<table> </table> C OLUMBIA | Aaron Crow should have been here 30 minutes ago.</p><p>It&#8217;s 1 o&#8217;clock on a weekday. The regulars are shooting billiards. Beers are being handed to old men and young students. A baseball playoff game is flashing on a television screen.</p><p>But the 21-year-old former Mizzou pitcher who was drafted No. 9 overall by the Washington Nationals and then didn&#8217;t sign &#8212; who walked away from reportedly a $3.5 million signing bonus and now sits in baseball limbo &#8212; hasn&#8217;t shown up.</p><p>Which is about right for someone who, for the next nine months, isn&#8217;t going to be where he&#8217;s supposed to be.</p><p>So you dial his phone number. You hear him pick up on the third ring. You ask if he&#8217;s still coming &#8212; a question Nationals fans can relate to.</p><p>&#8220;Oh dude, I am so sorry,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I totally forgot. I am so sorry. I&#8217;ll be right there.&#8221;</p><p>Thirty minutes later he walks through Booches&#8217; front door. He&#8217;s wearing a gray Mizzou sweatshirt, is tall and thin and smiles shyly as he sits down and orders a Bud Light and two cheeseburgers.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so sorry.&#8221;</p><p>Crow quickly explains &#8212; you see, he&#8217;s not in college anymore, not playing baseball, not signed to a major-league team. Life is made up of staying up late, hanging out with friends, swinging by Missouri&#8217;s practices to feel like part of a team again, sleeping in and, yes, at times zoning out in front of the television and forgetting where he&#8217;s supposed to be.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not used to not having to be anywhere,&#8221; he says.</p><p>Before this, Crow was busy being one of the most dominating college pitchers in the country, a junior who decided to forfeit his senior year and enter the MLB draft. In his final college season, over the course of 107 innings for the Tigers, he went 13-0 with a 2.35 ERA, 127 strikeouts and a paltry 38 walks. He was an All-American. He won the 2008 Roger Clemens Award, given to the best college pitcher.</p><p>The Nationals selected him at No. 9. And the trouble began.</p><p>Crow and his representatives started out by asking for a $9 million signing bonus. The Nationals, led by general manager Jim Bowden, initially offered $2.1 million.</p><p>Things only soured from there.</p><p>Crow and his agent, JD Smart, never visited Washington. The Nationals, according to the Crow family, continued to call Aaron Crow&#8217;s father even after dad told them to contact the son.</p><p>&#8220;They kept calling, and I kept telling them I wasn&#8217;t involved in the negotiations,&#8221; said Kevin Crow, Aaron&#8217;s dad. &#8220;And I kept telling them the reason I wasn&#8217;t involved is there were multiple people and it creates an opportunity for miscommunication to take place.</p><p>&#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t describe it as badgering, but one of the local area scouts kept calling me. He was doing it for the general manager. I&#8217;m sure every major-league team would love to negotiate with the parents of players because we&#8217;re not professionals at this.&#8221;</p><p>That alone made Crow angry, got under his skin.</p><p>The money got in the way too, of course, with lots of fingers pointing, different sides and various explanations for why a 21-year-old walked away from millions of dollars and the Nationals failed to sign their first-round pick.</p><p>In the end, it was reportedly only $900,000 that kept Aaron Crow from leaving Columbia for professional baseball.</p><p>&#8220;We felt that we had a reason why we had our number,&#8221; Bowden told reporters on Aug. 16, the day after they failed to sign Crow. &#8220;We asked them where $9 million came from. Where&#8217;d it come from? Where&#8217;s your number from? Can you justify the number? No.&#8221;