He was just three credits shy of a psychology degree and pursuing an interest in team chemistry with a paper titled "How Perception of Teammates' Ability Affects Personal Ability." And even though it was RPI, this little Division III engineering school in upstate New York, we just thought, 'If you can pitch that well in college and you can get college hitters out that effectively, maybe you can do the same thing in the Pacific Association.'"Ĭonroy had another appealing quality. "Our eyes were just caught by the stats and by the performance. "We didn't know he was gay, for example," Lindbergh says. Lindbergh and Miller didn't need to know much more than that. The resulting spreadsheets highlighted Conroy as a guy who could help. They commissioned Chris Long, a former San Diego Padres executive, to devise a system that rated all college players on the same scale. They just needed players who could cut it in the Pacific Association, where the competition is roughly equivalent to Single-A ball.
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It's not easy for young pitchers to impress affiliated clubs with such a scouting report, and dominance against Division III competition isn't the thing to make them think otherwise.īut when Lindbergh and Miller sought to discover what two stats-minded writers could do running a professional team, they didn't need future major leaguers.
Relying mainly on a sinker-slider combination, his game is more about deception. Trouble was, he didn't fit the usual profile of a draftable pitcher: a tall drink of water with a fastball radar guns can't ignore.Ĭonroy is a 6'1" right-hander who works mostly from a sidearm angle with mid-80s velocity. Especially at RPI, where he went 21-7 with a 2.05 ERA in four seasons. What there was instead was lots of dominance. It's like, 'OK, I was friends with them before, and then I came out, and nothing's changed.'"Īpart from one ugly moment -the book tells of a vanquished batter saying "I can't believe that f-t struck me out" -Conroy's amateur career passed without incident. And I always made friends first and then continued to be myself after I came out to them.
"But if I had any overarching advice, it would just be to be yourself. I could write a book on my own experience and how I got through what I went through," he says. "I think everyone's experience is different. And when I asked about the tragedy at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, he had nothing he wanted to share publicly.īut wisdom based on his own experiences for anyone who might need it? That's ground he'll tread.
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Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage, saying in a TV interview that his preference is to be in the spotlight for baseball. He was fine with losing his Pride Night spotlight to the U.S. Later, he would do the same in college at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.ĭescribed by those who know him well as "quiet" and "cerebral," Conroy's not the spokesperson type. Rather than stay in hiding, he came right out to his high school teammates. "'It's just a better life, because I know what life was like when I was in high school.'"īut Conroy had a better idea. "I said, 'I think you should kinda keep it in your back pocket until you get through high school,'" Conroy's mother, Terry, told Lindbergh. They were immediately accepting but also worried. It's already put him in the Hall of Fame, and it's still offering a glimpse at a brighter, more inclusive future for professional baseball.Īs recounted in Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller's book about running the 2015 Stompers, The Only Rule Is It Has to Work, Conroy came out to his parents when he was a teenager. So far, though, Conroy's story has been different. Before becoming the first openly gay player in Major League Soccer, Robbie Rogers' coming out originally coincided with his retirement. Jason Collins and Michael Sam were celebrated for coming out but then swiftly nudged aside. Glenn Burke and Billy Bean had unhappy and short-lived careers as major leaguers who were not out publicly. The precedents for Conroy's experience aren't encouraging. The Stompers are one of only four teams in the independent Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs, where players make only a couple hundred bucks a month in a three-month season. The moment may have been surreal, but what happened last June was very real.
Photo credit: Conroy family photo, courtesy of the Sonoma Stompers.