As a graduating senior, Jake Newberry was focused during the final days of classes at Mira Mesa High School in San Diego in 2012.
Just not on his studies.
It was the last of three days of the Major League Baseball draft, and Newberry was listening for his name, something that seemed like a long shot just months earlier when Newberry was pitching for his high school team.
“I figured I would just go to a junior college anyway, just because of my grades,” Newberry recalled last week in the Royals clubhouse after being called up from Class AAA Omaha.