If you had asked Anthony Alford what he missed about football two weeks ago, the response would’ve been different than it is today.

Suiting up for two big-time college football programs at Southern Mississippi and Ole Miss — one as a dual-threat quarterback and then one as a defensive back — in front of crowds sometimes approaching 100,000 was a little bit different than the sparse attendance figures he’d encounter in the lower level of the minor leagues.

Sitting in the dugout at Rogers Centre as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday, hours before hopping on a plane for Arizona to begin the process of repairing and rehabbing a broken hamate bone, that answer doesn’t really apply now that he’s had a taste of the majors.

“I miss the things that come with football,” said Alford, wearing a smile on his face and a brace on his left wrist. “I did miss the atmosphere that comes with football … until I got to the big leagues and saw this atmosphere.”

Alford still sounds like a football player.

He talks about the process, the plan, where’s he’s been, what it’s all meant, and even takes a moment every so often to wonder how things could’ve been different.

“I don’t really miss it as much as I thought I would,” Alford said. “I’m glad I got it out of my system in college. I think if I would have come out of high school and played baseball full time, maybe I would’ve been saying, ‘Dang, I wonder what it’d be like to play football.’ When I’d go through struggles I’d probably be second-guessing myself like, ‘Did I make the right decision?’

“It wasn’t an easy decision, but as my football career kept going, I started realizing baseball was my calling and it would benefit me more in the future.”

These days, the 22-year-old outfielder is definitely a baseball player, one who’s experienced both extreme highs and lows since turning to the sport full time prior to the 2015 season.

That trend is continuing in his brief tenure in The Show.

From being called up straight from Double-A New Hampshire on May 19 to hitting the disabled list five days later, Alford has been riding an “emotional rollercoaster” to begin his major-league career.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Alford said of being summoned and making his debut at Baltimore’s Camden Yards. “It was a dream come true. I didn’t expect it to happen so soon and it was really an emotional night for me.”

Now he’s driving rehab road.

Alford flew to Phoenix on Monday to have his broken hamate bone examined by noted hand, wrist and elbow specialist Dr. Donald Sheridan, the first step in a four-to-six-week journey that will likely end back in the minors for more seasoning when he’s ready to play baseball again.

“It’s just another speed bump in the road for me,” Alford said.

Another speed bump. Not a speed bump.

Alford has been through a lot over the past couple of years, including a fire over the winter fire that destroyed his parents’ home in Columbia, Miss., taking all of his childhood baseball memorabilia along with it.

On the field, last year’s early-season knee dislocation and a mid-summer concussion also set him back considerably.

“I’ve dealt with a few injuries last year, as well, and it was real frustrating,” Alford said. “On top of that, I had stuff going on off the field.

“I know I’ll overcome this.”

The broken bone he suffered on a swing in his eighth MLB at-bat in Milwaukee a week ago, just after he recorded his first major-league hit with a ringing double off the centre field wall at Miller Park, is the latest setback.

“It was on a 2-1 swing in my second at-bat,” Alford said. “I swung through a fastball – maybe if I would have hit it, it wouldn’t have happened – and I kind of heard a pop. If you go back and watch the video, you’ll see me stretching out my wrist. I thought my wrist had just stiffened up on me or I had rolled it. I tried to grind it out through the game and then got it looked at.

“I knew when I took that swing and felt that pop that something was wrong. I had never felt that before.”

One of the silver linings of the untimely injury is Alford will get to deliver the baseball he smacked off the wall to his mother in Columbia when he heads to the Blue Jays’ minor-league complex in Dunedin to rehab the injury, helping to start the process of replacing all the mementos lost in the fire.

Broken hamate bones, the tiny carpal bone on the little finger side of the wrist, are common.

Talk to 10 ballplayers and you’re bound to find at least one who’s been through the surgery and recovery process.

Blue Jays second baseman Devon Travis, who was plagued by a hamate injury during his senior year in high school and eventually had the bone removed as a freshman at Florida State, says he recovered in five weeks and didn’t feel many ill effects.

Same with Troy Tulowitzki, as a broken hamate cost him 33 games during the 2010 season with the Colorado Rockies.

“Everybody’s different,” said Tulowitzki, who mentioned to Alford that he had the same injury but didn’t have much wisdom to offer other than to listen to the doctors. “I’ve seen people come back from the injury and never miss any time, and some guys it takes longer. It’s like anything — you just don’t really know.

“All they do is take out a bone and you’re back.”