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Photo by Sam Harrel

It’s a day Chris Aure has been working toward most of his life.

It’s a day that finally came Friday.

With the nerves of a nearly realized dream keeping him up most of the night, a sleep-deprived Aure learned early Friday morning that he’d been selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 15th round of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.

“I’m living my childhood dream right here. Or, at least, I’m about to,” Aure, the 444th overall pick, said.

While some high school players head to college in hopes of improving their draft stock, the North Pole left-hander said he’s going to sign “for sure.”

Aure said that in two weeks he’ll head down to Bradenton, Fla., to participate in the Pirates’ extended spring training.

Aure first learned that he’d been drafted by Pittsburgh when his parents saw it on the computer. A half-hour later, he received a call from the team.

“They called me maybe 30 minutes after they drafted me,” he said. “They told me congratulations and that I’d been drafted in the 15th round and stuff.

“It was a lot of relief, pretty much. I’ve been nervous the whole week. It just lifted a lot of stuff (off my mind). I was excited, happy.”

Aure said that he knew he was going to get drafted, he just wasn’t exactly sure where.

“I really didn’t care (who drafted me),” he said. “What would have happened — they drafted me late in the 15th round. If I wouldn’t have gotten drafted by Pittsburgh in the 15th round, the Phillies would have drafted me in the 16th.”

The bright lights of the MLB don’t make their way to Fairbanks too often.

Aure was the first Interior players selected in the draft since the Giants tabbed Ryan Shaver in the 29th round in 2004. Aure is the highest drafted Alaskan since Juneau’s Chad Bentz was selected in the seventh round by the Montreal Expos in 2001.

“I travel a lot. I’m not always here,” Aure said. “I went to Arizona three times last year. I played with the ABA (Alaska Baseball Academy) team. I played with the Langley (British Columbia) Blaze, I played a lot of places I could get noticed.”

All that hard work paid off.

According to Tony Whiley, who runs the Alaska Baseball Academy and is a scout with the Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau, Aure’s trips have put him in front of at least 100 MLB scouts in the last year — including a game against a Kansas City Royals minor league club with the Blaze in March.

“I think he performs well against some top-rated talent when we put him in that position,” Wylie said.

Wylie, who has worked with Aure since his freshman year at Eielson, said that there is a lot for Major League teams to like in the 6-foot, 186-pound lefty.

“Of course it helps that he’s left-handed. Major League clubs are always looking for left-handed pitchers,” Wylie said. “He’s got good velocity and he’s figured out how to use his other pitches. He’s got a good curveball and a real good changeup. That’s what some of the Major League scouts saw. Sometimes you see kids come out of Alaska and they’ve got a good fastball, but nothing else to go with it.”

In Wylie’s eyes, the biggest thing Aure needs is experience.

“He doesn’t have a whole lot of polish because the number of innings that Alaska kids get to throw, there’s no way possible to hone their skills when they’re not throwing a lot of innings,” the scout said. “That’s the bad thing. The good thing is, their arms are fresh. He’ll just have to go against more skilled hitters. That’s the biggest thing, just getting more innings.”

Those innings will come fast and furious for Aure now. But that’s all part of the dream.