The Law Offices of David Pasti

Washington Post Magazine----Sunday, May 26, 2002; Page W10

The Long Shot
By Jim Naughton

A meager breeze ferries the big-league sounds from Roger Dean Stadium across acres of sunbaked Florida practice fields to where Dave Pasti sits watching a different ballgame. Now and then, he can hear the stadium's public-address announcer call out the lineups for today's game. Roberto Alomar. Mike Piazza. Mo Vaughn. But his attention is on the anonymous raft of minor leaguers he is watching from a squat set of bleachers. For five seasons, Pasti has been dogging high school, college and minor league games, hunting for kids who need an agent, getting to know their families, persuading them to use his services and accompanying them on the long Darwinian march toward the major leagues.

There is the faint call of more names from the stadium. Jose Vidro. Vladimir Guerrero. Someday, Pasti is convinced, he'll hear the name of one of his clients drifting in amplified echo from a major league stadium. Someday he'll turn a profit in a business that has increasingly consumed him since a midlife crisis six years ago. But at the moment, he, like the six men he represents, is still fighting to escape the minor leagues.

Today his attention is fixed on Tim Hamulack, a left-handed pitcher who has spent six seasons in the Florida Marlins organization. Tall and sturdy, with a sunburn that is painful to behold, Hamulack has just finished warming up, and sits expectantly on the Marlins bench waiting for what might be his last chance to impress the Marlins brass before the season begins. With a bit of luck, Hamulack, 25, might make the roster of Florida's AA affiliate the Portland (Maine) Sea Dogs this season. Without it, he'll spend a fifth season in A ball.

The game, by this point, is a rout. The St. Louis Cardinals are so far ahead that only the teams' statisticians are still keeping score. But for Pasti, the long afternoon in Jupiter, Fla., is just about to get interesting. "This could be big," he says, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, as if he's about to pop up and cheer.

The Marlins' last batter grounds out. Hamulack's moment has seemingly arrived. But the managers have agreed that they've seen enough baseball for the day, so the game is called. Instead of pitching to hitters, Hamulack helps his teammates pack up their equipment and heads for the bus.

"This is just my luck with Tim," Pasti says. As the Marlins are packing up, and waiting for Florida's top minor league club, its AAA affiliate, to finish a game on an adjoining field, Pasti spots the Portland pitching coach, Tom Signore, and decides to put in a few words on Hamulack's behalf.

Signore is dark and solid, wearing a black nylon warmup jersey, a black hat and dark sunglasses. Pasti is small and slender, and as pale as a person who has endured this much sunlight can be. "I represent Tim Hamulack," Pasti says. Signore greets this news with silence and an utter lack of expression. "We'd like to see Tim at Portland this year," Pasti says.

"Tim will be fine," Signore says and excuses himself.

"Well, he was civil," Pasti says. "He said Tim would be fine. I don't know if that means Tim will be in Portland, or that Tim will be in good health, but Tim will be fine."

And fine would be, well, fine, if Pasti had a few other clients who were certain to make the major leagues. Or if he didn't have a wife and three children who are fond of the secure middle-class existence he had previously provided for them. Or if he wasn't pursuing what feels like his last chance to escape from the grasp of a routine that was slowly sapping his spirit. But things being as they are right now, fine just isn't good enough.

For most of his adult life, Dave Pasti, a 42-year-old lawyer from Derwood, has earned his living from humanity's lesser transgressions as defined by the criminal code of the state of Maryland.

Maybe a kid breaks into a car to impress his buddies, or a weekend pot smoker buys some reefer from a cop. Maybe a soccer mom runs a red light because there is a ruckus in the rear seat, or a guy takes a swing at his sister's no-good boyfriend. When things like this happen, lawyers like Pasti get the call. They try to get the charges dropped, or save your driver's license, or get you off with community service or, at worst, a fine. In return they are able to maintain a decent house in a decent school district and maybe get a new kitchen or a winter vacation.

The work is neither glamorous nor intellectually challenging, but the life that comes with it can be a pretty good one if you don't take on too many cases and make yourself nuts. That's how Pasti looked at his situation until a December night six years ago, when he and his wife, Marie, returned home from a rare evening out. Pasti's father, Nick, who had been living with them for a few months, had been sitting for the two Pasti children, Jonathan and Michael. They were only home for a few moments went Nick Pasti seized his chest and collapsed on the floor in the foyer. He died of a heart attack before the ambulance could arrive.

