Mark Rogers had at least some idea of what lay in store for him even before he officially became a bonus baby for the Milwaukee Brewers.

“I know it’s been 115 degrees down there for the last week,” Rogers said when asked what he knew about the Arizona League team to which the Brewers would assign him a few days later.

Now practically a continent away from Orrs Island and Mt. Ararat, Rogers, the Sun Journal Baseball Player of the Year for the second straight year, is settling in with the Arizona Brewers, Milwaukee’s rookie league team. The No. 5 pick in last month’s baseball draft made his professional debut last Thursday, striking out five of the seven hitters he faced while not yielding a hit or a walk in two innings of work.

“He’s happy. He’s enjoying it down there,” said his father and Mt. Ararat coach Craig Rogers. “He’s put in some long days. He’s starting to get acclimated to the heat. It’s just brutal out there. They’ve had some 120 degree days.”

While Rogers couldn’t prepare for the desert heat during a cool Maine spring, he at least got a taste of another kind of heat, the heat of the spotlight.

The hype actually began long before his senior season at Mt. Ararat started. Rogers attended all-star showcases in North Carolina and California last year and wowed the college and pro scouts. Scholarship offers poured in from Miami, Stanford and Cal State Fullerton, among others, and inquiries from the Major League teams soon followed. Rogers took it all in stride, working on his pitching while also enjoying an all-state season for Mt. Ararat’s hockey team.

“We knew then that this spring was going to be very, very huge,” said Craig. “The opportunity was going to be there this spring if he worked hard through the winter and things worked out. When he finally decided he was going to Miami, that’s when the scouts started calling in the winter. He did more tests for those teams. I can’t begin to tell you how many there was.”

The scouts, sometimes as many as 30, started bringing their radar guns to Mt. Ararat’s preseason games. As the June draft neared, the number of scouts began to dwindle, not because some teams had lost interest in Rogers, but because they knew he’d be long gone before they had a chance to grab him.

Rogers had little trouble performing for the scouts, going 9-1 this season, losing to undefeated Deering in his final start of the season in the Class A championship. He gave up four earned runs and 13 hits in 67 innings while striking out 166 and walking 13.

“At the end of it, we actually started feeling a little bit comfortable because we knew he was going to go in the first round, it was just a question of who,” Craig said.

While the scouts didn’t distract the fireballer, some of the naysayers did get to him, according to his father.

“The thing that bothered Mark was that with all the hype, there was always a couple of meatheads waiting for him to fail so they could say He’s not that good,'” Craig said. “I just told Mark, When you play at the level you’ve played in hockey and baseball, there’s always going to be a little bit of jealousy,’ and I think that helped him.”

So did the accolades and rewards for his outstanding season. Gatorade named him its National High School Baseball Player of the Year, and he and his family will be in L.A. later this month when the sports drink company names its top high school athlete in the nation. He was named Maine’s Mr. Baseball on the same day he signed his multi-million dollar contract with the Brewers. He made a quick stop in Milwaukee with his family before reporting to Arizona. The demands on his time, or now even for his likeness, haven’t stopped in the desert, either.

“He called the other day and said he’d signed a card deal with Topps. He’s going to make more money on that card deal than I’m going to make the whole year busting my hump,” joked Craig, a lobsterman by trade.

“I just hope he can live up to the expectations. I know he’s got a tough row to hoe ahead of him,” he added. “(The Brewers) say he’s going to be a fast riser. Who knows? We’ll see.”