SURPRISE, Ariz.
The manilla folders were spread out on a table inside Royals draft headquarters, and with one round remaining, Art Stewart began to scan.
Those folders contained hundreds of names. They were dreamers with flaws, fliers with low odds of success, amateur baseball players who remained unselected after 49 rounds of drafting. It was June 7, 2006, and Stewart, the long-time Royals scout, was tasked with picking the Royals’ 50th-round selection.
The process was akin to buying a lottery ticket. One year, Stewart made a late-round selection because he was enamored with the kid’s name — he was related, somehow, to “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.