His father's death forced Pasti to confront his own mortality. He became bored with work and found his practice increasingly meaningless. As a man of slowly blossoming ambition, he was unsatisfied by the mark he had made to this point in his life. As a devout Christian, he believed that God intended him for a mission that Pasti had not yet identified. But as a conscientious father, who supported his wife's decision to spend her days with the children, he feared that a dramatic change of course would disrupt the life that he and Marie had created in their developer-built Colonial with the big yard in Derwood.

Pasti faced the dilemma that confronts every thwarted desk jockey or daydreaming romantic who has a screenplay stashed in a drawer, or an idea for a bang-up new business, or a longing to open up a little shop somewhere; the same frustration of every middle-aged malcontent who believes that having a little extra time or a little more money, or making a case to the right person just once, would transform life entirely. Pasti's emotional needs, in other words, were at odds with his obligations.

He didn't know precisely what he wanted to do, but he knew that his new pursuit would have to meet three criteria. Because he was the sole financial supporter of his family, it would have to afford him a decent income. It would have to be a moral enterprise that, in Pasti's words, "gave greater glory to God." Perhaps most important, it would have to restore the enthusiasm he felt leaking from his life.

Pasti sought guidance in self-help literature, immersing himself in the works of Tony Robbins and Zig Ziglar. He prayed and sought counsel from people he respected at work and at church. Gradually, over a period of almost two years, he formulated his vision of a more fulfilling future: He was going to become a sports agent.

This was an idea that, at first blush, seemed to fall short of meeting requirements one and two. An agent can't make money without clients, and most established athletes sign with established agents, so the prospects of quick financial success were slim. And, as any reader of the sports page knows, the profession is notable neither for its piety nor its altruism. Not every agent squanders his clients' money on self-enriching investments or tempts college athletes out of their eligibility, but even the most reputable agents are lightning rods for controversy. Their job is to get their clients as rich as possible, so appearing avaricious comes with the territory.

Pasti knew all this. Yet he had always loved sports, especially baseball. Before he and Marie got married he played on five different softball teams in a single season. And he'd always loved challenges. Putting himself through law school, succeeding in private practice, all these things convinced him that he could achieve almost anything he set his mind to.

Having plea-bargained hundreds of misdemeanors and a few dozen felonies, he felt himself well schooled in the negotiator's art. He was certain that there were players and players'

parents who would be eager to have a mild, scrupulous, churchgoing fellow as their representative.

"I'm not so bold as to say that this is God's will for my life," he says. "But if your motives are right and you are trying to do good, I believe God will honor that."

In 1998, he began to wean himself -- and his family, which would soon include a third son, Sammy -- from his law practice, and to devote ever-increasing amounts of time to building his practice as an agent. Backed by the small inheritance that his father had left him, he began attending high school and local college baseball games, cultivating coaches, getting to know scouts and learning most of his lessons the hard way.

On a cool evening last May, Pasti headed north on I-270 to Frederick, where the Salem Avalanche was playing the hometown Keys. One of his clients, Chris Warren, a Howard University alumnus, was an infielder for the Avalanche, a Class A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. Most major league franchises support at least two teams at the A level, one more advanced than the other. The Carolina League, which includes the Keys and the Potomac Cannons, is considered "high A," while the South Atlantic League, whose nearest local representative is the Delmarva Shorebirds, is considered "low A."

A player who makes it past high A can sometimes piece together a future in baseball, even if he never makes the major leagues. Perhaps his attitude and intellect endear him to an organization looking for coaches or scouts. Or maybe he goes home and, on the strength of his credentials, finds at job with a high school or college. Clearing high A, in most cases, determines whether you've had a career or a sojourn. So, Chris Warren was at a turning point. Six weeks into the season he was hitting .281 with three home runs and eight runs batted in. Not bad, but not great, and he wasn't in the lineup every day, which indicated the Rockies didn't regard him as a top prospect.

"He's got good athletic skills," Pasti said, as he weaved through the mostly empty parking lot of Harry Grove Stadium, "but he has to refine his baseball skills."

Pasti prefers to watch the game from behind home plate, a taste he acquired from major league scouts who like to observe the battle between pitcher and hitter at close range. Before he began spectating in earnest, however, Pasti had some socializing to do. Warren's girlfriend, Ronee Stephens, was seated in the row behind him. Relationships with players' family and friends are extremely important to sports agents, particularly those who practice law and aren't supposed to solicit clients directly.

Pasti and Stephens didn't really know each other, yet they had a bond that each of them recognized. No two people in the stadium, perhaps no two people anywhere, had as much riding on how Chris Warren performed last season. For Stephens, the contours of a relationship were at stake. How long would Warren pursue a career in baseball? Where would the Rockies send him, and what would she have to sacrifice if she wanted to follow? For Pasti, the issues were less emotionally charged, but perhaps no less significant. Would Warren mature into a real prospect? Would he ever repay the time Pasti invested in him, or the money that he had spent on gifts, such as spikes and batting gloves, that even minor league players expect from their agents?

