Ryan Westmoreland chats with Joe Rigoli, northeast mid-Atlantic region scouting supervisor for the St. Louis Cardinals, during an individual batting practice at Portsmouth High School.

Major League Baseball scouts representing the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Colorado Rockies, New York Mets and Los Angeles Angels, just to name a handful of teams, gather behind home plate at a Portsmouth High School baseball game.

Some aim radar guns at the pitches Ryan Westmoreland releases and jot the speeds down in notebooks. When Westmoreland steps to the plate, they pull out their stopwatches and time his burst from home to first.

Scouts from different teams show up at the next Portsmouth game and go through the same routine. They're there to gauge Westmoreland's potential, to see if he has what it takes to become a professional baseball player.

"Ever think you'd see this in Portsmouth,?" Patriots baseball coach Dave Ulmschneider said. "Who would have thought that Portsmouth, Portsmouth High School, would have been the hotbed of baseball in the Northeast?

"It's exciting. Something like this has never happened. It's a great opportunity for Ryan and it's a great opportunity for all the kids in the program to play in front of Major League teams. They're out there just about every day."

Unexpected attention

Westmoreland is the draw. He is an All-Stater and the state's two-time Gatorade Player of the Year. His pitching stats are outrageous, something you'd be more apt to see in Little League rather than in high school.

He has pitched perfect games, no-hitters, one-hitters and two-hitters. He has struck out as many as 20 batters in one seven-inning game, 19 in another. He hasn't been saddled with a pitching loss during his high school career. Then you can just toss in a lifetime batting average that hovers near .500.

His baseball talent was recognized by a host of college scouts last year. They were the ones standing behind home plate with radar guns and stopwatches. They were vying to get Westmoreland to commit to play for their institutions.

And last July the player verbally committed to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. He signed a national letter of intent in November. He thought he was done seeing the men hovering behind the home plate fence.

In a sense he was. The college recruiters no longer showed up. This year it's the pro scouts.

"I really didn't expect any of this to happen," Westmoreland said. "I figured a few guys would come around just to check up on me but nothing like this. To have the national crosscheckers and the scouting directors come, it's just surreal, it really is. It's really exciting."

Professional scouts took notice of Westmoreland through camps and tournaments in which he participated that were run by Major League Baseball.

"The East Coast Pro Showcase (ECPS) and the Area Code Games are some real high-level tournaments," said Ron Westmoreland, Ryan's father and Portsmouth High assistant coach. "The teams in those games are coached by scouts and they actually live with the players in a dorm.

"They do that so they can get an idea of the kid's makeup. Through the process I've learned that the makeup part of the kid is just as important as their physical tools. They want kids that love to play the game, that have a good work ethic.

"They not only saw him have good tools in those tournaments but they got a good idea that he's just a real good kid. They've indicated to me that because of that, his stock has risen quite a bit."

Hustle noticed

The player made scouts take notice of him at the East Coast Pro Showcase. They love his attitude but they also like the way he runs and the way he goes about playing the game.

"One of the Red Sox scouts said that what turned them on to Ryan was the 8 a.m. game at the (ECPS)," Ron Westmoreland said. "It was the last day of the six-day tournament and everybody had their bags packed and was ready to go home.

"Ryan hit a ground ball to second base and ran a 4.0 down home to first. They saw a lot in that because everybody else just wanted to get out of there and here's Ryan hustling out a routine grounder at 8 o'clock in the morning. That indicated to them that he really wanted to play the game no matter what time it was and that he approached the game the same way every day."

That was the scouts' last impression of Ryan in the summer. When the spring high school season began scouts' interest peaked when he got off to a torrid start both on the mound and at the plate. His play drew the attention, and continues to draw the attention, of upper echelon personnel from various Major League Baseball teams.

"We saw regional crosscheckers and national crosscheckers and when you see (Red Sox assistant general manager) Ben Cherrington show up, you know the interest level is a little bit more than what we expect and it's pretty high," Ron Westmoreland said. "I think the fact that some of these clubs are bringing in those people already is important."

