Now starting at shortstop for your Atlanta Braves...country star Jason Aldean?
Atlanta Braves fans have had great shortstop play over the last thirty years or so - Dansby Swanson, Andrelton Simmons, Rafael Furcal, and Jeff Blauser amongst others.
They almost had another - country star Jason Aldean.
Aldean, 46, is set to play at tonight's 58th Academy of Country Music Awards show in Dallas, TX tonight. He's the reigning ACM Artist of the Decade and a three-time winner of the ACM Entertainer of the Year award (and possibly four, after tonight - he's nominated again for the top honor.)
But, before he ever picked up a guitar, he was a baseball fan, and that was the primary career path Aldean saw as a youngster.
He talked to SI's Bri Amaranthus about his love for baseball in an exclusive interview prior to the show.
"I would play baseball,” Aldean told Amaranthus in the interview. “That was my sport growing up. I think my dream job is to play shortstop or second base for the Atlanta Braves."
According to a 2016 profile in American Songwriter, Aldean (who grew up in Macon) was a lefty leadoff hitter all-through high school, being offered a college scholarship to further his baseball career. But after not being drafted after his prep years, he chose to forego college and pursue his other passion: music.
“[Music] was kind of my back up plan" Aldean told Bri, "it worked out pretty good. I'm too old to play now but if I could have a career change, it would be baseball."
Saying it worked out is a bit of an understatement: Aldean has twenty-seven #1 singles, over twenty million album sales, and over fifteen billion streams of his music.
Not bad for a backup plan, right?
The longtime Braves fan makes time, even with his busy schedule, to record and watch as many Atlanta games as he can. He was celebrating on the field with the team after the Braves clinched the 2021 World Series in Houston, and he attests that he was attending in 1999, as well.
Aldean joins a star-studded cast for tonight's 58th Academy of Country Music Awards, being broadcast at 7PM ET on Prime Video.
Read the full piece from Bri Amaranthus HERE.
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