During the waning moments before Monday night's deadline to sign with the Orioles, Adam Loewen tried calming his nerves by playing a Tiger Woods video game, while his agent wrestled through the million-dollar negotiations.
"I couldn't move the joystick because my hands were so sweaty," Loewen, 19, said yesterday, reflecting on a decision he made from his home in Surrey, British Columbia, with less than 15 minutes to spare.
Fifty-one weeks after the Orioles had made him the fourth overall pick in the June amateur draft, Loewen started thinking about their final offer: five years for $4 million.
Not exactly Tiger Woods money, but hardly pocket change. So Loewen decided to take it.
After reaching a stalemate earlier in the evening trying to negotiate a straight signing bonus for closer to $3 million, the Orioles took the rare, but not unprecedented, step of offering a draft pick a major league contract.
Loewen realized he was losing some bargaining power in future years, but the words "major league contract" made all the difference.
"I don't think it's far-fetched to see me in the majors in two or three years," Loewen said yesterday. And if he felt that way, he wanted the Orioles to think so, too.
Loewen, a 6-foot-6 left-handed pitcher, went 6-1 this season with a 1.83 ERA with Chipola Junior College in Marianna, Fla. He took the junior college route last fall after a frustrating summer negotiating with the Orioles under former vice president of baseball operations Syd Thrift.
The Orioles drew the line at $2.5 million, and Loewen drew his at $3.9 million. The sides seemed worlds apart, and they weren't allowed to negotiate again until Chipola's season ended on May 10.
If a deal hadn't been reached by yesterday at 12:01 a.m., Loewen would have gone back into the pool for next week's draft, and the Orioles would have received a supplemental-round pick (No. 37 overall) as compensation.
But Loewen said he sensed a change this spring. The Orioles had replaced Thrift with Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan over the winter. He sensed a bigger commitment from the organization to getting something done.
"It's quite the difference," Loewen said. "Last year, I didn't even know who the GM was or any of them. They came to all my games [this spring], and I met with them, and they're real nice people."
Flanagan and Beattie are also accomplished former big league pitchers.
