BUFFALO - Auston Matthews, like many elite athletes, had early natural ability in more than one sport. The presumptive No. 1 overall pick in this weekend’s NHL Entry Draft excelled at hockey, but was something of a savant at baseball, too.

He made his first visit to the turf of a diamond in years on Wednesday, joining five other top draft prospects at batting practice with the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons. It didn’t start well.

“Put the first [swing] right off my ankle; went off the sole of my shoe,” Matthews lamented afterward.  “It doesn’t hurt. No injury. [But a] little embarrassing, the first one off my foot. [When I played], my favourite thing was batting, it was pretty much the only thing I was good at.”

With spotlights trained on the 18-year-old ahead of Friday’s first round, you can forgive him for feeling out of his element in the cage. Growing up in Scottsdale, Ariz., Matthews followed in his father Brian’s footsteps by taking up baseball, along with hockey, by the age of six.

Brian was a college baseball player at Loyola Marymount University in Southern California before he threw his arm out. The elder Matthews couldn’t resist offering his son some pointers Wednesday before his turn with the bat.

“He was bugging me [with] all the stuff he used to tell me growing up,” Matthews said. “[Saying] hands back and whatever, baseball stuff I haven’t heard it in a while. But he said to enjoy it.”

As his skill sets blossomed, Matthews, a centre on the ice who chose to play catcher because he liked being in the middle of the action, had to make a choice between activities.

“Hockey was kind of my main sport, my main passion, so I’d always miss a lot of baseball games and practices for hockey,” he said. “I decided when I was about 13 I was going to stick with hockey. I mean, I thought I was pretty talented [at baseball]. I guess we’ll never know.”

What the most educated guessers will tell him now is that in two days the Toronto Maple Leafs will make him just the seventh American picked first in the NHL draft, and distinguish him as the inaugural top selection from a warm-weather state.

“It’s definitely pretty humbling to see little kids noticing you [back home],” he said. “I think that’s a tribute to how much the sport has grown in Arizona and the southern states. It’s pretty cool to be a part of.”

Matthews says he’s gotten used to being the centre of attention most places he goes. Among the Bisons, an affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, it was no different. Matthews threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Wednesday's game to resounding applause from the crowd and many players asked for photos and autographs. He happily obliged, but kept his thoughts on Toronto’s hockey club close to the vest.

“Of course that possibility kind of runs through your head,” he said of playing in the city. “But I’m just going to take [this process] day by day and enjoy this whole experience. We’ll see what happens come Friday.”