These questions would be answered in installments, one of which began not long after they sat down, when Warren came to bat with two out in a scoreless game. Pasti hunched forward, hands folded between his knees. Stephens talked with a girlfriend about another woman's wedding, but she had one eye on the game.

In the space of four pitches it became apparent that word was out in the Carolina League: Warren had trouble with the breaking ball. Either that or the Keys pitcher had made this happy discovery for himself. Three of the four pitches he threw Warren were curveballs, and the last one caught the outside corner for strike three.

"Ooh! Got him," Pasti said, wincing. "Gosh, breaking ball. I saw him freeze."

The night didn't get a whole lot better for Warren. In the top of the fifth he went down flailing at a 1-2 fastball. In the top of the seventh, showing admirable patience, he took five pitches to work the count full, fouled one back and then struck out looking for the second time.

"Looked like off-speed," Pasti said. "Looked like a change-up." He had just finished the hot dog that constituted his dinner. "The thing about a guy like Chris is that when he gets in the lineup he has to perform. A guy like Choo Freeman," he said, mentioning the Rockies' top draft choice who signed for $1.4 million in 1998, "he could be batting .120 and he'd still be in the lineup. They have a lot invested in him, so he's going to get a chance. But if you aren't considered a prospect, your window of opportunity is very small."

Pasti has represented 13 players, but seven have already given up the game. As of last spring, he had yet to land a client who had been chosen within the first five rounds of the annual June draft, and none had reached even AAA. Pasti has never negotiated a major league contract, nor have his clients commanded the kind of signing bonuses that would allow him -- on the 2 percent commission agents typically charge minor leaguers -- to make a complete break from practicing law.

His biggest payday came in 2000, when he advised Taylor Buchholz, a right-handed pitcher who received a $375,000 signing bonus after being chosen in the sixth round by the Philadelphia Phillies. At that early stage in his career, Pasti had decided to charge only a 1 percent commission, so he earned $3,750. "I could do one DWI case [for the same fee] and the amount of time I've spent is 10 times more," Pasti says.

Yet he continues to believe that he is closing in on success. This spring he thought he was making inroads with Jared Doyle, a pitcher at James Madison University whom several authoritative baseball publications predicted would be drafted within the first five rounds. Pasti made several trips to Harrisonburg to talk with Doyle and his family and to watch the left-hander pitch. Then, just before his trip to spring training, the Doyles told him that Jared was going to be represented by top agent Tom Rich.

"What are you going to do?" Pasti says. "The guy represents Sammy Sosa."

The Pastis' home sits at the end of a cul-de-sac near Shady Grove Adventist Hospital. A long driveway runs to the door. Trikes and scooters are scattered in the front yard. In the living room, neat stacks of games like Sorry! and Chutes and Ladders peek from behind heavy, Early American furniture. On the walls hang quotes from the Bible and the marriage covenant that Dave and Marie signed back in 1992. This is the world that Marie Pasti, a former social worker, has maintained while raising three boys under age 8 and watching her husband pursue his uncertain future.

The Pastis met through church. A mutual friend introduced them on a singles retreat sponsored by the Fourth Presbyterian Church on River Road in Potomac. Marie, bad with names,

wasn't sure who Dave was when he called her a few days later. "I was hoping it was who I thought it was, which was him," she says. "But I liked his voice and his manner so based on that I said yes." Nine months later, they were married.

Before she met Dave, Marie had traveled to the Dominican Republic to help build a church there, and she'd spent a summer teaching English in China. "I always saw myself as a person helping people where everything led to the social value," she says. "I was attracted to Dave because we both had an interest in working with youth."

She had worked at the American Red Cross and the American Lung Association before they were married, but had always planned on staying home to raise her children. Pasti's law practice made that possible, yet it left him with a manageable schedule. For six years, they lived the family-centered life she had always wanted, and that she thought Dave had wanted, too.

"I think I was a little spoiled before," Marie says. "He really was the type who put the family first. I was used to him coming home by 5:30 or 6 and helping with the children."

Pasti's plan to become an agent troubled her from the start. "I didn't know anything about sports agents except Jerry Maguire," Marie says. But Dave took it as a challenge.

