knows signing out of high school will mean a trip to some small town to compete alongside other 18- to 21-year-olds chasing the same ticket up the minor-league ladder.

"The minor leagues are not a pretty place," Garbe said. "I know I've got a lot of work ahead of me if that's what I want."

He is hoping everything works out. He will wait to see what happens tomorrow and then evaluate whether he is headed to Stanford or rookie ball. The contract negotiations will be handled by his dad and his financial advisor.

How much money is he going to get? Kids at school have left him speechless with that question.

"I couldn't say how much I'm worth," he said. "That's for the team to decide."

Moses Lake High held a rally for Garbe last week after Gatorade chose him the national player of the year. The award puts Garbe in select company, alongside Gary Sheffield and Alex Rodriguez as one of the 14 players to win the award.

It was the same day annuals were distributed, and students Garbe didn't even know asked him to sign their yearbook.

"Just say you knew me or something," some said.

He tries to keep a low profile. The town won't let him.

His awards and medals are stuffed somewhere in his closet. A plaque hangs in the den outside Garbe's room, but his name isn't on it. It's a framed certificate commemorating Dad's hole-in-one from 1983.

"I get enough attention," he said. "I don't need to parade it around."

But his Mom would prefer his room received a little more attention.

T-shirts litter the floor below a rack with 15 wood bats. Balls are scattered across the room and a layer of dust coats his stereo.

He has a million-dollar swing and drinks milk with breakfast, but the All-America boy isn't so different from most 18-year-olds when it comes to tidiness.

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Bumper crop.

It's being called the best draft crop in state history. As many as seven players have been talked about as having first-round potential:

B.J. Garbe, OF. Moses Lake High. 6-foot-1, 200 pounds

Baseball America rates the five-tool prospect as the best high-school athlete available in the draft. His arm is strong enough to throw a 93-mph fastball, but his defensive skills and smooth swing mean he won't be pitching anymore.

Jason Stumm, RHP. Centralia High. 6-2, 200

He signed to play at the University of Washington, but that was before his stock soared during the season. Baseball America ranked him No. 3 among high-school pitchers in the category of closest to the majors.

Ty Howington, LHP. Hudson's Bay. 6-5, 220

The draft's top left-handed prospect struck out the first 10 batters he faced Friday in a Class 4A semifinal against top-ranked Columbia River. He finished the game with 17.

Jeff Heaverlo, RHP. University of Washington (Ephrata High). 6-1, 180 pounds

He was chosen in the 13th round out of Ephrata High three years ago and elected to go to Washington. He excelled in a wood-bat league last summer, earning co-MVP honors in the Cape Cod League.

Jason Repko, OF. Hanford. 5-11, 175

Good enough to tie Garbe for conference player of the year honors. He is signed to play at San Diego State.

Gerik Baxter, RHP. Edmonds-Woodway. 6-2, 185 The 19-year-old has a sound delivery and his fastball has been clocked as high as 95 mph. A scholarship to Texas awaits if he doesn't sign a contract.

Jason Cooper, OF. Moses Lake. 6-3, 220 He throws right, but bats left-handed. Cooper is a power hitter who also has a 4.0 GPA and a full-ride scholarship to Stanford, which he will take if he doesn't get a suitable offer.