By John Klima
Staff Writer

Back in the old days – which, thanks to technology, now means ten years ago – there were only two ways to follow what has since been renamed Major League Baseball’s First Year Player Draft. One was to have the baseball connections to obtain the lucky numbers that would allow for access to listen to the closed conference call conducted by the clubs. The other was to have the trust of scouts who would share selections. The draft was carried out by a closed society. Not even players drafted in the later rounds always knew if they had been picked.

From its inception in 1965 to the beginning of this decade, the baseball draft was a mystery, and, as the NFL and the NBA drafts became marquee events, the baseball draft stayed buried in the corner. In the years before the Internet, before something called a text message, when a newspaper was the primary means of conveying obscure information, following the draft was like brushing dirt off the edges of a stone. You had to know where to look, because baseball wasn’t going to do it for you.

Not coincidentally, this is how the baseball industry wanted it, figuring that no one cared about players who would vanish into the minor leagues for five years or more. This also gave the scouts leeway to navigate their players through the amateur maze. It could be a beautiful thing if a scout could make it work.

It’s not as remote as it sounds. Ten years ago this June, Angel reliever Scot Shields was picked in the 38th round. He had thrown a bullpen session for scout Tom Kotchman and never got a phone call. He thought he had blown his chance, but awoke a few days after the draft to the noise of a currier banging on his door. It was a package from Kotchman notifying him that he had been drafted.

"I thought somebody was selling insurance or something," recalled Shields. "The guy kept knocking, which was probably a good thing. I got up and saw the package from the Angels, and that was that. That’s how I got drafted."

That’s all there was then. The draft was an in-house, scouts-only production run with the intention of keeping the world in the dark. It was about hustling for players and keeping college coaches out of the loop. More than anything, it was about a non-public, non-televised event. Jimmie Lee Solomon never agreed with that thinking.

From the other side of the world, you can hear Solomon’s determination to break down old walls.

“I wondered years ago why we didn’t try to televise our draft,” Solomon said this week in a phone interview from China, where he was traveling with a baseball delegation to oversee facilities and the new office Major League Baseball recently opened in Beijing.

Times have changed. After five years of Solomon’s prodding, planning and production, baseball’s draft comes to basic cable on Thursday, when ESPN2 will air each club’s first-round pick in a made-for-TV event at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Fl. It’s a natural progression that follows the entire draft rounds being posted on MLB.com and the shortening of the draft to 50 rounds in this decade.

It won’t be the same as the NFL and the NBA spectacles at first, but this is an important start. The horse-and-buggy era of the draft is over. The courier is no longer needed. Now, baseball will be its own messenger. This was Solomon’s design. For the first time in the game’s history, a televised commissioner will announce the roster of the chosen. Never has the old adage about no more secrets been more true.

“I went and talked to the guys at MLB.com and they told me about all the hits and traffic they were getting. People would hang in there to see if a player would come from a certain school, or if a family member would be drafted, or if a certain player would be drafted by the club he grew up rooting for. When I saw the traffic numbers, I thought it was a no-brainer for us to go forward.”

Change, however, doesn’t come easily in baseball. Solomon knows this, having been in the Commissioner’s office for 16 years, the last three as Executive Vice President of Operations. Televising the draft has been a goal of Solomon’s for the past five years because he envisioned it as a way for baseball to market individuals rather than only the game.

A lawyer by trade, Solomon argued that baseball was making a mistake by ignoring the draft. He observed the drastic changes that have occurred in player development. Clubs want the finished product. A scout has to argue for a crude player, but more likely that player has to go to college to get the experience he once would have received in the lower level of professional baseball.

As player development costs exploded, the idea of a player playing his way out of a job become obsolete. Clubs demand talent that gets from amateur to the big leagues as soon as possible. They will spend their money on signing the domestic player rather than developing him. Solomon saw this trend and saw an opportunity for baseball to change years of stagnant thinking. Instead of a back room operation in which scouting directors hold court like poker players, Solomon would shine the flood lights, and make the poker players put on the shades.

“There were some people from the old school of thought who believed the draft was something that the public would not be interested in because most of the kids, if they signed, would go into the minor leagues for three or more years and make no contribution to the major league club for several seasons. But a lot of these kids were making a contribution to the major league level much sooner than people thought.”

College baseball has become what Class D and Class C baseball used to be decades ago. And, with the end of draft-and-follow picks in this year’s draft – part of the new collective bargaining agreement – it means that pro clubs will take the best amateurs and the rest will play in college. The line from the amateur ranks to the major leagues has never been shorter, and this is born from cost effectiveness, as well as impatience, the bane of player development.

Solomon believed baseball could capitalize on the trends within the industry itself. He sees the draft as more than a lineup of top shelf amateurs. Like the NFL and the NBA, he envisions the MLB draft as not only a preview, but a showcase for the league. Solomon’s imprint is growing in the game, and many of the projects the draft telecast will advertise were of his workings. Foremost among them are the Urban Academy, which is already sending players to pro ball and could have as many as five players drafted this week. Solomon led the initiative to build the first facility in Compton and wants to open the next one in Atlanta.

There’s a common theme to Solomon’s efforts, one that runs contrary to traditional lines. Baseball has always been sold as an institution. Solomon believes in the individual. This is not to suggest that baseball should abandon its historical heritage. But it is to suggest that it should embrace new ways to celebrate its individual stars.

Pitchers Joe Smith (Mets), Brandon Morrow (Mariners) and Tim Lincecum (Giants) were drafted in 2006 and on major league staffs this year. It’s not limited to college pitchers, either. The Milwaukee Brewers are the finest example of this, with an all-drafted infield of first baseman Prince Fielder (2002 from high school), second baseman Rickie Weeks (2003 from college), shortstop J.J. Hardy (2001 from high school) and third baseman Ryan Braun (2005 from college).

What Solomon has done, in effect, is send a very loud message to the old money of the game that if a worldview of baseball begins and ends in the major leagues, then that is a mistake. Solomon’s view is that the game should celebrate the players of major league baseball, not simply major league baseball players. Televising the draft is yet another example. The Urban Academy, which is about developing personalities as much as players, is another tactic. Solomon pushed for The Futures Game, which is now a staple of All-Star festivities. He was also behind the Civil Rights Game as a means of drawing attention to players of another time.

The draft is about more than learning names before they come to the big leagues. The same can be said about the Futures Game and the Academy, programs he shepherded. This is Solomon’s contribution. Why start from scratch the moment a player settles into a major league batter’s box for the first time? An entire industry sprung up from ignoring the layers of baseball that exist before the majors. Solomon sought to reclaim something baseball ignored, imploring the industry that it’s more effective to build an audience from the bottom up than from the top down.

John Klima is a national baseball writer for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group.