Matt Freed, Post-Gazette
	Pirates starter Zach Duke pitches against the Cardinals in the first inning last night. Duke twisted his ankle in the second inning at second base. Pirates beat Cardinals, 10-0, but Duke injured Pirates Photo Journal

Grant Brittain has been a baseball scout for nearly a decade, but he would be the first to admit he has not yet approached the peak of his profession, or even come close.

He once signed a pitcher named Justin Sturge, now a 24-year-old at the Class A level in the Boston Red Sox system.

And Will Lewis, another 24-year-old at the Class A level in the Milwaukee Brewers' system.

Neither is considered much of a prospect at that age.

Brittain has one other kid to his credit, too, and not much else.

"To be honest with you," he will say in a somewhat apologetic tone, "I've had a few rough drafts."

He did not mean rough drafts as in preliminary sketches. He meant rough drafts as in sitting at his team's draft table through 50-plus rounds without having any of his players chosen.

And yet, here he is this summer, suddenly the most celebrated scout in the game. The scout who lived out every scout's fantasy when he prodded the Pirates' management to take Zach Duke in the 20th round of Major League Baseball's first-year player draft, then signed him just before his rights might have been lost.

"It always makes you feel good when you sign any player," Brittain said from his home in Hickory, N.C. "If he goes on to do well, it's even better. If he goes on to do what Zach is doing ... it's just tremendous. I'm as proud as I can be."

The sighting

On the first day of this month, minutes after Duke, now 22, rolled to another victory in Atlanta, Braves manager Bobby Cox fairly gushed about his work, then mused: "That kid, I don't know how he went in the 20th round. Somebody did a good scouting job ... or a bad scouting job."

The truth lies somewhere in between.

It was the spring of 2001 when Duke was a senior at Midway High School in Waco, Texas, and he was no secret to scouts. Each time he pitched, there was a gathering of radar guns and notepads. The Braves, by Duke's recollection, had every scout in their organization there to see him at some point, which might have been the genesis of Cox's remark.

Brittain, now 38, was the Pirates' area scout in Texas at the time, and he was just another face in the crowd.

"Believe me, this wasn't a case of finding a kid for yourself," Brittain said. "Every club in the game was there at one point or another."

Not everyone was enthralled with Duke, though. He did not then, as he does not now, have great velocity. Nor was he in prime physical shape, kind of "soft," as Brittain remembers. Those are two check marks that will get a prospect scratched off most scouts' lists.

But the greatest deterrent was that Duke's parents, Tom and Sherry, had made known to scouts that he would seek a signing bonus of $750,000, one befitting a player taken in the top three rounds, or he would go to college.

"My folks had an idea of what my value was," Duke said. "And they wanted to stick with it."

The parents created another bit of leverage by having Duke announce his intention to attend Stanford University even as he was enrolling at tiny Galveston Community College. If he were to go to Stanford, the team drafting him would lose his rights immediately, as per an agreement between MLB and the NCAA. If he went to Galveston, he could go right back into the draft pool the next year if his asking price were not met.

That, too, discouraged some teams, who doubted whether Duke wanted to play professionally immediately.

Brittain was not swayed. He saw Duke for the first time in mid-March, then twice more in high school games, then again in an all-star tournament.

"The kid could flat-out pitch. That was the first thing you noticed," Brittain said. "The second thing was his mental approach, which usually is the toughest thing for scouts to determine in a young player. He had a purpose, a plan for every at-bat. No one had to tell him to prepare."

Brittain wanted Duke's name on a contract, but he would have hurdles.

The signing

The first was to convince Mickey White, the Pirates' scouting director at the time, that Duke was worth the money. White was the one breaking down which prospect would get paid how much from what, at that time, was a severely limited fund.

There was skepticism.

White dispatched Mark McKnight, one of the team's cross-checkers, to see if Brittain's assessment was on the mark. Then two more cross-checkers, Scott Littlefield and Tom Barnard, came after that.

All reported back to White with positive reviews about Duke, enough that the Pirates decided to draft Duke.

But not very high.

"When a family has a figure that high out there, the team wants to be dead sure you can sign him or it won't burn the pick," Brittain said. "Our people asked me if I felt confident taking him in the seventh round or higher, if we could sign him, and I just couldn't say that. You can lose a job like that."

On June 6, 2001, Brittain waited and waited through the second day of the draft for his player to be chosen. After 19-plus rounds and 593 names being called, he finally breathed a sigh of relief when the Pirates took Duke in the 20th round.

Duke recalled being somewhat surprised but not disappointed by the outcome.

"With the way Atlanta followed me, I really thought they would be the ones to take me," he said. "But I was just fine with the Pirates, too."

"All I kept telling everyone was 'Let's make sure we get him,' " Brittain said. "That was the most important thing."

And that was when the real work began. Brittain immediately phoned Duke with this message: "I want you to know we are very, very serious about signing you."

The Pirates had a funny way of showing it.

White gave Brittain a figure he could offer to Duke as a signing bonus, and Brittain went to the Duke home for dinner with his initial offer, a lowball of $50,000. The parents and Duke's agent, Lenny Strelitz, laughed it off.

"That's what 20th-rounders get," Duke said with a smile.

Brittain came back by doubling the offer.

Still no go.

Duke took the step of enrolling into classes at Galveston in what was supposed to be a sign of his intention to dismiss the Pirates and wait another year until another team drafted him. It is a move he now admits was orchestrated.

"I wanted to play pro ball, no question," he said.

While this was going on, Brittain began mulling his personal future. The scouting business had brought him little but frustration. It was not what he had envisioned after a brief minor-league career and, more important, it was keeping him away from home while he had family members in poor health.

"That was enough," he said. "I had made up my mind a little while after that draft that I was going to leave the Pirates."

But not before he would finally land his first prize.

"Shoot, I could have left right then and let someone else come in and signed Zach. But I wanted this one."

In late August, less than a week before classes were to begin at Galveston, Brittain went back to the front office and sought a true maximum, and he found a little luck.

The Pirates had decided they were not going to be able to sign their third-round pick, pitcher Jeremy Guthrie, and he, unlike Duke, made good on an announcement to attend Stanford. Guthrie went back into the draft pool the next year and was taken by the Cleveland Indians.

That freed up the money Brittain needed. He went back to the Dukes and Strelitz confident he had a deal that could not be refused.

He was right. Shortly after the third such dinner, Duke put his pen to a $260,000 contract, an amount befitting a player selected in the top five rounds.

"A great deal," Duke said.

Duke pointed to Brittain's passion as the primary reason he is pitching in Pittsburgh today.

"It always helps to have someone believe in you, and Grant did, right from the start," he said. "He was out there all the time, telling me I could be in A-ball pitching right now, how I could pitch for the Pirates someday. Believe me, it makes a difference."

Brittain did, in fact, move on. His signing of Duke was his last act with the Pirates after 7¹/₂ years with the organization. He moved back to Hickory for two years and worked in the family business before deciding he wanted to get back into scouting. He has been an area scout with the Brewers for the past two years, still operating on the lowest rung of the profession.

He holds his chin up a little higher with each Duke victory and each pat on the back from a peer, but he does allow to having one regret.

"We were aggressive, and we're getting credit for that now," Brittain said. "But, looking back, we weren't aggressive enough. At the time, it was a good deal for a good, young player. But man, we should have given him every penny he deserved right away. We never should have dickered with him. Look at him now. He's special. We all should have seen that."