OK, so you know about my son Grant and playing football and basketball. But for the first time this spring, he has really showed an interest in baseball.

This is no small thing, for him or me.

See, when I was a kid, I was consumed by baseball. We got cable at our house when I was in the third grade, and with it came Channel 17, WTCG. For those who don’t know television history, this was the forerunner of Superstation TBS, which up until a few years ago showed almost every Atlanta Braves game every season. At that time, they DID show every game, because ESPN hadn’t been invented yet and the Braves were so bad that the networks wouldn’t touch them. So I started watching baseball almost every night in the spring and summer. I developed such a passion for the game that when Atlanta played on the west coast at night, I would sneak a transistor radio to bed so that I could listen when I was supposed to be sleeping. I was fanatic about baseball in general and the Braves in particular.

So I just naturally assumed that any son of mine would be just as crazy about baseball as I was. Not so, Grant, at least not until recently. Somehow my son has developed a love for basketball, a game which is a distant third on my “Sports I Love” list. Now we both are borderline obsessed with football, which is great, but he has never shown any interest at all in baseball. Which has been a source of great sadness in his father.

So you can imagine how surprised LaDonna and I were when he said this winter that he wanted to play baseball. It’s been an interesting experience for him. We signed him up in a league that several of his friends play in, but he didn’t end up on any of their teams. And the difficulty of the game, after being pretty successful at both football and basketball the last few years, has taken some getting used to. So far, his team is 0-2, but just lost their last game 7-5. Grant had a hit in two at-bats in the last game and recorded an out playing second base.

And, I think you’ll agree that he looked like a ballplayer doing it.