Tim Conroy, 1986, with the St. Louis Cardinals Click photo for larger image. Wayback machine: Return to 1978 Conroy's first start: At Kansas City, June 23 -- less than a month after he was drafted. First batter: Royals shortstop Fred Patek, who singled Strange, but true: Starting at shortstop behind Conroy that night was Mario Guerrero (yes, Raul Mondesi's Mario Guerrero) The line: His line that night in Oakland's 5-4 win: IP 3 1/3 H 2 R 1 ER 1 BB 5 Ks 0 The '78 draft: Other first-round picks included Bob Horner (Braves), Kirk Gibson (Tigers), Lloyd Moseby (Blue Jays) and Hubie Brooks (Mets). A very good year: Since the draft started, only 21 players have gone straight to the majors , but four did it that summer: Conroy, Bob Horner (Braves), Mike Morgan (A's) and Brian Milner (Blue Jays). The future: Conroy would go on to pitch seven seasons, finishing his career with St. Louis in 1987. His numbers: G 135 W-L 18-32 IP 466 2/3 Ks 307 ERA 4.71

For 26 years, Tim Conroy has been the answer to a Western Pennsylvania baseball trivia question.

Tomorrow, he'll become simply a footnote.

He can't wait.

"I'll tell you, I wish it would have happened a lot sooner," Conroy said.

Conroy -- until tomorrow -- holds the distinction of being the last WPIAL player taken out of high school in the first round of the amateur baseball draft.

That was in 1978, when Oakland chose the left-hander from Gateway High School with the 20th overall selection.

Tomorrow, Pine-Richland catcher Neil Walker will be a first-round pick -- perhaps of the Pirates with the 11th overall choice -- and Conroy will recede into the trivia background.

But not too far. People always will remember Conroy and that spring of 1978.

"He was the Billy Wagner of the WPIAL -- before there was a Billy Wagner," said Mike Berger, referring to the hard-throwing left-handed Philadelphia Phillies closer. "He was a freak of nature -- a 6-foot left-hander who threw 95 miles an hour in the WPIAL."

Conroy laughed.

"It's amazing how the legend keeps growing," he said. "I started out at 90 [mph], now I'm up to 95."

Doesn't matter.

"He threw hard," said Berger, a Central Catholic graduate. "He two-hit us his senior year, my sophomore year. I know I had one of the hits -- and it wasn't exactly scorched. You certainly did not want to face Tim Conroy in March with an aluminum bat. Even if that bat would have been stamped 'U.S. Steel,' you did not want to face him. There was nothing like him in Western Pennsylvania.

"From the moment you stepped into the [batter's] box, you were overmatched."

"His fastball had so much life that you ran out of bat trying to hit it," said Tony LaCava, a former Penn Hills and Central Catholic player. "And his curveball would just dive under your bat. He sure was dominating. I faced him and I thought, 'If this is the way baseball is, I don't know if I can play.'

"When he got drafted, I felt better right away. He went right to the big leagues, and I thought, 'Well, if he's in the big leagues, he should get me out.' "

There was little doubt that Conroy would be a first-round pick that June. It was just a matter of which team would take him.

The Pirates, who have never drafted a WPIAL player in the first round, could have selected him.

They had two first-round choices that year as compensation for free-agency losses. They picked first at No. 19 -- and chose first baseman Brad Garnett from DeSoto High School in Texas.

Garnett never made it.

Oakland took Conroy with the next pick.

Then the Pirates, with the 21st overall pick, chose outfielder Gerry Aubin from Dougherty High School in Albany, Ga.

Aubin never made it, either.

But Conroy did.

"Back then, there was no ESPN or Baseball America," Conroy said. "I knew there were a lot of scouts at my games, but the draft was a very secretive thing. But the two clubs I'd have banked on taking me were, first, the Pirates and, second, the Orioles."

On June 3 that year -- three days before the draft -- Conroy pitched three innings in Baltimore so the Orioles could get a closer look at him.

