Like every other young boy in America, Jason Aldean grew up playing Little League. As his playing days progressed into middle school, he rose above the rest. A talented left-handed lead off hitter, Aldean was a force to be reckoned with on his high school team, so much so that he earned a baseball scholarship.
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While that is the dream for most players, it wasn’t necessarily Aldean’s. He wanted to go pro.
Since he wasn’t drafted by any professional teams right out of high school, Aldean passed on his chance at college ball. It wasn’t because he didn’t think he could play at that level; he passed simply because he didn’t like school. Aldean loved two things — baseball and music — and if he couldn’t play baseball on the big stage, he left it behind and went the other way.
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But that doesn’t mean he loves the game any less. A die-hard Atlanta Braves fan, Aldean still keeps tabs on his favorite team.
“A lot of times, what I’ll do is, I’ll have my cousin keeping up with the score,” he said a few years ago in a commercial for the MLB app. “He’ll relay the information to my monitor guy, and then in between songs, they’ll kind of feed me the score.”
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Even now, with all the success he’s had as one of the biggest stars in country music, that fire burns. Robin Roberts caught up with Aldean in 2013 before he headlined the Red Sox’ famed home field of Fenway Park and asked if he would give it all up — if he would trade in his cowboy hat for a baseball glove. Believe it or not, he had to think for a minute.
“Hmmmm. I don’t know. Maybe for a couple innings,” he said. Then, looking out at his stage setup in center field, he was quickly brought back to reality. “To get a chance to play these stadiums as an artist is not bad. It’s not what I had in mind, but it’ll definitely work.”
Well, at least his backup plan worked out.
