A higher calling for ex-A's prospect Grant Desme

In the week and a half since outfield prospect Grant Desme shook the Oakland Athletics by announcing he was retiring at 23 to become a Catholic priest, the commentary has been gentle. Someone said he traded himself to the Padres, someone else said he will be playing for the Angels and yet another person said that he now would, unlike the A's, have a prayer.

At least publicly, no one has called him a kook, which is a good sign that there is some hope for us as a culture after all.

Starting with Athletics general manager Billy Beane, through the organization and rippling across the sports public, people were stunned that someone who was on the verge of really making it in the major leagues would decide to turn away from it completely. But they pretty much supported Desme's decision. There wasn't even an outcry about him squandering the investment the Athletics had made in him, a $432,000 signing bonus.

They respected his new calling, as opposed to a call-up from Class A.

This is not to say people admire the clergy as much as they do star ballplayers. Far from it. That is what made Desme's choice so unusual. Scouts believed he was a cinch to make the big leagues before long. He was the Most Valuable Player in the Big West Conference for Cal Poly before the Athletics made him a second-round draft pick. He was MVP in the Arizona Fall League last year.

Desme was coming off a season in which he played at two different levels of Class A and totaled 31 home runs and 40 stolen bases. Statistics buffs say he was the only 30-40 guy in organized baseball. What was interesting to him was that his success didn't turn his head. He had been considering the priesthood in 2008, when he barely played because of injuries. A good year on the field did not change his mind.

"I love the game, but I'm going to aspire to higher things," he told reporters on a conference call recently. "I know I have no regrets."

He has given up the chance of having someone wait on him hand and foot. He has chosen the opposite, vowing poverty as well as celibacy. Plus, he has a long way to go, with nearly a decade of study, prayer and practical experience in ministry ahead of him. He joked that he is going back to the minors.

It is hard to describe what would persuade a young man to make that choice. There is just something inside that says that this is the right way.

Long Islander Joe Fitzgerald can relate to that. He was in the Olympics as a team handball player after having won a Division III national football championship for Ithaca as a quarterback before he became a priest. His sport never offered the prospect of a huge salary, yet he still knows that the loudest cheers for an athlete don't ring as loud as a whisper from God.

Father Fitzgerald wasn't available this morning because he is helping run a retreat for seniors at Holy Trinity High School in Hicksville, where he is chaplain. But he summed it up before his ordination in 2007 when, he said, "I've walked into the Opening Ceremonies high-fiving Shaq. But that doesn't compare to what I've done in youth ministry or working in a hospital or a prison. And I'm not just giving you the company line."

It's like then-Mets general manager Joe McIlvaine said once when I asked him about Blue Jays prospect Aaron Hightower, who left baseball for a seminary: "You have to go where your heart tells you to go." McIlvaine's heart told him to go the opposite direction. He studied for the priesthood for four years, then left the seminary to go into baseball.

Rarely does a ballplayer leave for the altar when he is at or near the top of his game. For anything close to Desme's situation, you might have to go all the way back to the 1890s, when Billy Sunday quit to become a Presbyterian minister. He would become more famous as an evangelist than he was as an outfielder.

Desme is not likely to have the same kind of career trajectory. He is in for daunting and humbling work. He just believes he can do more for more people in his new role. To their credit, people understand that.

Author and professor Lee Lowenfish, an expert on Brooklyn Dodgers history, said that Branch Rickey-who was as competitive as they come-refused to sign ministry students because God needs all the help he can get.

Amen to that.