It was a challenge for her as well, and sometimes she wasn't sure he realized that. From 1994 to 1997, Pasti's earnings had grown steadily until he was making about $55,000 a year. But when he committed himself to baseball, his income plummeted, and gradually she felt the financial pinch as well. At first he made up the difference from the inheritance his father had left him. Marie watched that money vanish and wondered if their personal savings and retirement accounts might be next.

Not only was Pasti earning less money, he was spending evenings and weekends at ballgames. With three children in the house, Marie began to feel overwhelmed. "I do want to support him, but there are situations we have to discuss and compromises as to how this thing is going to come about," she says. "I'm still questioning: 'Is this going to happen and when is it going to happen?' "

Last summer, it occurred to Marie that she was probably not the only Christian woman in Montgomery County who wanted to remain loyal to her husband but feared for the stability of her family. By putting out a few feelers at church, she learned that her predicament was common among wives of self-employed men. Figuring that at the very least they could share one another's struggles, Marie organized a group.

"Sometimes we just talk about the difficulties," she says. "But I didn't want it to be just complaining." So once a month, at a member's home, the wives of building contractors, software engineers, small-business owners and one fledgling sports agent hold hands, bow their heads and pray that God will heal the fissures in their marriages and bless their husbands with success.

The group always meets at night, Marie says, "so the husbands have to watch the kids."

Big-name agents fly first class, and their clients travel on chartered jets, but the guys Pasti represents get around in buses, and he follows them in a beige Corolla that is a couple of years past its prime. Last May, a few nights after Chris Warren's game in Frederick, Pasti was in the middle of a low-rent road trip.

Mid-May is to prospects, scouts and agents what mid-October is to political candidates and consultants. The major league draft is held during the first week of June, and everyone is scrambling for an advantage at the eleventh hour.

After a week of working the phones, Pasti believed he had a real shot at two pitchers, a high school senior from Northern Virginia and a junior from Towson University named Bryan Simmering. He was hoping to seal both deals with visits on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. He was also planning to attend the annual convention of the Sports Lawyers Association in Philadelphia over the weekend.

We met at a droopy-looking Days Inn near a commercial airfield in Wilmington, Del., about an hour before the game. We planned to watch Simmering play in a college tournament, then hop in the Toyota and drive two-plus hours to Salisbury, Md., where Taylor Buchholz, who then played for the Lakewood (N.J.) BlueClaws, was scheduled to pitch against the Shorebirds.

No sooner had we said hello than Pasti told me his bad news. The pitcher from Virginia had developed a sore arm. His fastball, which usually registered at almost 90 mph, had fallen into the low 80s by the second inning of the game Pasti had attended the night before. The trouble was probably minor -- just a muscle strain -- but the timing couldn't have been worse. Major league teams wouldn't take a chance on him until they knew he was healthy, and by that time the draft would be over. So a kid who might have been chosen in the first 10 rounds would probably not be chosen until after the 20th, meaning that he would be offered a meager signing bonus, and, in Pasti's opinion, should probably take the college scholarship he had been offered and prepare for the draft the next time he is eligible, which, under major league rules, is after his junior year. After a year's worth of work, Pasti was facing the possibility that Simmering would be his only client in the draft.

Still, he was upbeat as we pulled into the stadium parking lot in Wilmington. Bryan's father, who lives in Colorado, had flown in to watch his son pitch and to formalize the family's arrangement with Pasti. We caught up with him outside the stadium, and he told us where the family was sitting. As the Towson Tigers and the Black Bears from the University of Maine completed their warmups, Pasti and the Simmerings convened in seats between home plate and the first base dugout to work out the terms.

Pasti's unaffected manner was a real advantage with Bob Simmering, a folksy sort who sported a flannel shirt and boots. Soft-spoken but direct, Pasti laid out Bryan's options with a clarity developed in describing much less attractive prospects to drunk drivers, wife beaters and small-time drug dealers. He was up front about his own economic interest in seeing Bryan forgo his senior year of college to enter the draft but pointed out that, as a junior, Bryan still had a little bit of leverage in negotiations with a major league club because he could always spurn the club to complete his senior year. If he were to wait to enter the draft until he was a senior, however, he'd be without even that meager card to play.

As Pasti spoke with the Simmerings, the seats behind home plate filled up with scouts, suntanned men with close-cropped hair, muscular jaws and athletic builds. All of them wore khakis and carried a small black case in which they kept the primary tool of their trade, the radar gun. The gun, a black tube or rectangular box mounted on a vertical grip measures a pitcher's velocity.

Pasti sat down beside me after a few minutes, just as a recording of Cher singing the national anthem was scratching mercifully to a close. (The brave! The brave! THE BRAVE!) "That's all worked out," he said quietly, referring to his arrangement with the Simmerings.

