The Nationals' Solitary Man

As exhilarating as that was for everyone involved -- and the McGeary signing finished off a Washington draft that has since been rated, by the trade magazine Baseball America, as the best in the game -- it was, in fact, the easy part.

"We had to say, 'Is this a good idea?' " said McGeary's father, Pat. "I remember making statements like, 'Well, if anybody can do this, Jack can do it.' It's just his ability to focus on what he wants to do and an unrelenting ability to execute on that."

Pat and Rita McGeary know they sound like fawning parents. But they have been receiving this kind of feedback since Jack, the younger of their two sons, was in kindergarten. "Teachers would tell us that he wasn't swayed by his peers," Pat said. More over, Pat said they "literally, never once" had to tell Jack to do his homework.

"He reminds me of stuff," Rita McGeary said. "It's almost like a role reversal, where he's the parent, the more mature one."

The McGearys got a glimpse of his focus when he started to develop into a prospect for the draft, but his 6-foot-3 frame had ballooned to perhaps 225 pounds. Told he needed to lose weight so he could gain flexibility, he radically altered his diet to the point where Rita -- a noted cook and baker -- believes Jack hasn't had as many as three or four cookies in the last two years.

"He's a perfectionist," said Rob Steinert, a former minor league pitcher from Long Island with whom McGeary has worked intensively the past two years. "He has a true passion for the psychological demands of pitching. He understands it physically. His aptitude is just tremendous, and he has the discipline to follow a plan through."

Thus, that Friday morning in Palo Alto began with an egg-white omelet and some fruit in the dining hall across from his dorm. Lunch at a local Thai restaurant brought chicken and vegetables, along with some disappointment when there was no brown rice. In between came a sweltering, 90-minute Bikram yoga session in downtown Palo Alto, where he fit in seamlessly with some 30 others, most of them women, all of them older. "I'm cursed with an Irish body," he said. So yoga has become part of his routine, though when he first carted some high school teammates to a class, none of them returned, and he was left to pursue it alone.

That, though, does not make McGeary uncomfortable. Driving through the Stanford campus in his mother's hand-me-down Lexus sedan -- that $1.8 million safely in the bank -- McGeary considered his challenge.

"The thing is, I kind of figured out it's not that hard," he said. "I knew if I put any effort into it at all I would do fine. It would kind of defeat the purpose if I was out partying all the time. Why would I be here?"

Thus, there will be no Cancun for McGeary's spring break. Rather, he will fly to Viera, Fla., and join the Nationals' other minor leaguers, albeit for only two or three weeks. He hopes to set up a class schedule for spring quarter that would allow him three or four more trips to Viera for long weekends. In the meantime, the Nationals plan on sending a scout to check in on McGeary during the spring.

"I know it can work out," said Spin Williams, who coordinates the Nationals' minor league pitching program. "It's not an ideal situation for us, but it was a deal-maker for us, so it's worth it. . . . I think it takes a special kid. One of the reasons we really wanted Jack in the organization is we feel he is that kind of kid."

Back in the student gym on the Stanford campus, McGeary is hardly special. He waited for another student to finish using a pull-up machine. The varsity weight room, just like Sunken Diamond, is off limits. Come June, though, he will begin a summer job unlike that of anyone else in the room.

"I feel like I'm responsible enough to do this," McGeary said. "I guess we'll see."