It's important because Ryan most likely won't be able to attend most of the seven pre-draft workouts throughout the country to which he's been invited. The majority of the workouts take place during the high school playoffs and the player's main focus is to help his team win a state championship.

Private batting practice

Some of the player's more serious pursuers know the situation. Because of that club representatives have had Ryan take a batting practice for them before or after one of his high school games. Going into this week Ryan, using a wooden bat, has taken eight solo batting practices, including one after his team's win over Moses Brown.

"I thought I swung it pretty well," Ryan said. "There were a few pitches I should have went the other way with or turned on more. It's different hitting with wood rather than metal.

"The ball flies off the bat with metal. With wood it's definitely a different story. You've got to focus more on mechanics to be able to hit the ball far."

Boston scout Ray Fagnant watched Ryan during the batting practice and, while the balls were being gathered before a second round of hitting, pointed out an adjustment for Ryan to make.

"I have my hands gripped too tight around the bat and they're trying to loosen them up for me to get more whip," Ryan said. "I keep my balance back and then whip it through. Just by doing that with one batting practice you can really tell the difference. They know what they're talking about."

The next step for the pro teams is the final evaluation of Westmoreland. The Major League Baseball draft is June 5 and squads are beginning to put together their draft boards.

"A lot of teams are trying to determine what they consider the most important element, signability," Ron Westmoreland said. "They're hoping to determine if Ryan is signable or not. Typically, for a kid that goes to Vanderbilt, they will question the signability because he's got an option that is very good.

"Ryan has been watching or listening to every single Vanderbilt game this spring. Still today, that's the focus, Vanderbilt."

Win-win situation

Just because an athlete has committed to play for a college doesn't mean he can't be swayed by the lure of playing professionally and the accompanying financial gain. The Westmorelands have weighed all their options and come up with the price it would take for Ryan to turn professional instead of go to college.

"Once we knew what Vanderbilt was offering him for a scholarship and the value of that, we put an early value on what we would need to make the decision whether to go pro versus going to Vanderbilt," Ron Westmoreland said. "What we put out there was, in order to be considered to sign out of high school, it would have to be high first-round money.

"I talked to Ryan extensively about it and let him know once we put that out there he might fall off a lot of draft boards because teams are not willing, or they had somebody else in mind at that level. We made Ryan very aware of that.

"One hundred percent of this has been Ryan's decision. We've tried to guide him as far as our knowledge of all the different variables involved from education, to the grind of minor leagues, to everything else."

Though Ron Westmoreland didn't put an exact figure on what it would take for Ryan to turn pro, high first-round draft choices last year received signing bonuses anywhere from $5.6 to $1.5 million That's for the No. 1 through the No. 15 picks in the 30-pick opening round. Still, that doesn't mean Ryan has to be drafted in the opening round in order to receive first-round money.

"Typically the first round ends, just for a round figure, maybe at a million dollars," Westmoreland said. "Most of the teams in Major League Baseball follow the commissioner's recommendation on what to sign players for. But there are about a half dozen teams that go against that and they might sign a kid in the third round and give him high first-round money."

Last year the Yankees and Andrew Brackman, the last pick of the first round, agreed on a $3.55 signing bonus. The Washington Nationals inked Jack McGeary to a $1.8 million bonus in the sixth round.

If Westmoreland doesn't get drafted he will not be eligible for the draft again until after his junior year at Vanderbilt.

Whatever happens, Major League Baseball teams still seem interested in Ryan Westmoreland. The scouts continue to show up at games with their radar guns and stopwatches. Three weeks from now a young man could be faced with a big choice.

"It's a tremendous amount of pressure for an 18-year-old kid," Ron Westmoreland said. "If there is a figure that makes sense to him and an offer Ryan can't refuse to go to professional baseball versus college, it's going to be a really difficult decision for him.

"There's been a day to make the decision for college and there will be another day to make this decision. Taking all the factors in, I think he'll make the right one. No matter what, it's a win-win situation."

By Steve Rogers

srogers@eastbaynewspapers.com