Eric Booth Jr.’s love of baseball began with hitting rocks with a stick. It led him to the Orioles.

Eric Booth Jr. had bats and balls from which to choose, but for some reason this little boy growing up near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, preferred sticks and rocks.

His parents, Denise and Eric Sr., knew where to find him most evenings. In their front yard, next to the driveway, is a pond. For hours and hours, Eric “EJ” Booth Jr. would pick up rocks, toss them into the air and swing his stick — sploosh, into the water those rocks went.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, I think that’s going to be his sport,’” said Denise Booth, recalling how she watched her then-6-year-old son begin a path that led him to the Orioles as the No. 7 pick in this month’s draft.

With each swing and sploosh, Booth showed early indications that he would grow into a force. At 18 he recently signed for $7.32 million, and the center fielder is already ranked as Baltimore’s top prospect, according to Baseball America, without having picked up a bat in the minors.

Before he put up gaudy numbers for Oak Grove High School and played all over the country in prospect showcases, he was a boy with a stick and stones.

“That’s all he’d do. We knew he loved baseball,” Denise Booth said. “He had a special love for baseball.”

By drafting Booth in the first round, the Orioles are adding a center fielder with blazing speed who is also lauded for his ability to hit for power and average. One day, he could be patrolling the outfield at Camden Yards, continuing a rapid rise in the sport of his choosing.

Eric Booth Sr. was selected in the 34th round of the 1993 MLB draft by the Toronto Blue Jays, but he chose to attend Southern Miss, where he played running back and set records as a kick returner. Denise played flute and “twirled the flag in the band,” she said.

The common thread for both was their passion for their chosen endeavors, and that rubbed off on EJ.

When he was young, his parents would have to coerce him back inside when it got dark. When he played T-ball, EJ refused to use the tee. His coaches had to move it each plate appearance so EJ, who was one of the smallest kids on the team, could swing at their soft pitches instead. And in high school, as EJ eyed the next level, his mother had to remind him he could afford to put his feet up once in a while.

“Sometimes I have to tell him, ‘Son, take a break,’” Denise Booth said. “He lives it.”

That work ethic shot EJ up prospect rankings and earned him multiple college scholarships. He committed to Vanderbilt, a premier baseball school, before opting to join the Orioles organization as a newly turned 18-year-old.

There was little doubt baseball would be his path, and Eric Sr. and Denise said they never tried to steer him in a parituclar direction. Eric Sr. chose football over baseball and is now a football coach in Mississippi. Some wondered how he’d take it if his son didn’t follow him into that sport.

But Eric Sr. has seen too frequently what it’s like to coach a player who is only at practice for his parents and not himself.

“That’s a hard kid to coach,” Denise Booth said. “He told EJ, ‘I chose my route; you choose yours.’ When he decided it was just baseball, his dad was fine with it.”

And, just because EJ chose baseball didn’t mean he couldn’t work out with his dad. During summer football workouts, EJ joined his dad’s team for all sorts of drills that translate from football to baseball.

“We did small drills to work on his hips and stuff like a DB [defensive back],” Eric Sr. said. “You play DB, you’re in center field, you’re going to have to be able to work your hips left and right to play everything. That came easily to him.”

He has long been a standout defender, but EJ made an early impression on Chris McCardle, his baseball coach at Oak Grove, when he was an eighth grader. EJ, with a July birthday, always played against older kids. He relished the challenge.

McCardle will never forget the swing that convinced him of EJ’s future in the game.

Physically, EJ had shot up in height. “He already kind of looked like an Alabama running back in the eighth grade,” McCardle quipped.

But, when EJ combined that size with an impressive swing, there was no limiting his potential in McCardle’s eyes. Booth, playing on a large high school field as an eighth grader on the ninth-grade team, blasted an opposite-field home run in that big park. That was just the start of a standout high school career.

McCardle coached longtime major leaguer Billy Hamilton during his freshman year of high school. He coached Kirk McCarty, who reached the majors with Cleveland, and college quarterback John Rhys Plumlee. In Mississippi, he coached against schools that featured Pirates shortstop Konnor Griffin and Orioles fourth-rounder Kevin Roberts Jr.

“I’ve seen what it takes,” McCardle said.

Booth has the same combination of work ethic, natural skill and intelligence that separated those players at an early age.

“I knew by the 10th grade year that he was on track to be a first rounder,” McCardle said. “There was really no other way around it. I mean, the kid is just so fast, he’s so big, he hits for power, he hits for average, and he’s about the smartest kid you can get. His mentality is: I can do this, and there’s no failing.”

That’s a mentality built through playing against older competition most of his life. Denise said introducing her son to those challenging tests was “one of the best things we could’ve done … because it pushed him.”

“Any time he felt he couldn’t, or someone else thought he couldn’t, he had to show himself and them that he could,” she said.

For instance, the weakest part of EJ Booth’s game, according to scouting reports, was his arm. He knew this. He saw the grades he was given — high marks across the board expect for his throwing.

When he was a junior, that aspect of his game became his focus.

“He worked at it as much as I’d ever seen,” McCardle said. “Of all the things to do with baseball, he worked on his throwing probably more than his hitting at that point in time, because he knew that was his weakness. And he doesn’t have many weaknesses, and it wasn’t that his arm was bad. It just wasn’t a big league arm. It was a good high school, college arm.”

By the time Booth’s senior year arrived, McCardle knew the throwing drills and strength training had worked. And the Orioles were convinced after a one-on-one predraft workout in Sarasota, Florida. Vice president of domestic scouting Will Robertson said they saw marked improvement with Booth’s arm, which only adds to a dynamic skill set.

These are all things McCardle talks about when introducing Booth at award ceremonies. His player won the Mississippi High School Activities Association 7A Mr. Baseball award, was named to the Clarion Ledger’s Dandy Dozen list and won the home run derby at the Perfect Game All-American Classic in 2025.

But, above all else, McCardle likes to tell a story he feels is emblematic of what makes Booth great.

As scouts from college and professional teams descended on Oak Grove High School at 2 p.m. before home games, McCardle prepared a hitting group to study Booth’s swing. For the first two sessions, McCardle sent Booth out with a few other players who were receiving college interest. But Booth had a request.

“After the second time, he just said, ‘Coach, I want to go down the lineup and let other people hit with me instead of just the same group so they can all get a chance to be a part of it,’” McCardle recalled.

“When a kid is thinking that way, you know he’s actually won in a bigger way than what people think,” McCardle continued. “He’s just that type of kid. He makes everyone around him better, and that’s the type of player everybody wants.”

That side of Booth makes his parents even prouder, they said. He has every reason to be full of himself, to want the attention all on him; instead, as he hit before home games, he wanted every teammate to have the chance to be seen by scouts.

“He has such a big heart,” Denise Booth said. “That makes me very proud.”

In that same vein, in the days leading up to the MLB draft, EJ Booth opted against having a party. He preferred to spend those anxious days with his family. His mom, dad and sister headed to Panama City Beach, Florida, to relax.

And then, when the time came, they sat in front of the television, waiting to find out Booth’s future together, as a family. He’s only a decade removed from being the kid who hit rocks with a stick for hours in his front yard. He only recently turned 18. Now he’s embarking on another challenge entirely: professional baseball.

“He just keeps saying he’s ready to go, ready to work,” Booth’s mom said. “It’s not new to be playing with an older group. It fuels him, he loves it, and he’s really excited to get going, and he’s ready to show everybody what he’s got.”