There were about 100 fans in the stands, about 15 of whom were major league scouts, all but one of whom were there to see Simmering. The exception was a scout for the San Diego Padres, who was so fond of Maine's starting pitcher that he had persuaded his director of scouting, Brad Sloan, to come out and have a look. That man's day took an immediate downturn when the first Towson hitter lined a home run over the left field fence.

"I sure can pick 'em," the Padres scout said with a self-deprecating chuckle. By the end of the inning Towson was ahead, 3-0. "This goes under the heading of inauspicious starts," the scout said.

When Simmering took the mound, the scouts raised their guns. His fastball measured in the 88-90-mph range, good but not great. Pasti was hunched over watching him warm up. The only thing against Simmering, he said, was that at 6 feet even, he was considered small for a pitcher.

Simmering cruised through the first inning. Three up, three down. His fastball was consistently 88-90. His curveball was his best pitch, and it was breaking sharply enough to be appreciated even by the loners who had chosen to sit in the upper deck of the nearly empty stadium.

With one out in the bottom of the third, Simmering walked the second hitter. It was the first runner he had allowed, and the Maine manager decided to make the most of it. As Simmering released the ball, the Maine runner bluffed a dash for second and the Towson shortstop broke to cover the bag. But the Maine hitter drilled a ground ball through the hole that the shortstop had just created. Instead of getting an inning-ending double play, Simmering found himself with runners on first and second and one out. Young pitchers sometimes lose their composure after a bad break, so despite Towson's comfortable lead, the rest of the inning was suddenly significant.

Working quickly, mixing his curve and his fastball, Simmering struck out the next hitter, and then the next. A few of the scouts exchanged knowing glances, and the Padres scout allowed that maybe he'd been watching the wrong pitcher. It was a casual remark, but Pasti suddenly realized that it put him in a delicate spot. An agent can't ethically eavesdrop on these kinds of conversations.

"Before you say anything," he said, turning to face them, "I represent Bryan. I didn't want to hear anything under false pretenses." Pasti's tone was friendly, but there was no response.

"You're Brad Sloan," Pasti said to the scouting director. "I recognize your picture."

Nothing.

Pasti returned his attention to the game, seemingly defeated, then turned around again. "I'm Dave Pasti, by the way." He offered his hand and Sloan took it without enthusiasm. "I represent Joel Klatt, but I haven't seen him since spring training," Pasti said. Klatt, an infielder, was playing "short season" A ball -- that's one level below low A -- in the Padres organization.

"That so," Sloan said, and a few minutes later, he and the scout got up and left.

After watching Simmering from behind the plate, the scouts decamped to a spot along the left field line, just beyond third base. From there they studied the right-handed pitcher's arm action, looking for flaws in Simmering's delivery that might cause him to wear out his arm prematurely. Matt Anderson, a scout who was then with the Montreal Expos, remained behind, scribbling in a palm-size notebook. Anderson is the scout who recommended that the Expos draft Brandon Agamennone, another of Pasti's clients, and he and Pasti have a working relationship.

About Pasti's career prospects he said, "He has the ability to handle the legal negotiations and an understanding of how the business works. Some guys like a big name like IMG [International Management Group], but others like somebody who they think is going to have a personal interest in them. All it takes is two or three really good players on long-term contracts to make your living."

The scouts were not about to tell him whatever they learned about Simmering's arm motion, and with the score 15-3 in the top of the sixth, Pasti decided it was time to head for Salisbury. Once on the road, he began talking fast. "I knew there were other college tournaments going on, so I wasn't expecting to see so many scouts there," he said. "My mind was racing. What does it all mean? You see the scouts, you wonder, how does this equate? Where might he go in the draft? Should our expectations be higher based on this?"

He felt confident that Simmering would go within the first 12 rounds and wondered if trying to arrange a personal workout for him with some of the major league teams within driving distance would boost his stock even further. Draft day seemed a less dismal proposition than it had just 24 hours earlier.

We were making the trip to Salisbury, through small towns and farms, past irrigation networks that gleam like silver dinosaur skeletons, so Pasti could keep in touch with the player whom most scouts regard as his most promising client. At 20, Taylor Buchholz already had the body and fastball of a major league pitcher. He's 6-foot-3, 225 pounds, with a textbook delivery and a 94-mph fastball. He was the kind of player whom other agents were bound to notice eventually, and Pasti wanted to make sure that their relationship was solid when some of his predatory peers came calling.

"When you are an agent, you have to realize that some of these young kids are impressionable," he said. "And trust is not the first thing on their list."

