It won’t take a special agent to figure out who is throwing out the first pitch to officially open the Palisades Pony Baseball Association season this Saturday at the Palisades Recreation Center’s Field of Dreams complex. The honor goes to Chris O’Donnell, who plays agent ‘G’ Callen in the hit television show ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ and will make an encore performance on the PPBA diamond Saturday at 9 a.m. Quite often stars are chosen to throw the first pitch with little regard for their athletic prowess, but not so in this case. O’Donnell tossed a strike to open the PPBA season back in 2001 and Commissioner Bob Benton is thrilled he was able to lure the actor back to the mound. When O’Donnell threw that pitch nine years ago, he had just moved to Pacific Palisades and his oldest child, Lily, was but a year old and his son Christopher (nicknamed ‘Chip’) was 5 months old. ‘I knew I would have kids out there someday, when I threw out that pitch,’ said O’Donnell, whose show airs Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. on CBS. ‘It’s amazing how time flies.’ O’Donnell and wife Caroline Fentress have five children’Lily, Chip, Charles, Finley and Maeve’ranging in age from 2 to 10. Chip plays for the Mustang Cardinals and Charles plays T-ball. O’Donnell is trying to persuade his son to catch the first pitch. ‘I tried to get him to come out with me when I threw out a pitch for the White Sox a few years ago,’ the actor said. ‘He was a little nervous about walking out on the mound with me, of course, there were about 40,000 people watching so it was understandable. The pancake breakfast I may be able to talk him into.’ The youngest of seven children, O’Donnell grew up in Winnetka, Ilinois, where he played on numerous teams. ‘I love sports,’ he said. ‘Baseball was always a big sport for me, I collected baseball cards, which I still have, and I was a huge Chicago White Sox fan.’ He played little league for five years, but notes that it was nothing like PPBA. ‘I don’t know if kids realize how lucky they are to have such an incredible league to play in,’ said O’Donnell, who was on his high school crew team and skipped his prom because the rowing championship was that same weekend. In college he played pick-up hockey and basketball games. Now, O’Donnell is an avid golfer with a six handicap. ‘I’ve played golf since I was a child,’ he said. While in Los Angeles he frequents the Bel-Air Country Club and also plays beach volleyball. O’Donnell started acting and modeling when he was 13 years old. In 1990, at age 17, he won his first film role in ‘Men Don’t Leave.’ Graduating from Boston College in 1995 with a degree in marketing, he had already had parts in the films ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’ and ‘Scent of a Woman’ and ‘Mad Love.’ Most notably he was cast as Robin in ‘Batman Forever’ (1995) and reprised the role two years later in ‘Batman and Robin.’ He was cast in ‘Vertical Limit’ in 2002 and in ‘Kinsey’ in 2004. For the next few years, in order to stay close to home and his children, O’Connell went the television route, acting in hit shows like ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ ‘The Practice’ and ‘Two and a Half Men.’ His latest movie, ‘Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,’ will open in July, but O’Donnell is thankful that ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ has been renewed. ‘Even though I do work long hours,’ he said. ‘It’s easier to see my kids based in LA rather than being stuck on location.’ The O’Donnells are proud to call Pacific Palisades home. ‘We moved here because of the great neighborhood,’ the actor said. ‘There aren’t many places like it in LA. I like the fact that people actually talk to their neighbors here. ‘We started out in Beverly Hills and everyone was behind a gate, we never knew who was living on our street,’ he added. ‘I love that our village feels like a throw back, reminds me of my childhood in Winnetka.’
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