Finally, Clayton Makes a Pro Team’s Most-Wanted List : Baseball: Former Loara standout, who was overlooked in high school, signs with the Mariners’ organization after starring at Northridge.

Craig Clayton couldn’t understand it. There he was, one of the best hitters in one of the best high school baseball leagues in the nation, and no one came after him.

He thought he had all the right numbers--a .485 batting average, a 3.00 earned-run average and a 3.67 grade-point average--but they weren’t enough in 1988 to attract the professional scouts and college recruiters who swarmed after other Empire League players such as Mike Kelly, Greg Pirkl and Jason Moler.

“I had played with all of them. I had competed with them and I had done just as well as them,” said Clayton, who played third base and pitched for Loara High School. “There were scouts looking at them. . . . I didn’t understand that part.”

Instead of letting the snubs discourage him, Clayton was even more determined to succeed. Holding onto his hope of playing professionally, he decided to enroll at Cypress College.

But the night before he was to attend his first class at Cypress, Clayton received a call from Cal State Northridge Coach Bill Kernen. So instead of going to class at Cypress, which would have prevented him from playing at another college for at least a year, he visited Northridge and accepted a scholarship offer that afternoon.

Three seasons later, Clayton can look back at his record-breaking performances for Northridge. He holds career batting marks for runs batted in (151), hits (276) and runs (175), and career pitching marks for complete games (22) and strikeouts (269).

In its first season in Division I, Northridge advanced to within one game of the College World Series this spring. Clayton was 14-5 with a 2.25 ERA and a school-record 166 strikeouts in 160 1/3 innings. He batted .364, drove in 56 runs and was named first-team All-American by Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball magazines.

But the awards and records are overshadowed by one simple fact: Clayton was finally a wanted man. He was the Seattle Mariners’ sixth-round pick in last week’s draft, and he signed a contract with the organization June 4.

“I didn’t get recruited by anybody (out of high school),” Clayton said. “It’s weird how you go from a nobody to all of a sudden you’re playing something you love for money.”

After signing with the Mariners for an undisclosed bonus that includes a provision for a college scholarship after his baseball career, Clayton, 20, spent time saying goodby to friends, tying up loose ends and buying supplies such as collared shirts, which he has discovered are de rigueur on the Mariners’ minor league teams.

In the four days before he left his grandparents’ house in Anaheim for Tempe, Ariz., and a week-long Mariners’ training camp, he avoided heavy workouts.

“I’m trying to let my body heal as much as possible because I was pretty beat up at the end of the year,” Clayton said.

After the orientation to professional ball, Clayton will report to Bellingham, Wash., and the Mariners’ rookie league team in the Northwest League.

Beyond the adjustment of hitting with a wooden bat, Clayton will also have to get used to being strictly a position player.

Seattle drafted him mainly for his hitting potential, said Ken Compton, who scouts Central and Southern California for the Mariners. Compton said if Clayton doesn’t pan out as a major league hitter, he might be able to take up pitching again, but the scout is confident it won’t come to that.

“He was one of the best-looking hitters that we scouted this year,” Compton said.

Clayton says he will miss pitching, but he recognizes the benefits.

“It’s good, though, because I can concentrate more on hitting, and now I don’t have to worry about being sore the next day and worrying about whether I can pick up a ball and throw it across the diamond,” he said.

That was never a concern of Kernen, who recruited Clayton because of his versatility.

Kernen, a former Cal State Fullerton and Illinois assistant, had seen Clayton play third base several times in all-star and summer league games. Although impressed by Clayton’s hitting, Kernen already had a third baseman. He didn’t take a second look until he saw Clayton pitch in a game in San Jose.

“I wasn’t there to look at him,” Kernen said. “But he happened to show up and when he came in to pitch, I thought, ‘That’s it for me, if he can do that.’

“After seeing him in these different places doing these different things, I was sold.”

It didn’t take much to sell Clayton on Northridge, though he said he had never heard of the school before Kernen’s call. Clayton grabbed the opportunity to play everyday for a four-year Division II team that would be moving to Division I by his junior season.

Clayton played every position except catcher for the Matadors and only missed one game in three seasons. As a freshman, he only pitched 7 2/3 innings, but he led the team in batting average (.314), runs (38) and hits (70).

As a sophomore, he had a school-record 106 hits, led the team with a .397 average and drove in 62 runs. On the mound he was 12-6 with a 5.41 ERA, helping the Matadors advance to the Division II national championship tournament, where they lost to Jacksonville State in the championship game. Clayton was named a Division II All-American and the West Region player of the year.

This year, Clayton helped to smooth Northridge’s transition to Division I. At the start of the season, Kernen hoped to keep Clayton off the mound so he could concentrate on hitting. But after the first two weeks, Kernen realized the Matadors needed Clayton to pitch, too.

A few months later, Clayton won his 14th game--a 6-2 victory over Fresno State in the West II Regional--to put Northridge within one victory of the College World Series. It was his 15th complete game of the season, breaking the single-season school record he set in 1990.

But in the second game, Fresno State scored twice in the ninth inning to end the Matadors’ season.

“At the time you’re crushed and everybody’s crying,” Clayton said. “It’s funny, grown men sitting there crying. And at that time you don’t think about anything. But what we accomplished when everybody said we weren’t going to go anywhere was pretty good.”