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Frankie Ballard Shares His Love Of Baseball

05/05/2014
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(Radio.com) Growing up in Battle Creek, MI, burgeoning country music star Frankie Ballard harbored dreams of baseball, with the sport helping propel him through his college years at Western Michigan University.

"I probably would have never made it through college without baseball, so I'm thankful for that," he said during an exclusive interview with Radio.com. "I really am proud that I got to play on that level. It was an incredible experience. My senior year at Western Michigan, I hit .300. But there's probably a hundred right-fielders in Division 1 college baseball this year that hit .300. And they also hit 20 (home runs) and are six-foot five�I don't think I had everything it took to take it to the next level. But I still love baseball. I'm a Detroit Tigers fan through and through."

It was towards the end of college that Ballard's interested in music music slowly but surely moved him away from his beloved sport and into a new career. His most recent full-length, Sunshine & Whiskey, boasts the hit single, "Helluva Life," which peaked at No. 1 on Billboard's Country Airplay chart.

"Somewhere in my senior year, I would stay after practice and take a hundred ground balls or extra batting practice, hitting balls off the tee under the sun went down," he recalled. "All of a sudden, I started leaving practice early, and going to blues jams. "I started at that time writing songs. I'd never really written any songs before college. This music passion really started to well up inside of me. Where once I was just all about baseball, those things just kind of switched and baseball took a back seat�music really took over." more on this story

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Copyright Radio.com/CBS Local - Excerpted here with permission.

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