Trust, however, is primarily what Pasti is selling. The essence of his pitch is that he will do the right thing for you, he'll advise you to do the right thing as he perceives it, and, when authorized, he will do the right thing on your behalf. All of which might make him an exemplary individual, but will it make him an effective negotiator, ego-massager and endorsement-monger?

"I'm not going to be able to live and die on this whole trust thing," he said as we continued south through Delaware. "I have to appear confident. I have to make an impression." He fiddled with the radio, trying to raise the broadcast of Buchholz's game, but we were still too far from Salisbury. "I have to work on my agent clothes," Pasti said. "I've got casual, and I've got the suits, but I don't have that."

Once when Pasti dropped in on Agamennone at the Expos camp, he had worn a T-shirt that said "My Three Sons" and had his three boys' handprints on it. Later he found out that some of the players had told Agamennone that his agent didn't look "big-league." Pasti felt chastened.

"I'm pretty comfortable with who I am. I mean, this is it," he said. "But it isn't so much me having a certain identity as what my players expect of me. I don't want to lose somebody because they are embarrassed."

Although he will represent almost anyone whose talents he believes in, Pasti has tried to make a specialty out of representing players who share his Christian values, and therefore might not judge him primarily on his wardrobe. He has excellent contacts within the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Face to Face Ministries. But so far this network hasn't deposited any top-flight talent on his doorstep.

About 30 miles north of Salisbury we raised the game on the radio. The Shorebirds led, 3-0, in the fourth.

"Wow, that's not good," Pasti said. It was not good on two counts. For one thing, Buchholz was losing. For another, the game must have started earlier than we had thought it would, and if Buchholz went a typical six or seven innings, he could be out of the game before we got there.

For all his promise, Buchholz had been rocked by minor league hitters. He was 1-9 going into that night's game, yet the BlueClaws gave him the ball every fifth day because the Phillies player development people believed he would come around. He had shown flashes of his promise throughout the season, and that night he retired seven Shorebirds in a row.

We pulled into the parking lot in the bottom of the sixth, hurried up the ramp to the stadium and dropped into seats behind the screen. No sooner were we seated than a Shorebird smacked one of Buchholz's offerings over the right-center-field fence and into the night.

"See that," Pasti said. "We get here and . . ."

Buchholz left the game after seven innings. He was trailing, 4-1, and would eventually pick up the loss. Pasti walked down near the dugout, and asked a batboy to tell Buchholz he was there. The dejected young pitcher materialized just long enough to say that no, he didn't feel like going for something to eat after the game, but thanks for coming.

Three hours later we were back in Wilmington. In the previous 36 hours, Pasti had driven roughly eight hours to watch a total of about 12 innings of baseball in three different states.

Of all his clients, Pasti identifies most closely with Brandon Agamennone, the versatile right-handed pitcher in the Montreal organization. A graduate of the University of Maryland, "Aggie" was a 20th-round draft pick in 1998 who signed for a $1,000 bonus. He doesn't throw an overpowering fastball, but he works hard, studies hitters closely and spots his pitches well.

For his pains, he's been bounced around the Expos farm system, frequently landing one level lower than his previous season's performance would have indicated that he deserved. "His career and my career are the same thing," Pasti said. "Nothing is going to be given." But late last May, Agamennone was elevated from the AA Harrisburg Senators to the AAA Ottawa Lynx. Now the major leagues -- by no means guaranteed -- were one jump away. As it happened, the Lynx were on a road trip that included four games against the Richmond Braves, and Pasti seized the opportunity to treat his client to a celebratory dinner.

Agamennone's promotion was not Pasti's only cause for optimism. A few days earlier, the parents of Kyle Jackson, a high school pitcher in New Hampshire, had approached the commissioner of an independent professional league based in Nashua about representing their son in the draft. The commissioner called Pasti, with whom he had had a few phone conversations, and offered to split the representation fee if Pasti would give him advice.

The Jacksons "just walked into his office," he marveled, the windshield wipers working furiously in a rainy rush-hour traffic jam on the Beltway as we headed toward Richmond. "That really amazed me, considering all the time I put in recruiting clients."

No sooner had he said this than his cell phone rang. It was the commissioner from New Hampshire. The Boston Red Sox had been in touch with Jackson and his parents, and they were coming into his office in a few minutes to discuss the meeting. Pasti's end of the connection went like this:

"Did they talk rounds?" he said.

"Yeah. The thing is, rounds equals dollars."

"Yeah. But they can't just wait to see what the team offers. The important thing is for them to be clear about their expectations. The team has to know what it will take to sign him. If they don't know, they might not draft him."

"Okay," he said, and hung up.

"The family is there right now," he said.

