He grew up loving baseball and the Phillies, but it was his acting that got him on the mound for the ceremonial first pitch of a spring training game last week in Clearwater, Fla.

After following the Phillies during their postseason runs from 2007 to 2011, while living in New York City, Downingtown native Miles Teller found himself in Hollywood with acting roles for hit movies like Bleed for This, War Dogs, and Whiplash.

“Sports was my first passion,” Teller said in a PhillyVoice interview with Ryan Lawrence. “Sports and music.”

While he still has aunts and cousins in Malvern, he played youth baseball in New Jersey and high school ball in Florida.

But he always took his love for the Phillies with him, and asked if he could pick any star player to portray in a movie, Teller chose Darren Daulton.

“I just always loved his hair and how tan he always was,” Teller said of the former catcher. “And when he got called out on a third strike and laid his bat down and got into it with the ump. I don’t know. I just loved that.”

Read more about Miles Teller’s early years and acting career on PhillyVoice here.

[uam_ad id=”58462″]