Pitching into the spotlight

TUCSON, Arizona — It's not the least bit surprising that Jaden Agassi — son of tennis legends Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf — had a racket in his hand from the time he could walk.

The little boy loved to run. He loved to hit the ball. The problem was accuracy wasn't his thing.

"It was hard for me to keep the ball in the lines," Agassi said, laughing. "I just wanted to hit it as far as I could."

So his parents signed him up for baseball. About 20 years later, he's trying to make his own mark in the sports world.

The 23-year-old Agassi is a pitcher for Team Germany in this week's World Baseball Classic qualifiers in Tucson, Arizona. The right-hander grew up in Las Vegas with his famous American dad and German mother before playing college baseball at USC. He holds dual citizenship and speaks a little German.

The popularity of baseball has grown in Germany over the past few decades, but manager Jendrick Speer was still searching for a few additions to the roster for the WBC qualifiers when he stumbled across Agassi on social media and realized his connections to the country.

"I found him because he's a good baseball player," Speer said. "With all the technology out there, we found him while researching and discovered that he had played in college and had citizenship. It worked out great and he's a great guy."

Growing up in the Las Vegas area, Agassi was right in the middle of a baseball hotbed. The metro has produced recent MLB standouts such as Bryce Harper, Kris Bryant, Bryson Stott, Paul Sewald, Joey Gallo and Tyler Anderson.