As the 10th round and the 316th pick of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft came around June 10, Jones County High senior catcher Tyler Roberts had taken his eyes off the draft board for a few minutes.

The Milwaukee Brewers were on the clock, and Roberts had spoken with representatives from the club twice already that day.

The first time, they made him an offer that he refused, telling them that he thought he could play a year of junior college ball, be selected higher in next year’s draft, and get more guaranteed money.

The second time, they called and offered less money than they had earlier.

So, when his dad Micah called to let him know he was on the board with the pick, Roberts was surprised to say the least.

“I was thinking, ‘I just told them no,’” Roberts said.

That night in the lobby of the Courtyard Marriott in Macon, however, the Brewers revised their offer to their 10th-round pick, and Roberts signed, setting into motion a rapid chain of events that would lead to him becoming a professional baseball player.

After signing, Wednesday, he did an interview with a local radio station, Thursday, and signed some autographs around town and at the conclusion of his alma mater’s summer baseball camp, Friday.

Amidst all of those appearances, he made as much time as possible with his friends and family before a Sunday flight to Glendale, Ariz., for the start of rookie-league ball.

He said upon his arrival in Glendale, he and a roommate would be put up in a room in the Marriott hotel that sits right beside his team’s training facility.

Roberts met with the training staff of the Arizona League Brewers for a physical, Monday, and was on the field, Tuesday, just six days after putting his name on the dotted line.

Roberts said he is expected to spend the rest of this season in Glendale, before hopefully moving up to Helena, Mont., at the beginning of next season.

Those two rookie-league teams should prepare him for single-A ball in either West Virginia or Florida, AA in Alabama, and AAA in Tennessee.

“Hopefully I’ll make my major-league debut within five years,” he said.

Roberts said he did his homework concerning the Brewers farm system and found that they have two catchers in the minors with batting averages below .200.

“As long as I go in and do what I need to do, I might move up through the ranks pretty quickly,” he said.

Roberts had some previous experience with the Brewers organization, as he played on their East Coast Pro Showcase team in Florida last summer.

“They were watching me play during summer ball, and after I had a great game, they came up to me and said, ‘Hey, we want to put you on this team. You get to play in front of nothing but major league scouts,’” Roberts said.

“I was like, ‘Yes sir, I’ll be there on the first ticket out.’ It was fun.”

The senior then put together probably the most prolific offensive season in Jones County High history with a .584 batting average, 13 home runs, and 51 runs batted in, despite drawing an average of more than one walk per game and facing constant evaluation by major league scouts.

“To be honest with you, he probably handled the draft process better than anybody else we’ve had get drafted,” Greyhounds coach Barry Veal said.

In 16 years as head coach, Veal has seen Rico Washington go in the 10th round of the 1997 draft, Eddie Young go in the seventh round of the 2000 draft, and more than a handful of other players go between the 30th and 40th rounds in various years.

After this past season, Roberts made trips to four different major league ballparks, working out for the Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees, and Washington Nationals, as well as several other teams, including the Brewers.

“He took his trips and did it the right way,” Veal said. It was a chance to go take the field at Turner Field and Yankee Stadium.

“Hopefully he’ll be doing that all the time in five years, but even if he doesn’t, he got to do something a lot of players don’t. I say this in a good way, but I’m envious. As a ball player, I haven’t ever been on Turner Field or at Yankee Stadium to take batting practice.”

Veal said he personally expected Roberts to go between the fifth and eighth rounds, but this year’s draft proved to be a top-heavy one for catchers, which likely hurt the Jones County High standout’s stock a little.

“It doesn’t matter as long as you go somewhere in the 10th to 12th rounds,” Veal said. “It’s about just getting a chance, and Tyler’s got his chance.”

Despite a scholarship to Meridian Community College, one of the country’s premier junior college baseball programs, in hand and four more chances to be drafted if he chose to go that route, Roberts said he could not turn down this chance for a couple of reasons.

“The biggest factor is I was scared I’d never get another chance,” he said. “I’m sitting right here now as an 18-year-old kid about to go play professional ball. I could easily go to college and blow out my knee and never have the opportunity again.

“Plus, I had to make sure the pro team was going to pay for my college. They’re paying for all four years of college. I can do it while I’m playing or when I get done playing.”

Though he has spent his whole life playing this game of adjustments, Roberts likely has more of them on his hands now than he has ever faced before at one time.

One of the biggest challenges he expected was that he would not know anyone.

With the exception of Braxton Lane, a teammate on his Atlanta Blue Jays summer ball team who was selected in the seventh round by the Texas Rangers and also sent to Glendale, Roberts probably does not know anybody else in the whole state of Arizona.

He also anticipated the challenge of the increased competitiveness.

“I’m definitely ready to get back out there. I’ve been sitting out too long,” he said. “I’m a little anxious, but I’m nervous at the same time, because I’ll be playing with 20- to 25-year-old grown men. They said I’m one of the youngest kids out there, so I guess I’ve got to show them why I’m there.”

Finally, Roberts said he will have to maintain a level of self-confidence and self-motivation like never before.

“I probably won’t ever have another coach Veal, who always helped me there and pushed me to go to the next level. Now it’s on my own,” he said.

“He’s going to find out that it’s not all glory. It’s not all what you see on TV. He’s going to run into some brick walls when he’s been on the field three or four weeks from 7 a.m. to basically 7 p.m. in that Arizona heat,” Veal said.

“But I think with Tyler’s love of the game of baseball, he’s going to do all right. He has a love for the game that very few people have.”

“I’m just ready to put up numbers and play the game like a little kid like I always have,” Roberts said. “I want to say thank you to all the fans in Jones County and the Middle Georgia area for helping me and being there with me.”