Major-league baseball draft - Seattle Times June 6, 2000

Danny O'Neil - Seattle Times staff reporter

BELLEVUE - Baseball has always been Grady Sizemore's favorite sport, which is why yesterday's major-league baseball draft will cost the Washington Huskies a football recruit.

A senior at Cascade High School in Everett, Sizemore was picked in the third round by the Montreal Expos. He was the second player from the state chosen in the draft after Tripper Johnson of Newport High School in Bellevue, drafted with the 32nd overall pick by Baltimore.

Sizemore was selected with the 75th overall pick and said he has already agreed to contract terms with Montreal, though he didn't reveal them.

"I didn't really expect to go that high," Sizemore said.

Representatives from the team will be in town tomorrow for the contract to be signed. Sizemore said he will leave for Juniper, Fla., next weekend to begin his professional career, which means he won't be enrolling at Washington in the fall.

"If I signed a pro contract, I always said I would just concentrate on baseball," Sizemore said. "I just waited to see where I got picked, what I got offered."

Sizemore is a three-sport athlete who played running back and safety as a senior at Cascade. However, the Huskies recruited him as a quarterback, possibly the successor to Marques Tuiasosopo. When Sizemore took his official recruiting visit to Washington, Tuiasosopo was his host.

Sizemore was the first of three players from Washington drafted in the third round. In all, four players who attended Washington high schools were drafted in the first three rounds.