Before he became a professional baseball player, Kelvin Chapman was a Ukiah High School athlete who loved all sports.

“Football, basketball, baseball — anything with a ball, I loved playing,” said Chapman, admitting that while it was eventually baseball who came courting, “basketball was actually my favorite sport.”

After graduating from Ukiah High in 1974, Chapman was playing baseball at Santa Rosa Junior College when he impressed a visiting Major League Baseball scout, because by the end of 1975 the Ukiah native had been drafted by the New York Mets.

Nearly four years of minor league play later, Chapman had his Major League Debut at Chicago’s Wrigley Field in April of 1979, a night he recalls fondly.

“My parents were there, and I got two hits,” recalled Chapman, adding that he was given the game ball afterward. “That was a great night.”

According to Wikipedia, Chapman had “two hits in five at-bats in his debut” as the Mets starting second baseman that season, but then returned to the minors the next month. A few years later, Chapman returned to “The Show” in May of 1984, and that August he had another of his favorite baseball moments: hitting “a Grand Slam against the Giants” at Shea Stadium, a feat that helped the Mets win 11-6.

The next year, which would be Chapman’s last in professional baseball, Wikipedia has him returning to the Tidewater Tides after “playing his last Major League game in July of 1985,” and reports that while he could have remained with the organization, “Chapman, who had injured his knee during the 1985 season, opted to retire and return home to California.”

Once back in Mendocino County, Chapman said he stayed as close to baseball as he could, first operating batting cages in Ukiah for many years that he said were very popular but were “too seasonal” to offer steady income, so he moved on to coaching women’s softball for several years, “which I very much enjoyed.”

Now living in Redwood Valley with “30 acres of vineyards” while working part-time at Mendocino College and enthusiastically supporting local sports teams of all kinds, Chapman returned to the world of baseball last Saturday at Anton Stadium in Ukiah, where he signed baseballs and greeted fans of all ages for the “Small Town, Big Dreams” event presented by Ukiah High School Baseball and Ukiah Young Bucks Baseball Program.

When asked what he would tell all young people interested in playing professional sports, Chapman said to just play your best and give it everything you have, no matter the odds against you.

Though Chapman also warned that much of his time as a professional baseball player was far from glamorous, recalling “traveling everywhere in buses and sleeping eight guys to a hotel room. Also, when I was playing, the minimum salary was like $21,000.”

And since very few of those who try for “The Show” will actually make it there, Chapman advised all athletes to have a back-up plan, urging them to “go to school, either a college or trade school, and learn a skill, maybe get a teaching degree.”

As for his own kids, Chapman noted proudly that both of his sons, Jason and Brett, “were very good baseball players,” and while Brett was sidelined early due to an injury, Jason was “drafted by the Cincinnati Reds, though he was never signed.”

When asked about his brush with a professional baseball career, Jason Chapman, who now works for the Ukiah Police Department along with his brother Brett, said he was glad for the experience, describing it as “not a disappointment at all, and something cool I can tell my kids.”

Also attending Saturday’s event in Ukiah were Devin Kirby of the Minnesota Twins, who was born in Ukiah, and Michael Petersen of the Toronto Blue Jays, whom organizer Shaun Hoben said “played college ball with Antonio Lopez, who is our Ukiah High JV coach.”