Schuckman: While watching MLB Draft, Palmyra’s Kroeger realizes ‘Holy cow, this is going to happen’

QUINCY — Jacob Kroeger’s day began job hunting and ended with flight plans.

That’s quite a way to start the week.

Monday morning, the former Palmyra multi-sport athlete and recent All-American left-handed pitcher at Maryville University had a meeting about a potential graduate assistant position with a regional college athletic program. Monday night, he signed a contract with the Atlanta Braves and booked a Sunday morning flight to the franchise’s training facility in North Port, Fla.

“I don’t think it has fully sunk in yet,” Kroeger said. “It’s crazy.”

Historic, too.

Kroeger was selected by the Braves in the 10th round of the Major League Baseball Draft on Monday, being taken with the 311th pick overall in the 20-round draft. He became the first Palmyra product selected since Terry Bogener went in the eighth round to the Texas Rangers in 1978.

He is only the second Maryville player to ever be drafted, joining Robbie Gordon, who was taken by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 36th round in 2016.

“I didn’t expect it to be (Monday),” said Kroeger, who was named a second-team All-American this past spring by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and the American Baseball Coaches Association. “I thought it would be Tuesday or as a free-agent signing, just based on conversations with my advisor and the way things had laid out throughout the year.”

That’s why he was in a meeting Monday morning when his advisor reached out.

The 6-foot-1, 190-pound Kroeger spent the first five weeks of the summer pitching for the State College (Penn.) Spikes in the MLB Draft League. He returned to St. Louis on Saturday in case anything happened with the draft and was expected to be back in State College on Wednesday.

He worked out and threw over the weekend and then inquired about the GA position. When he emerged from that meeting, he discovered he had missed a text from his advisor and learned the Braves were in play to potentially draft him that day.

“I rushed home and threw it on,” Kroeger said of the draft, which was being televised on the MLB Network.

The day started with the third round, and by late afternoon, Kroeger prepared himself for a call.

“About the eighth round, that’s when it got real and I knew it was going to happen,” said Kroeger, who graduated from Maryville as the single-season and career record holder for strikeouts. “(His advisor) texted me and told me they were going to take me in the 10th round.

“That’s when I kind of knew and was like, ‘Holy cow, this is going to happen.’”

Although he was in St. Louis with his girlfriend, his parents — Doug and Karrie Kroeger — joined him via FaceTime to watch the draft as the 10th round neared.

“It was a surreal moment and definitely exciting,” Kroeger said. Once it happened, I didn’t even know what to do.”

His parents did. They cried.

“I was able to make sure they got to be a part of it,” Kroeger said. “I tried not to look at them because they were crying and I’m not the biggest emotional person. So I tried not to look at them because I didn’t want to cry.”

His girlfriend recorded the moment on video.

“I tried not to look at the camera,” he said.

The whirlwind wasn’t over. Kroeger and his girlfriend went to dinner on Main Street in St. Charles, Mo., and that’s when he received a call from one of the Braves’ directors of player personnel with contract terms and details.

“I was driving, so we had to switch,” Kroeger said.

He signed the contract on his phone on the side of the road, but it wasn’t easy.

“I couldn’t get the contract sent back because of the WiFi,” Kroeger said. “I was trying to sign it on my phone and it was a hassle.”

But well worth any kind of hassle.

“Of course,” Kroeger said.

The Braves will fly him to Florida on Sunday to begin a new chapter in a career already filled with highlights.

“I’ve had people reach out who I haven’t talked to since the Palmyra days, and it’s fun to know they’ve been watching and following from afar,” Kroeger said. “The support is incredible.”

Almost incredible as a moment he won’t ever forget.