A's Prospect Desme Wants to Become a Padre

One of the reasons we follow sports as a society is because sports bring uncertainty. On any given day, one team can beat another and everyday brings a new story.

Sometimes the stories are expected, and sometimes the stories come out of right field. I have been following sports—and in particular, baseball—for the past 25 years, and I have never heard a story like the one that came out of Oakland yesterday.

Grant Desme, one of the Oakland A’s top prospects is retiring from baseball to enter the priesthood. It’s news that nobody saw coming, not even A’s GM Billy Beane.

Beane “was understanding and supportive,” Desme said through the Associated Press, but the decision “sort of knocked him off his horse.”

I am not surprised this news knocked Beane off his horse because Desme was a rising prospect in the A’s organization.

Desme was a second-round pick of the A’s back in 2007 and was recently named MVP of the Arizona Fall League, where he hit .315 with 11 home runs and 27 RBI in 27 games. Desme also had a breakout year in the minors in 2009.

In 131 games with Class-A Kane County and high Class-A Stockton, Desme hit .288 with 31 home runs, 40 stolen bases, 31 doubles, six triples, and a .933 OPS. He went into 2010 as the A’s’ eighth best prospect according to Baseball America.

I love how people are trying to justify the loss of Desme to the A’s by saying he didn’t project well. Are you kidding? How does anyone know how this kid was going to project based on one year in Single-A?

Isn’t that typical of how we are? It’s like when a girl breaks up with us and we and our friends try to justify that she wasn’t the one or you can do better than her. We all, including myself, have done it before.

Just like with the girlfriend breakup, the A’s will move on from this. But unlike the girlfriend breakup, there was nothing to suggest that Desme couldn’t have had a successful major league career.

Who is to say that whatever holes he had in his swing in Single-A couldn’t be corrected in Double-A? Whether Desme would become an All-Star caliber player with the A’s, we will never know. What we do know is that Desme is following his passion, and we can’t fault him for that.

“I love the game, but I aspire to higher things,” Desme said. “I know I have no regrets.”

Good for him, I say. I think why this story is making headlines and is considered bizarre is because Desme is leaving baseball to become a priest. It’s something that doesn’t happen everyday.

But being a priest is not bizarre, it’s a career. It’s a career just like being a VP of sales, a garbage man, or a lawyer is a career.

I wish nothing but the best for Desme and wish him well in his new career. I am sure if he has any holes in his new career, he will correct them and figure it out.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg