And get this: In this world of toddler beauty pageants, cutesy sitcom characters and Florida sweatshops masquerading as tennis camps, it wasn’t his personal quest.

Rogers is one of the few baseball coaches his middle son, Mark, has ever known. “From T-ball on up,” noted Craig, father and son have remained inseparable as peanuts and Cracker Jack.

Dad sees a fork in the road. Craig is about to reacquaint himself with lobstering while remaining a proud, protective papa from an appropriate distance.

Mark Rogers, a strapping, 6-foot-2, right-handed pitcher, was the fifth overall choice in the June 7 amateur draft by the Milwaukee Brewers.

Two weeks later, life on Orrs Island is coasting toward normalcy.

“As far as my lobstering is concerned, that’s pretty much been forgotten for two months,” Rogers confessed. “My wife (Stephanie) is shaking her head right now, saying, What lobstering?'”

The 97 mph fastball

Mark’s 97 mile per hour fastball set a different sort of trap. Representatives from all 30 Major League teams visited his games this spring. Dozens of college coaches shared a dinner table with the family. Agents, some sincere and some smarmy, showed up at the doorstep, often unannounced.

“I didn’t have a lot of answers for Mark. He had a hard time saying no’. That’s not his makeup,” Craig said.

Craig coached Mark at Mount Ararat High School in Topsham. Many of Mark’s classmates had played on Craig’s teams since they were 8. They were like sons, too, and he worried that the media crunch or casual fans’ second-guessing would ruin their experience.

Another coach without the same bloodlines might have milked Mark’s arm for all it was worth his senior year. Instead, father and son agreed that Mark would pitch once a week. Mondays, most of the time, to give scouts a travel day.

Except for one notable Monday, that is. The morning of last week’s state championship game against Deering, a published report said that Mark wouldn’t pitch because it wasn’t his turn in the rotation.

When more than 7,000 fans packed Portland’s Hadlock Field in the shimmering twilight, however, it was Mark rattling the catcher’s mitt in a game the Topsham Eagles eventually lost, 6-1.

Attracting lots of fans

“We had a lot of good pitchers,” said the coach. “All the kids seemed to enjoy the attention. I mean, tell me what high school kid wouldn’t like to play baseball with a couple hundred girls watching every game?”

Craig also didn’t want the process to strain his relationship with his other two sons: Brett, 20, and Scott, 13.

“I didn’t always know what to do,” he admitted. “They seemed to accept that for the last two months it pretty much was all about Mark. Of course, that’s still difficult for a 13-year-old to really understand.”

Happily, this isn’t a Hollywood story of a smothering nitwit placing his nest egg in a child prodigy’s basket at everyone else’s expense. No baseball glove was dropped in Mark’s crib. No shrine to Roger Clemens showed up on his changing table.

Hockey was Mark’s first love. Until last summer, Craig expected his son to take a stab at junior hockey after graduation. Then the kid set ablaze baseball scouting showcases in North Carolina and California and shone in the AFLAC All-Star Game (“The best of the best high school seniors,” Craig said.)

Mark also earned all-state honors in soccer. Topping his wicked three-sport numbers: a 3.9 grade point average.

Dad adored baseball. Fresh out of high school, without Stephanie or sons to motivate him, Craig was a central figure in starting the youth program in Harpswell.

“When I graduated from high school, the coach gave us each a bag of baseballs as a parting gift,” he said. “Those were the baseballs we started the youth program with.”

Sometimes, Craig says, he or Mark will pluck a baseball from another bag and play catch. He is convinced that closeness will continue.

“Mark’s still Mark. That’s not going to change,” Rogers said. “I don’t know how to explain it. That’s the kind of person he is.”

He can thank a father who allowed him to become that person, unfettered by ridiculous expectations and unwelcome prodding.

Congratulations, Craig Rogers. Thank you for being a breath of fresh air. And Happy Father’s Day.

Kalle Oakes is staff columnist. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].