By Robert S. Johnson

As he bounced around and shot lasers at the Evil Emperor Zurg and other bad guys, China McCarney had no idea what was waiting for him once he left the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters ride at Disneyland and reentered the real world.

Then he stepped into the sunlight, squinted at his phone and saw that he had a voicemail.

"The Happiest Place on Earth," as Disneyland dubs itself, became a lot happier for McCarney when he learned that he had been selected by the Cleveland Indians in the 29th round of the MLB First-Year Player Draft.

"This is a great feeling," McCarney said. "The last three years I was expecting stuff and it didn't happen. This year I didn't expect anything and it finally happened."

The exuberance he felt on June 6 was so great not because he was at Disneyland when the pick came, because getting validation from a major league franchise is just the latest - and most gratifying - stage in the restoration of what became a tangled and disrupted baseball life.

The 2005 Vasquez High School graduate expected his blazing fastball to be enough to warrant a pick in that draft.

But he was disappointed.

With a scholarship to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, it seemed as though McCarney's future would be secure, but life got in the way.

"I was beyond immature," McCarney said. "I was as immature as it gets coming out of high school."

He moved to San Luis Obispo to live with his mother and get acclimated to the area, but life unraveled. He had family problems and learned that he had a lot of growing up to do. Just before school began he sat down with the coaching staff at Cal Poly and said he wouldn't take advantage of that scholarship after all.

"I wasn't going to go into it if I couldn't give 100% and I didn't think I could go into it with anything near 100%," McCarney said.

McCarney's father John struggled with the idea of seeing his son forgo a scholarship.

"As an adult it makes it difficult because we see things in the perspective of what we want, but he has the perspective and the emotion and the confusion of what he was feeling," John McCarney said. "It's kind of worked out way better because he's making the choices of what he wants to do, not because it's what he's expected to do."

The reclamation project that is China McCarney's baseball career began soon after that, when he didn't touch a ball at all.

He moved back to the Valley, but didn't even think about baseball.

Instead, he started helping his uncle build a house, but McCarney soon found construction was not to his liking.

"I was waking up to get on the 5:32 a.m. Metrolink to Burbank, work 10 hours and come home," he said. "I don't even think I made it through a month.

"I've been around baseball my whole life, and waking up like that wasn't my cup of tea. I don't know how the guys that do that every day (and) keep it up."

The final moment of chagrin came one day as he struggled to move a roll of chain-link fence.

"I was moving it about an inch a minute," he said. "I saw my aunt and looked at her and said, 'I promise you, when I'm older I'm going to wear a suit to work every day.' "

The move to baseball didn't begin immediately, however.

Instead of jumping right back into the game, he began working at a restaurant busing tables.

That, coupled with the misery he endured in his attempt at pounding nails and building a house, convinced McCarney that he had a brighter future in a different industry.

"That was the eye opener" he said. "I just realized that I'm an 18-year-old kid. I can go to college and can play baseball."

The 6-foot-2, 180-pound right-hander started to get the itch for the game then, but completely rediscovered the bug for the game when he coached the Vasquez junior varsity team that spring.

McCarney, 21, played in the Antelope Valley men's baseball league and soon started working again with his private coaches, Jim Wagner and Alan Jaeger. Soon McCarney was back in shape and on his baseball path.

"He was so talented, I just don't think he believed in himself," said Wagner, McCarney's pitching coach. "Once he dealt with his challenges in life we went right back to what he had been doing and we never missed a beat."

McCarney enrolled at College of the Canyons and spent two mediocre years on the mound for the Cougars. In 21 games, McCarney was 1-2 with a save and a 5.40 earned-run average, primarily because he had a hard time throwing his 94-mph fastball over the plate regularly.

That, said Indians scout Vince Sagisi, will be the determining factor in whether Cleveland offers McCarney a contract before the Aug. 15 deadline or if he will sign the scholarship offered by Cal-State Northridge.

"If he can throw strikes we'll be pretty aggressive in trying to sign him," Sagisi said. "If not, we'll let him go to college and monitor his progress there. It just really just hinges on whether he can throw strikes."

McCarney walked 43 in 51²\u2044³ innings over the last two seasons, but he is confident he can get his control back. In his senior season at Vasquez he walked 18 and fanned 104 in 56²\u2044³ innings, and the control he showed in high school has Wagner confident that McCarney can regain the ability to control his pitches.

"His command is there, he just hasn't had the frequency of pitching," Wagner said.

To improve his stock, either for the Indians or going into his junior season, McCarney is playing in the Arizona Summer Collegiate League. The Indians will watch him there and, if he shows enough command of his pitches, McCarney will be offered a contract.

"His biggest issue is he couldn't throw a strike on a consistent basis," Sagisi said. "We're going to watch him and monitor over the summer and get a true feel for what his value is for us as an organization."

That the Indians wanted to watch McCarney pitch for an extra six weeks was exactly what he wanted. He began getting calls from teams in the 15th round of the draft, but they weren't saying what he wanted to hear.

The teams that called asked a variation of "What would it take to get you on a plane next week?" Their offers ranged from $1,000 and a plane ticket to $30,000 and a plane ticket. He was more interested in getting time to prove himself and get an offer that would convince him to skip out on the rest of his education.

"Either option is a dream come true considering the last three years," McCarney said. "My dream is to be a pro baseball player. I'd want to start as soon as possible, it just depends on if it is the right situation."

Sagisi, who has scouted McCarney since he was at Vasquez and always liked his live arm, hopes to see McCarney turn into a draft gem.

"We know what he has, it's just a matter of refining the stuff that he's been given," Sagisi said. "If he does that we're going to give him some money and it won't be $10,000, $20,000."

"A two-month window pitching in a collegiate league will give us a clearer idea of what he can do. I think he could be a good surprise for us in terms of where we took him."

The Indians will be especially pleased if McCarney can flash the skills that are on display in a YouTube clip, in which he is throwing a baseball from one end zone through the goal post at the other end of the field and then throwing 97 mph. The ability to do that has come from working with Jaeger, who stresses arm strength and conditioning with a long toss program.

"He's a great athlete and he's maximized his athleticism," Jaeger said.

In addition to helping McCarney throw a ball 365 feet, Jaeger has helped his pupil get more in control of his emotions on the mound.

"As he's gotten older he's hit another level of mental toughness and really has figured out how to stay in the moment and stay present," Jaeger said.

Jaeger's influence, along with the disappointment of previous drafts and the lessons he learned about baseball and himself, taught McCarney that there was no sense in worrying about what happened on draft day ever again.

Which is why he was enjoying himself at Disneyland on June 6.

"I figured no matter what happens I'll be in the happiest place on Earth," he said.

It was a place that got a lot happier for McCarney after he was done helping Buzz Lightyear save the universe.