The rain was still falling, and a call to the Braves switchboard confirmed that the game had been postponed. Pasti left a message at Agamennone's hotel, suggesting that we have dinner together. A few minutes later the commissioner called again.

This time, Pasti did little talking. "They've come to a meeting of the minds," he told me when he hung up. The Red Sox had told the Jacksons that they might choose Kyle as early as the sixth round. Suddenly Pasti's draft day plate was a little bit fuller.

We met Agamennone in the lobby of his hotel and repaired to a nearby Bennigan's. At 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds, he is solidly muscled but not so buff that he diminishes one of baseball's principal sporting distinctions: Its athletes can be mistaken for ordinary people.

All minor leaguers toil in the shadow of the major leagues, but AAA players occasionally catch a little sunlight of their own. They take planes more often than they take buses, dress in more spacious clubhouses, receive more services (primarily laundry) and enjoy better postgame buffets. Yet, for players like Agamennone, it can be difficult to make ends meet. After U.S. and Canadian taxes, he earns about $375 per week. Because he might be transferred from one Expos farm club to another at any moment, he lived in a hotel rather than an apartment, which meant that he ate most of his meals out. Off-season employment is what keeps players like Agamennone afloat.

"Being in the minor leagues, you pay your dues and you pay them heavily," he said. "So when people come up for the multimillion-dollar contracts, I don't blame them for trying to get everything they can, because the time is short. On the outside you hear about agents like Scott Boras, and people say the salaries they are negotiating are ruining the game. But he's somebody who, from the inside, the players love because he gets them anything and everything."

Pasti is Agamennone's second agent. His previous representative had a stable of minor league clients -- too many for Agamennone's taste. Once he asked the agent to get him a glove. "He gave me batting gloves. I said, 'I'm a pitcher,' and he's like, 'Oh.' "

Both men were making their way through tall glasses of Coke. "It all comes down to personal attention," Agamennone said. As a late-round draft pick, he didn't need an agent to negotiate his minuscule signing bonus, he said. He didn't need an agent to dig up endorsements that, given his situation, were unlikely, and he didn't need one to buff his nonexistent public image or to fend off uninterested media. What he needed was someone to encourage him, nudge his career along and buy him the occasional pair of spikes.

"The question is, who is willing to talk with you about the game or give the team a call and ask them how they think you are doing," he said. "A lot of agents just sit there and wait for you to make them money. It's been a lot different with Dave."

When the food arrived, Pasti mentioned that Adam Eaton, a highly regarded young pitcher with the Padres, was out for the season having sliced open his finger trying to open a DVD. "Should I offer to cut your steak?" he joked.

"I had a hit against Adam Eaton," Agamennone said.

On draft day last June, Pasti closed the door of his home office, opened a browser on his computer and typed in www.mlb.com. The draft was being covered, round by round on the Internet, so he would know fairly quickly how Bryan Simmering, the junior from Towson University, and Kyle Jackson, the pitcher from New Hampshire, had fared. He also had an eye out for the pitcher from Northern Virginia, who hadn't retained his services but might need him if he were to be chosen earlier than expected. The previous year's draft, when Taylor Buchholz was taken in the sixth round, was one of the high points of Pasti's career as an agent. This year, with a client and a half, perhaps he could do almost as well.

The draft began in the late morning, and teams had only two minutes to make their selections, but results were posted slowly. It was late afternoon before the site had news of Round 6, the earliest round for which Pasti had realistic hopes. Nothing.

The results began to come faster, a fresh round every 15 minutes or so -- lists of names, home towns, high schools or colleges, and sometimes a report from major league baseball's scouting department. Pitchers dominated the draft, but after 10 rounds, Simmering and Jackson were still available. Within another few rounds, signing bonuses would become insignificant, and the two pitchers would begin their careers knowing that their teams

didn't have much invested in them.

When Round 12 passed, Pasti realized he wouldn't be making any immediate economic gains that day. He was disappointed, but he also felt guilty. "I knew Bryan had particular expectations," he said. "And I wondered to what extent I had given him or even contributed to his having those expectations. I thought I had been realistic with him, but I hadn't prepared him for the worst."

Early that evening he called Simmering to apologize and commiserate. The young pitcher didn't seem to hold it against him, he said, and he told Pasti that whenever he was selected, he would probably go.

The next day, Simmering was chosen in the 27th round by the Oakland Athletics, and Jackson was chosen in the 32nd round by the Red Sox. Simmering signed with the A's and reported to their rookie league team in Phoenix. Jackson accepted a baseball scholarship to St. John's University.

