PHOENIX -- If baseball is young dreamers' promised land, the parched sun-baked complex of manicured fields in the middle of a Phoenix suburb is heaven's gate.

They've come from all corners of the map, and from all rungs of last week's First-Year Player Draft, for their professional baptism. They've stepped off a week-long merry-go-round, which began spinning out of control with their names being called during the two days of the Draft, and into the blue "Milwaukee Brewers equipment" T-shirts.

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"Now it's like a job," says Maverick Lasker, a right-handed pitcher. "A totally different lifestyle. It's going to be a grind, and this is a chance to learn about it and prepare for it."

"I can't wait to break some bats," Liam Ohlmann, another right-hander, says with the glee of someone who heretofore had only pitched into the rigid arcs of aluminum bats.

It is Friday. It is the first day of a fast-paced two-day mini camp-slash-mixer for the greenest members of the Brewers organization. It is, quite literally, the first day of the professional lives of kids drafted last week.

Not everyone here is a recent draftee; the 60-some participating players include already "veterans" of one of the Brewers' two rookie-league teams, most of them Latin Americans.

And hardly every recent draftee is here. Some, like No. 1 pick Brett Lawrie, the high school catcher from British Columbia, will take a while to sign. Others, like outfielder Cutter Dykstra, simply couldn't arrive in time for the first morning.

But everyone here is getting a crash course in Brewers baseball and in the professional life. This quilt of green diamonds five miles northwest of Chase Field is an Ellis Island, where new emigrees from amateur ball gather before dispersing to various destinations. It is a boot camp in the computer sense of the word "boot": launch.

"It gives everyone a good feel for what to expect," says Reid Nichols, the Brewers' director of player development. "We have all of our [roving Minor League] instructors here, and they talk to everyone. So they all get uniform instructions on the basic way to do things, rather than hearing it from different people once they get to their clubs.

"They learn what we expect -- and what they should expect from us."

The Brewers aren't unique in holding such orientation camps, of course. Concurrently, the A's are having their own a few miles away in Phoenix, for instance. Others flash through Arizona and Florida.

There is a good reason these baseball springboards are barely noticed. They take place in the flash-forward vacuum between the Draft and the start of Rookie League seasons -- sometimes, a span of all of 10 days.

Some of the Brewbabes here will stay right here -- the Maryvale Brewers' Arizona League season begins Monday. Others will be off to Helena, Mont., where the Pioneer League season starts Tuesday.

That gives Nichols and staff precious hours, not days, to learn everything about their new charges for which there is no entry in scouting reports.

"Scouts do a pretty good job these days," says Nichols, an understatement for an organization which has excelled in that area for many years. "We haven't been caught off-guard by many things.

"But these next couple of days, we'll have individual sit-downs with the guys ... find out about their families, where and how they grew up, their lives at home. We try to gather any personal info that could affect them."

The skull sessions can wait. The skill sessions take precedence.

Now, they disperse to fields with Hall of Fame names -- Rollie Fingers Field, Don Sutton Field, Robin Yount Field, Paul Molitor Field -- to begin the blending process.

Individual skills which caught scouts' eyes now undergo the mesh test. Second basemen and shortstops -- Is there a combination that could remain intact for the next 15 years? Who knows? -- orchestrate for the first time.

Fielding drills proceed under game situations, without a lot of chatter. There are a lot of kicked grounders, dropped throws, other muffs; it's about as smooth as sandpaper.

For "repeaters," the clock has slowed down.

"I learned a lot of things last year but, now, this is just a chance to ease back into the flow," says Joey Paciorek, a corner infielder who batted .281 in 40 games last summer in the Arizona League.

For others, the novelty still glows as bright as the sun.

"What I'm really looking forward to is my first professional game under the lights," says Ohlmann, the 20th-round pick out of Manchester Community College in Connecticut. "Where I'm from, we didn't play any night games."

Nor, any games following 110-degree days. Ohlmann will also stay here and pitch in the Arizona League.

As will Lasker, who is cool with the heat. He lives about 20 miles away, a product of Phoenix's O'Connor High School. He is named after the Tom Cruise character in "Top Gun" -- not, one must admit, bad karma for a pitcher.

"To me, 'professional' means everything is run the right way. And no excuses," says Lasker, taken with the Brewers' fifth-round pick. "You've got to be very responsible. You've got to take care of your own business, because you won't have someone else helping you anymore."

Various things pave that transitional road. Some are tangible, such as the metal-to-wood switch to which Ohlmann had alluded. That transition actually can be more drastic for pitchers than for batters, who customarily rehearse for it by using wood in batting practice as they approach the Draft.

"In college and high school, pitchers tend to pitch away from contact, because of the aluminum bats," explains Nichols. "Here, we encourage them to pitch to contact, to trust their stuff."

But most of the slippery footing is mental.

"I'm preparing myself for the season, for the mental regimen," Ohlmann says. "It will be completely different from what you find in college. I know that going in. Being here gives me a chance to learn a lot about what I can expect."

And what he can look forward to.

Ohlmann's zealous anticipation of turning some bats into splinters was relayed to the steward farmer of this bumper crop.

"Good," Nichols beams. "That's what we like to hear. That's the attitude we want from pitchers."