It’s hard to follow sports in Petaluma without running into the name Dalton Johnson. Living and coaching baseball on the east side of Petaluma I really didn’t know Dalton. It wasn’t until my son attended Petaluma High School and played on the varsity baseball team that I started hearing about him.
What intrigued me about Dalton is that while he has an impressive tenure in sports as an athlete he also has a passion to write about it. Dalton was a sports intern for the Argus Courier. Today he is an outfielder for a NCAA Division II Armstrong Atlantic University Pirates in Savannah, Georgia where he will graduate in spring with a B.A. in English with a concentration in journalism. Not only does he play on the field, he also writes a sports column for the AASU’s school newspaper, The Inkwell. He also is author of a blog called “Life’s A Ball: Life, sports and everything in between.”
Dalton has an impressive track record in local sports. He earned All-League and All-Empire honors in both baseball and football for the Petaluma High School Trojans. In Max-Preps his stats in his senior year are well over the national average. In junior college at SRJC he earned All-Big 8 honors in baseball with an impressive record for a sophomore. Even this week Dalton celebrated a big win for the AASU Pirates after hitting grand slam home run to send them past #24 nationally ranked Braves. Not only was this the Pirates Senior Day, it was the first time that Dalton’s parents were able to see him play at Armstrong. A day they won’t soon forget.
I set out to learn more about Dalton, because I felt that others would like to know more about him. Dalton agreed to an interview so I am happy to share the following with you.
Wayne: What first inspired you to create Life’s A Ball?
Dalton: I started Life’s A Ball as a lowly blog for me to write my sports opinions in January of 2012. Once I decided to get more serious about my writing and create a more professional looking blog, it took off in the last two years.