Truth be told, Rio Rancho High School's first professional baseball player, Shane Beans, could have been making more money working for Sherwin-Williams Paints than pitching for the Chillicothe Paints of the independent Frontier League.

Today, Beans isn't making any money pitching, but the dream's not dead for the RRHS Class of 2002 member.

He rarely pitched when he was with the Rams varsity baseball team in 2002, but he didn't let that discourage him. He headed east, to Longview, Texas, where he attended LeTourneau University, and earned a spot on the baseball team.

"Shane was a kid that probably progressed more in his senior year and after his senior year," noted Rams baseball coach Ron Murphy, pleased to have Beans, 22, drop into his office last week. "He had a lot of ability - he didn't take 'no' for an answer. I always knew he was a smart kid."

Smart enough to realize that by changing his approach to pitching, along with his delivery, that he could make it at the proverbial next level.

"He knew he had to work harder or do something different," Murphy said.

"Nobody worked harder than him," Murphy recalled. "We had some guys (Donovan Silva, Sal Puentes, Carlos Casillas) who were pretty good at the time (Beans wanted to pitch)."

In his lone start of 2002, Beans (1-0) allowed just one hit and an earned run in a 13-3 rout of visiting West Mesa.

With the Yellow Jackets, Beans (6-0, 190) was primarily a reliever through his first three seasons, compiling a 4-4 mark in 40 games. After going 3-0 as a junior, Beans moved into the starting rotation this spring, starting 17 games and completing four of them while going 5-5.

The recent LeTourneau graduate, armed with a BS degree in aeronautical engineering, is headed soon to Lincoln, Neb., where he'll be working in his field and probably working even harder to stay in baseball "shape."

The Paints' manager, former big-leaguer Glenn Wilson, advised Beans to be ready to attend spring training in March at the time he advised Beans of his release a few weeks ago.

The transitory league - Beans had just signed July 27 and was a Paint barely a week, getting his walking papers on Aug. 2 - has players coming and going, each and every one of them hoping to someday make it to "The Show.' Like Beans, they all harbor the dream, and they're willing to play for the Frontier League teams.

The league is made up of the Evansville Otters, Gateway Grizzlies, Kalamazoo Kings, Rockford Riverhawks, Washington Wild Things, Florence Freedom, Windy City Thunderbolts and the Paint.

Players are always hoping a game they pitch or a ball they hit or a defensive gem they make will be seen by a scout, whose Major League affiliate needs just that type of player in its ranks. (Wild Things catcher Brandon Ketron was sold to the New York Yankees on Aug. 2, for example.)

Former big-league stars Jose Canseco and Rickey Henderson have played independent baseball; so, too, has former Albuquerque Isotopes pitcher Donovan Osbourne, who was rescued from an independent team last summer and has since remained in the Pacific Coast League.

Beans' journey began, as many ballplayers' ventures do, in Little League, where he once was named an all-star after playing on a team that went undefeated.

Back then, Beans was doing more than pitching; he also played third base and in the outfield.

"I started playing T-ball," he said. "My mom was my first manager, and later she coached me two more years.

"She just loved baseball since she was a kid," he said, unable to give Karen Beans a hug for all she instilled in him. She died a few years ago, at the tender age of 49, from a brain tumor.

Those hugs may be gone but not the inspiration, which led to a lot of perspiration.

"She just always said, 'Do your best,'" Beans said. "I do it for the Lord. That's another thing she said."

Even when Murphy couldn't find anywhere for him to play, except for two mound appearances when he was a senior, which followed a successful season with the junior varsity, Beans said he never gave up.

"I just got put on the bench; I worked as hard as I could," he said. One summer, he played on a blue-chip baseball team, along with Rams teammates Vinny Caputo and Noah Trujillo.

Eventually, Beans' high grades and even higher determination to work hard to be a part of a baseball team paid off at LeTourneau.

Last season, he was the Pitcher of the Year, as well as a second-team All-Conference selection as a moundsman. In March, Beans - called "Beaner" by his teammates - earned a Pitcher of the Week award. Another LeTourneau highlight was being named MVP at the Bombs at the Beach tournament in San Diego.

"He doesn't take 'no' for an answers," Murphy reiterated. "I give Shane a lot of credit for not being depressed, not giving up. He reminds me a lot of Brendan Donnelly."

Donnelly also pitched in the Frontier League (for River City in 1994) and spent 11 seasons in the minor leagues before finally being promoted to the Los Angeles Angels in 2002 and becoming one of the best set-up men in baseball.

That's not to say Beans will someday pitch in a World Series, as Donnelly, a one-time Rio Rancho resident, did, nor pitch and be credited with the victory in a big-league All-Star Game, as Donnelly did in 2003.

Since he left Rio Rancho, he's developed a submarine delivery; his fastball, he said, is in the low 80s, but he's hopeful of adding a few mph this winter.

"Never give up," Beans said. "Never let anybody tell you (that) you can't do it - or that you're not good enough."