South Sydney Rabbitohs forward and England international Sam Burgess has hit the nets this week and proved to be quite handy with a baseball bat during some practice swings at Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies.
With a big arching swing, Burgess was hitting them very sweetly as he and his England teammates warmed up for their mid-season test in Denver against the New Zealand Warriors.
While big Sammy is used to having even bigger men running at him for the duration of 80 minutes, the barnstorming prop says the rush of a moving ball hurtle towards him was a very new experience.
"It was good fun pretty excited I got a thrill from hitting the ball it was good fun."
"All the Colorado Rockies boys were friendly and thought we were pretty big guys and wanted to learn more about football."
However, any lifelong dream Burgess had of becoming the next big Major League Baseball star were shattered after the batting session, with Colorado coach Bud Black running the pen through his name.
"Well I did hit a few clean ones and I came out and said have you got a contract ready and he said 'I don't think so'," Burgess explained.
"But I was happy with my performance in the nets, the coach is a great guy full of energy and really relaxed and we're really thankful he let us in there to hit a few balls."
While Saturday (Sunday 6am) is crunch time for Burgess and his England teammates, the Dewsbury native says that they'll be making sure they enjoy themselves all the way up until kick off.
"It's cool and obviously a lot of the Colorado Rockies boys were interested in our game so hopefully some fans from today's baseball will come along to our game on Saturday," Burgess said.
"That's the aim to get people to come down and watch rugby league but we're going to have fun along the way and today has been exactly that."
Check out some of Burgess' home runs on Fox Sports.