The scout who eventually signed Simmering told Pasti that he was surprised that he had not been selected earlier. "He was wondering if maybe the scouts here in the middle Atlantic region just didn't have much pull," Pasti said. "If you saw his ability and what he could do compared to some of the others who were drafted before him -- that was the sad thing."

The previous year, Pasti had written in his diary: "As I look back over the year, I can clearly see God's hand at work. God has prepared me for the next step through failures. Now I'm more experienced, more prepared, better services offered. I have made myself more attractive to players. I wouldn't have made it to this point if I didn't have failures. (Failure is a real opportunity to see what is missing.)"

So here was another such opportunity, although what was missing was fairly obvious: money. Pasti hadn't touched his retirement accounts, but the money from his father was gone, as was about 20 percent of the family's savings, which had never been all that big to begin with. With nothing to do but follow his clients through the nether reaches of the minor leagues, Pasti began devising new options. Perhaps he could take on a few investors or hook up with an established agent who needed an associate. "I'm in too deep to turn back," he said. "And I can't go on with the status quo, either."

By last July, these plans had yet to bear fruit, and, though he was committed to pursuing them, Pasti knew that it was time for a reckoning, so he and Marie sat down to discuss time and money. Though Pasti was spending less time at home during the late winter and spring, he spent as much time as ever with his family during the remainder of the year. There were, he acknowledged, a few instances when he wished he had not been on the road -- particularly the time when he recruited other men at his church for a workshop on devoting more time to their families and then found that he had to be out of town -- but on the whole, he was still a diaper-changing, dinner-fixing kind of guy.

Money was another matter. It wasn't so much that the Pastis were doing without -- although Dave's Toyota was in its dotage -- but that their grasp on a secure future remained precarious, and that was hard for Marie to take. Together they decided that he wouldn't sink any more money into his quest to become an agent. If his new venture wasn't paying its way in six months, Dave would give it up, except for his existing clients, to whom he felt a responsibility, whether they were earning him money or not.

Agamennone, meanwhile, had pitched decently in Ottawa, but gotten demoted to Harrisburg when a few more experienced players came off the disabled list. Most of Pasti's other clients were marking time, except for Taylor Buchholz, who found his form about midseason, won six games in a row and finished the season at Lakewood with a 9-14 record. Last August, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that the Phillies had a budding star in their farm system.

Just when it seemed that time had run out on Pasti's midlife adventure, the cavalry arrived wearing a three-piece suit. A Rockville lawyer who had more cases than he could handle called and offered him work. Pasti went to work last September, and by the end of the year, he had earned enough to buy himself another season.

By this spring, at the Marlins training camp near Melbourne, Fla., Pasti had invested in the "agent clothes" he had talked about a year earlier. In pleated trousers, a sport polo shirt and tasseled loafers, with a cell phone holstered to his hip, he finally looked the agent's part. He'd just come from a meeting with a memorabilia dealer from Philadelphia who said that he might be interested in having Taylor Buchholz autograph a few cards and other merchandise. And while the deal was likely to be small -- most prospects don't pan out, so dealers invest cautiously -- it would be a career milestone for Buchholz and Pasti alike.

Pasti had checked in with all of his clients and was back in Derwood when he got the news he had been hoping for. Tim Hamulack, who had lost his last chance to pitch at the tail end of spring training, made the Portland Sea Dogs anyway. And Agamennone was once again a Lynx. Buchholz, as expected, began the season with the Phillies high-A team in Clearwater, Fla., and Chris Warren, who had had so much trouble with the curveball, held on to a spot on the Salem Avalanche.

"I think you can make an analogy between their careers and mine in terms of working their way up," Pasti said. "Of course, they don't have a wife and three children."

And even if they never make the major leagues, Pasti's clients can always say that they were professional baseball players. Perhaps they will earn a living passing on the expertise they've developed. Maybe they will just dine out on anecdotes about the stars they knew back when.

It is harder to imagine what is in this for Pasti if he fails. Except perhaps this: One afternoon this spring, he was visiting another client, Brad Elwood, a catcher in the Yankees organization. While waiting for Elwood, he took a seat between two practice fields. On one mound stood Roger Clemens, perhaps the greatest pitcher of this era, and on the other stood Mariano Rivera, perhaps the best relief pitcher in the game. In the presence of such accomplished performers, one's primary identity is that of a gratified spectator. But unlike a spectator who had paid for the privilege, Pasti was working. For one afternoon, at least, he had as much business there as they did.

Jim Naughton is a frequent contributor to the Magazine. He will be fielding questions and comments about this article at 1 p.m. Tuesday onwww.washingtonpost.com/liveonline.