Mark Grace can offer encouragement for college and high school players who were not picked as high as they expected in Thursday’s draft.
“You can still make it as a late-round draft pick,” Grace said. “The clubs won’t do you any favors. They focus on the first- and second-round picks, because that’s where their investment is. But you still can make it.”
Grace ought to know. A lifetime .304 hitter in the big leagues, he had to wait until the 24th round before the Cubs drafted him in June 1985. Grace’s coaches at San Diego State assured him he would be picked between the fifth and 10th rounds.
“It was disappointing when I wasn’t picked the first day,” Grace recalled. “The next day, Spider Jorgensen called and said, `Congratulations, you’ve been drafted by the Cubs.” I asked what round, and he told me the 24th.”
The rap on Grace, then as now, was that he “didn’t have home run power.”
Grace, who had been drafted out of high school in the 15th round by the Twins, considered rejecting the Cubs draft and its offer of a $5,000 signing bonus. “My scholarship in college was worth more than that,” he said.
However, Grace played that summer in a strong amateur league in Alaska and in the national amateur tournament in Kansas. His play so impressed Cubs brass that they upped the signing ante to $30,000.
“I talked it over with my dad,” Grace said, “and we decided that I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t take this chance.”
Grace showed home run power his first two years in the minors, hitting 15 homers at Class A Peoria and 17 at Double A Pittsfield. Early in his Cubs career, general manager Jim Frey tried to convert Grace into a power swinger as he had Ryne Sandberg.
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“It was 1990,” Grace recalled, “and at about midseason, I was hitting .263 and had two home runs. Zim called me in and said, `Do it your way.’ “
Cubs centerfielder Brian McRae was Kansas City’s first-round pick in the the same 1985 draft that claimed Grace in round No. 24.