Next pitch: Former Lewis hurler gets second chance at diamond glory

Jonathan Bobea has major-league scouts tracking him, Division I schools vying for his services.

The world is his oyster – just as it was two years ago when the 6-foot-1 right-hander from Flushing was drafted by the Anaheim Angels, offered a major college scholarship by Kentucky yet somehow ended up at Queens College and working as a doorman instead.

“Here I am,” he says, with an awkward smile and uneasy laugh, “on scout day.”

Life had come full circle last Sunday for Bobea, the former Francis Lewis dynamo with the low 90s fastball who just finished up his sophomore year at Monroe College. He was back pitching in front of scores of scouts, in the Scout’s Scrimmage, a showcase organized by Ian Millman, his former coach at Lewis.

Bobea was surrounded by the city’s top high school prospects, hopefuls who would die for the chance he once had.

In the 2010 First-Year Player Draft, the Angels took him in the 19th round (549 overall), making him the first baseball player drafted from Francis Lewis since Mike Jorgensen was taken by the New York Mets in 1966. It was a “crazy” moment, he said then, an achievement he often dreamed of.

Anaheim, however, never offered him a contract. The team saw him in a summer tournament a few weeks later when he was lit up and didn’t like what they saw. Family issues he wouldn’t go into were wreaking havoc in his life.

Communication was cut off. When it became clear Bobea wouldn’t go pro, Kentucky came into the picture. They offered him an abnormally high scholarship of 85 percent – baseball scholarships aren’t typically full – as the draft had opened up money for the SEC school that spring. But Bobea spent just a single day in Lexington, Ky., and came home.

Bobea initially declined to go into specifics, other than to say it didn’t work out. When pressed, he opened up, talking about the disappointment of not signing with Anaheim. It didn’t matter what college came into the picture, his passion for the sport had waned.

“You get drafted out of high school, that’s your dream,” he recalls. “I wanted to go pro. I was a little depressed. I felt like I didn’t want to play baseball again.”

He wanted to be home, to forget baseball. He took several months off and enrolled at Queens College, got the job as a doorman, forgot the sport he played since he was a toddler.

“That was the best thing that happened to him,” his father, Luis, says. “He found himself. He really found out baseball was part of him. He knew he would regret it later on if he didn’t play again.”

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