Last one in is delighted

Sox save day for draft's final pick

Armed with a fastball in the low- to mid-90s, Kyle Stroup hopes one day to take the mound for the Red Sox. (Arlington Heights (Ill.) Daily Herald)

It was hopeless. No chance whatsoever. A lottery-ticket dream. A happy-ending story that happens to everyone else, but never to you.

The major league draft had come down to the 1,504th and final pick.

Hours and names and rounds had passed and still, no one wanted Kyle Stroup.

He watched the early rounds Thursday in his home in Ingleside, Ill., and spent part of Friday there, too, but left because he didn't want to discourage his family as they saw him getting passed over again and again.

He went to his best friend's house about 4 miles away.

More names and hours and rounds passed. Still, no one wanted Kyle Stroup.

He stopped checking online as the draft neared its 50th and last round.

He started thinking of his future without baseball.

"That's fine, it looks like I'm going to college," he said.

But then Brice Walsh, his best friend who had played baseball with Stroup since they were 12 years old, told Stroup to check one last time.

"I'm calling it right here - you're going to get picked by Boston. I guarantee it," Stroup recalled his friend saying.

Against the utter hopelessness of it all, against seeing teams call 1,503 names but no "Kyle Stroup," and against the overwhelming disappointment that had begun to envelop him, Stroup looked.

His friend's guarantee was golden.

Screams echoed throughout the home and the two hugged in disbelief.

The Red Sox had selected Stroup, a 6-foot-6-inch, 235-pound righthander from Grant Community High School, with the draft's final pick.

"It was just unbelievable," he said.

It all washed away. The waiting and disappointment melted from Stroup in a few seconds and relief set in.

"It was tough waiting all those rounds until the very last pick," he said.

While the final picks were being made, Stroup's mother, Gina Swanner, was back at home. She had been on the phone with Stroup's baseball adviser, Stefano Bando, who was keeping track of the draft online. Bando refreshed the page and saw that Stroup was the final pick.

Swanner couldn't believe it.

"I thought it was some kind of joke," she said. "So, just as I looked at the screen again, it popped up and I was like, 'Oh, my God! They took him!' "

So she called her son - the newly named Mr. Irrelevant - and screamed the news, which he'd found out moments ago.

"I couldn't even hear her. I had to hang up the phone because it was so loud in the background," Stroup said.

Stroup said he was contacted in the 47th round by Red Sox scout Chris Mears, who asked Stroup his plans for the summer. Mears said he'd call him back.

The 48th round went by. The 49th passed without a call, too.

"That's when I started freaking out," Stroup said.

Stroup said he had been told by several scouts that he was going to be picked somewhere in the top 10 rounds, or shortly thereafter, but the phone didn't ring.

He expected it was because he asked for too much money in the beginning, $250,000.

"[Stroup] kept saying, 'It's not going to happen, it's not going to happen,' " recalled Walsh.

And then it did.

Stroup said being drafted was great, but it was more special to be drafted by Boston because of the success of recent draft picks Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Clay Buchholz.

"When Boston called me, it makes it much easier for me knowing that I can get up to the [major leagues faster] than most other teams," Stroup said.

Stroup said he has a fastball that sits in the low 90s, but reaches 95, as well as a knuckle-curve, a changeup, and a splitter.

It's still the longest of long shots that Stroup will make it, though. Of the 1,504 players drafted, few will weave their way through the minor leagues and get called up to play.

His mother said even though it's the final pick, she thinks it's the most important.

"You've got one final chance, who you gonna pick?" she said. "To be honest, whether it was the first pick or the last pick of the draft, he was drafted and it all worked out the same in the end. He's going to work just as hard at the end as he would if he was the first pick in the draft."

And, of course, she has already shifted her allegiance from Chicago to Boston.

"I had 'Go Cubs Go,' on there as my ringer, now it's 'Sweet Caroline,' " she said. "I've gone instantly from a Cubs fan into the No. 1 Red Sox fan."