A’s prospect Grant Desme is leaving baseball for the priesthood

FOXSports.com’s Jon Paul Morosi reports that A’s outfield prospect Grant Desme is retiring from baseball at age 23 “in order to pursue the priesthood.” Seriously. Baseball America recently ranked Desme as the team’s eighth-best prospect following a breakout season that saw him hit .288/.365/.568 with 31 homers and 40 steals in 131 games between two levels of Single-A. He followed that up by winning MVP honors in the Arizona Fall League and may have been in the A’s plans as soon as the second half of this season, so obviously this news comes as quite a shock. This is sure to be a touchy subject, so I’ll just say this: Desme’s potential as a baseball player has never looked better and at best you can only play baseball until you’re about 40 years old, so retiring at age 23 to pursue something that can be a lifelong endeavor seems ... odd.