Former Kansas University baseball player Robby Price slides across home in a recent game for his Hudson Valley Renegades against the Brooklyn Cyclones. Price has impressed his manager during his season with the short-season Class A New York Penn League.

Wappingers Falls, N.Y. ? Dutchess Stadium, constructed in 73 days in 1994, sits on the other side of I-84 from Fishkill Correctional Facility, a charming-looking structure from the outside built 98 years earlier and visible from the ballpark parking lot.

It is here, on the right side of I-84, that Robby Price has started his professional baseball career. Workers furiously bolted the final seats into place the morning of the first game in ’94, and players dressed in trailers, which had no curtains on the windows. Teenage girls, ballpark lore has it, learned that they could peer into the trailers from seats atop their cars parked in the lot. The less modest ballplayers didn’t do anything to discourage that behavior.

Today, clubhouses that protect the players’ privacy sit beyond the right-field foul territory. Inside the Hudson Valley Renegades’ home manager’s office, Jared Sandberg, 32 and a veteran of three seasons as a third baseman with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, sits at his desk and discusses his 13th-round draft choice. Second baseman Price, who recently completed his fourth season playing for his father, Ritch, at Kansas University, is one semester shy of graduating. He put that education on hold to pursue one in baseball, playing in the short-season Class A NY-Penn League.

Sandberg is discussing why Price is his leadoff hitter, despite unimpressive stopwatch readings when he runs.

“He’s not necessarily the prototypical leadoff hitter,” said Sandberg, nephew of Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg. “For me, he’s more like a 2-hole hitter or maybe somewhere further down in the order, but with our team now, the way our lineup shakes out, he’s perfect in that leadoff spot. He works the count. He gets on base. He’s not afraid to hit with two strikes, and he’s showed some surprising power as well. Overall, his season’s been top-notch.”

A ‘heads-up player’

The word surprising gets used a lot in regard to Price, 22, the third brother to sign a professional baseball contract, the best prospect of the bunch and the only one still playing. His upper body is on the thin side, so he doesn’t look like a player who would hit a home run in his professional debut, but he did. He doesn’t have the speed of a player who 33 games into his first season would have 10 stolen bases without once getting thrown out, but he does.

A baseball player’s most important tool is one not apparent to the untrained eye. A baseball player’s most important tool is his baseball brain. Price is armed with an extremely developed one and supplements it with a lightning-quick bat and the hands of a magician.

“He definitely has great baseball instincts,” Sandberg said. “He understands the game, doesn’t try to do too much. He knows what he’s capable of doing, as far as his talent.”

Robby Price takes a cut against the Brooklyn Cyclones. Price homered in his pro debut and is second in the New York Penn League with a .441 on-base percentage.

The fact he has made stealing bases something he’s capable of doing is an indication of how well he maximizes his talent.

“Most of that comes from understanding situations,” Sandberg said of the surprising stolen-base total. “Pitchers’ times (to the plate), knowing who’s catching, counts. He’s a heads-up baseball player.”

A quick study

Even at the rookie-league level, managers are armed with statistics on what percentage of runners catchers have thrown out and on the success rate teams have had stealing bases against particular pitchers.

“Put all that together, add in the time the pitcher is to home plate — Robby can run when the guy is 1.3 (seconds) or higher — and he’s also taken advantage of some breaking-ball counts,” Sandberg said. “When you know the breaking ball is coming, go ahead and run on that pitch. You give Robby a little bit of information, and he runs with it. He’s a quick study.”

Hours after Sandberg talked about why Price bats leadoff, Price showed why it’s a smart move on the manager’s part. He went 2-for-4 with a walk, a run and an RBI, and he took extra bases tagging from first, second and third in the Renegades’ 9-1 victory against the Brooklyn Mets with more than 4,000 paying customers in attendance Tuesday night.

Price came out of the game tied for the league lead with eight hit-by-pitches, second in the league with a .441 on-base percentage and complements that with a .491 slugging percentage. He had 13 doubles, 20 runs and 18 RBIs. The best measure of how well he sees the ball: He had 20 walks and just 15 strikeouts.

A shot to the head

Price’s opening months in the Tampa Bay Rays organization have gone smoothly, except for a line drive he took off the head during batting practice, a shot that sent him to the hospital “to get a few staples put in my head.”

Price was told he had suffered a concussion and as a precautionary measure was sidelined for four days, not enough to cool him down. Now that he’s a pro, Price has tipping money.

The clubhouse attendant — that’s clubby in baseball parlance — retrieved the ball from Price’s first professional hit, a sixth-inning home run, and gave it to him. Price tipped him $5. For the money he makes as a rookie, that’s quite generous. Price estimated his take-home pay at $800 a month, checks that stop coming once the offseason hits. He said his $7,500 bonus check remains in the bank. On the road, players get $25 meal money per day.

The experience he’s gaining equates to an internship in the business world. He and the rest of his teammates live with host families, who offer a room free of charge. The players’ last paychecks will have $50 deducted so that a gift can be sent to the host families. The family with whom Price stays lives roughly a 30-minute drive from Dutchess Stadium.

Price’s daily routine: Awaken in the late morning. Buy lunch at a deli near the ballpark and begin taking early instruction at 1 p.m., six hours before first pitch. For those workouts, Price dresses in a workout shirt and gym shorts that meet his socks at the knees. The players build up quite a sweat before changing into their game uniforms. Days that include doing weights at a local Gold’s Gym start a little earlier. After a post-game meal, he returns home at close to midnight and winds down for a couple of hours.

Hitting a walk-off single to win a game ranks high among his highlights so far, one of the hits that contributed to his .727 ninth-inning batting average.

“They bring in their closer, who’s usually a vee-low (velocity) guy who likes to throw the fastball,” Price said, explaining his ninth-inning success. “It’s competitive, especially when there are guys on base and the crowd’s into it. It’s a great environment. It’s you and the pitcher, and you’re competing against him. That’s why I like this game so much, competing, especially with the game on the line and you’re successful. There’s nothing like it. Nothing like getting that hit and getting mobbed by your teammates.”

It’s one of the things that makes the long days and long nights that come with breaking into professional baseball in the New York-Penn League all worth it.

“I’m coming to the ballpark every day,” Price said. “I hope to be coming to the ballpark every day for a few more years.”