Zach Edey throws out first pitch at Chicago Cubs game ahead of 2024 NBA Draft combine

Basketball is the sport that has come to define Zach Edey, an endeavor that made him famous and will soon make him a professional athlete.

Long before his sizable hands first picked up a basketball, though, Edey had another love — baseball.

On Monday night, the former Purdue star got the opportunity to rekindle that childhood passion.

While in Chicago ahead of the 2024 NBA Draft combine, Edey threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Chicago Cubs game while wearing a custom-made No. 15 jersey with his last name stitched on the back.

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The 7-foot-4 Edey’s pitch was thrown with considerable velocity, but veered far to his left, well outside of the reach of Cubs mascot Clark the Cub, who was playing the role of catcher.

Though it wasn’t clear from the pitch he threw, Edey was once a standout baseball player growing up in his native Toronto. Given his massive physical stature, Edey was an intimidating presence both at the plate and on the mound.

"This guy was hitting a ball right through the shortstop, not many people would stand in its way," Jeff Wolburgh, one of Edey’s former coaches, said to MLB.com earlier this year. "He hit the ball like an adult. He hit the ball so hard on the ground it would even go through the outfielders."

By the time he was 15, Edey had morphed into a bona fide college prospect, consistently getting solid contact as a batter and throwing into the 80s as a pitcher. In an interview with MLB.com, Eric Stickney, one of Edey’s you baseball coaches, compared his protégé to New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, both of whom tower over the plate (though Judge, for as tall as he is, is nine inches shorter than Edey).

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For years, Edey had avoided playing basketball, believing it was the default sport for extraordinarily lengthy athletes like himself, but at 16 years old, he took up the game. And the rest, as they say, is history.

After winning national player of the year in each of his final two college seasons and leading Purdue to its first national championship game since 1969, Edey enters the professional ranks as one of the most accomplished players in recent college basketball history.

Edey is considered a first-round NBA draft pick by several outlets, with The Ringer having him going No. 17 overall to the Miami Heat and The Athletic projecting him to go to the Boston Celtics with the No. 30 overall selection.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Zach Edey throws out first pitch at Cubs game ahead of NBA Draft combine