"All day Monday, there was silence. Most of the night, too.

No word from the Royals. No word from their coveted first-round selection from June's amateur baseball draft, Bubba Starling, a center fielder and multi-sport phenom from Gardner Edgerton High School.

Starling had a football scholarship to the University of Nebraska waiting for him if he spurned the Royals' advances, and as the clock neared zero on Monday's deadline of 11 p.m. Central time, the silence continued.

Royals general manager Dayton Moore waited inside Kauffman Stadium, later saying the talks finally heated up in the final five to six minutes. Inside his home in Gardner, Bubba and his family waited for the last 10 seconds before the call was made.

Finally, that silence was broken. Ending perhaps the most watched negotiations in franchise history, Starling set aside his flirtation with the Cornhuskers and accepted the Royals' offer of a club-record signing bonus to play professional baseball.

"I got a lot of adrenaline going through me right now," Moore said. "I'm trying to compose it."

The deal will pay Starling $7.5 million spread over three years. The Royals said Starling will be introduced at Kauffman Stadium this week before leaving for the Royals' spring training facility in Surprise, Ariz.

Agent Scott Boras advised Starling throughout the summer and at one point was believed to be seeking a deal approaching $10 million. The Royals were thought to have countered at $7.5 million before communication between the two camps dried up.

Had he chosen to attend school at Nebraska, Starling would have been the highest first-round pick to go unsigned since outfielder J.D. Drew, another Boras client, who was selected No. 2 overall by the Phillies in 1997."