GRATEFUL TO THE GAME

A bust as a prospect, Jaime Jones has forged his identity in baseball as a go-to scout for the Rays

- KYLE GLASER

At some point in every day, Jaime Jones feels the pangs of regret.

He doesn't know when they'll hit, but inevitably they do. They are the regrets of not having the major league career expected, of not putting in the work to fulfill his potential.

Jones was the sixth overall pick in the 1995 draft by the Marlins out of Rancho Bernardo High in San Diego. To this day, longtime scouts and coaches still consider him one of the greatest amateur players they've ever seen.

"If you compare the guys around him like Troy Glaus or Eric Chavez, he was as good or better than both those guys in high school," said Dodgers vice president of scouting David Finley, who worked for the Marlins at the time and was one of Jones' signing scouts.

"I signed Adrian Gonzalez. He was super advanced. Chavez I knew really well. I actually threw a lot of BP to him when he was in high school. Jaime was as good or better than both of those guys."

But Jones never reached the major leagues, the outfielder's career sabotaged by injuries and, in his own words, immaturity. For most of his adult life, he's had had to live with being known as one of the greatest draft disappointments of the last 30 years.

Slowly but surely, Jones is changing that. Today he is 46 years old and a Rays area scout in Southern California who has emerged as one of the best and most respected scouts in the talent-rich region. Where once his name inspired heavy sighs and what-could-have-been soliloquies, it now garners respect and admiration.

Jones' success as a scout doesn't fully patch the wounds from his failures as a player. Nothing ever will. But it has brought him some semblance of peace, and given him a chance to rewrite his baseball legacy.

"There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about it," Jones said of his playing career. "But as far as scouting, I'm still in the game. And that's all I can really ask for."