Photo: Sara Jaye Weiss/Shutterstock

Los Angeles - 15 July 2022 - eBay hosted a live baseball trading card draft featuring actor and baseball fanatic Miles Teller with help from World Series champion Chase Utley, to select his ultimate card lineup to send to the eBay vault: a 31,000 square foot secured facility and digital marketplace for trading card collectors.- Pictured: Miles Teller - Photo: Sara Jaye Weiss/Shutterstock

Miles Tellermay be known as a beloved actor with hit movies likeWhiplashandTop Gun: Maverick, but he once toyed with the idea of going a different route entirely and becoming a professional baseball player.

The actor, 35, recently spoke to PEOPLE about his love of sports, namely baseball, and what his career path could’ve been.

“I played [baseball] in high school, but I was pretty small,” Teller, who partnered witheBayfor the launch of its neweBay vault, tells PEOPLE with a laugh. " I didn’t hit my growth spurt till my senior year, and then after high school."

“So I say I went D1 acting instead, because I went to [NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts],” adds theSpectacular Nowstar.

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Miles Teller - Paramount+ and The Cinema Society host a special screening of “The Offer”

“It’s something that my dad passed on to me and my grandma, my dad’s [mom],” the Pennsylvania native explains. “She was the biggest Phillies fan that there was, so I inherited that gene from her.”

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Sara Jaye Weiss/Shutterstock

Los Angeles - 15 July 2022 - Miles Teller celebrates the launch of the eBay vault - eBay hosted a live baseball trading card draft featuring actor and baseball fanatic Miles Teller with help from World Series champion Chase Utley, to select his ultimate card lineup to send to the eBay vault: a 31,000 square foot secured facility and digital marketplace for trading card collectors. - Pictured: Miles Teller

Teller says that his fondness for baseball offered him a way to connect with his loved ones, and is something that remains important to him to this day.

“I think for a lot of kids, especially when you’re at a young age, you pick the things where you can really bond with an adult over. When I was a young kid, I wasn’t sharing stories of philosophy and this and that, it was baseball. It seems like a simple game, but it’s endless,” he says. “And my fandom for it, as far as collecting things associated with the game, has remained a part of it for me.”

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Over the weekend, Teller brought his love of baseball and sports trading cards to the forefront when he checked out the new eBay vault ahead of the MLB’s All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles - 15 July 2022 - Miles Teller celebrates the launch of the eBay vault - eBay hosted a live baseball trading card draft featuring actor and baseball fanatic Miles Teller with help from World Series champion Chase Utley, to select his ultimate card lineup to send to the eBay vault: a 31,000 square foot secured facility and digital marketplace for trading card collectors. - Pictured: Miles TellerSara Jaye Weiss/Shutterstock

Teller’s picks include rookie cards fromMike Trout,Ken Griffey Jr.andWillie Mays, among others.

“It’s very exciting to attach myself and to be a part of this with eBay and the eBay Vault,” Teller says. “Buying and selling and collecting and trading cards is something that I grew up doing — it was something that my dad and I bonded over — and I’ve certainly made a fair amount of purchases on eBay.”

source: people.com