Two days later, the Pirates called him in to throw for them.

"They asked me how I felt, and I said that I was a little stiff," Conroy said. "I wanted to be honest, but that stuff spread like wildfire."

So the Pirates backed off.

"Years later, Murray Cook, who was the Pirates' scouting guy then, told me they thought they'd get me at [No.] 21," Conroy said.

Three weeks after the draft, Conroy signed with Oakland for a bonus of $30,000 and joined the Athletics' world of colorful owner Charlie Finley and fiery manager Billy Martin.

"Charlie always brought the top choices into wherever the team was and had the hitters take batting practice and the pitchers throw," Conroy said. "Then you were sent out to the middle of nowhere to play. I thought I was going to Bend, Oregon."

Instead, the Athletics took Conroy to Kansas City to start the second game of a doubleheader June 23.

"I was stunned, to say the least," Conroy said. "People assumed it was in my contract that I'd go [right] to the big leagues, but that wasn't true."

Conroy pitched into the fifth inning in his major-league debut and had a lead, but he walked two batters on nine pitches and was taken out.

He made one other start that year -- against Texas in Oakland. That didn't go well.

"[The Rangers] showed me, 'You don't belong in the big leagues. You need to go down,' " Conroy said.

And he did. The Athletics sent him to Class AAA Vancouver for the rest of the summer.

Conroy's big-league statistics after two games read: 4 2/3 innings, three hits, six runs (four earned), nine walks, a hit batter and no strikeouts. His earned run average was 7.71.

He didn't get the opportunity to improve on those stats until 1982.

"It took me that long to get my confidence back," Conroy said. "I had as good an arm as anybody. That showed it's not the physical part. And back then, the A's really didn't have a whole lot of staff to develop talent."

Conroy spent part of the 1982 season, all of '83 and '84 and part of the '85 season with Oakland, alternating between the bullpen and the rotation.

In 1984, he had perhaps his best season in the major leagues. In 39 games, including 18 starts, he was 7-10 with a 3.94 ERA. He had three complete games, including his only big-league shutout.

By 1986, he was a St. Louis Cardinal and spent most of the season in the rotation. He was 5-11 with a 5.23 ERA.

The next year, his shoulder was hurt but he tried to hang on with the Cardinals.

"We had a great team and I knew we were going to [the World Series]," he said. "I had four or five cortisone shots, but finally I had to have surgery in September."

Conroy spent 1988 with Class AAA Louisville without much success. Then, finally, he became a Pirate.

He signed with the Pirates as a minor-league free agent and was in spring training in 1989 but didn't make the team. He pitched for Class AAA Buffalo as his career neared the end.

He was in spring training with Baltimore in '90, didn't make the team and retired.

He was 18-32 with a 4.68 ERA in 135 major-league games.

"I had an illustrious mediocre career," Conroy said with a laugh.

Berger, a former fourth-round pick of the Pirates who's now a major-league scout with the Colorado Rockies, disagrees.

"He defied the odds," Berger said of Conroy's rise from Gateway to the big leagues. "He was in the big leagues for eight years. That's a lot more time than a lot of us got. He's a success story -- no two ways about it."

"Tim's not one to walk around and talk about what he did [as a pitcher]," said LaCava, now the director of player personnel for Toronto. "Before his arm injury, he had as good a left-handed arm as anybody. The thing is, as good as he was as a player, he's just as respected in the business now."

Conroy returned to baseball in 1994 as a scout after running a sporting goods store for three years.

"That's when I found out what was really tough," Conroy said. "I used to think the toughest thing was getting hitters out."

Conroy, 44, currently is in his fourth year as a national crosschecker in the Atlanta Braves' scouting department.

"I was very honored and privileged to play in the big leagues for eight years," Conroy said. "It was just a great privilege. It's the competition you look back on and enjoy. And baseball is still my life. It was fun to play in -- and it's fun to work in."