From 'The A' to MLB, Butler and Harris share bond beyond ball

If a youth baseball championship was being played in Atlanta during the 2000s, the chances of Lawrence Butler and Michael Harris II being involved in that game were quite high.

Long before Butler and Harris were starring for the A’s and Braves, respectively, as big leaguers, the Atlanta natives routinely battled each other for city supremacy. In those days, Butler -- eight months older than Harris -- was representing Sandtown Park in Southwest Atlanta. Harris, meanwhile, came up through Gresham Park in East Atlanta.

Both parks formed teams for a variety of sports. When it came to baseball, Sandtown and Gresham were without question the two best in the area.

“When we’d go to these tournaments, we’d play them every time,” Butler said. “Majority of the time, it’d be like, ‘Championship Game: Us vs. them.’ We wouldn’t play them until the championship game.”

Butler’s team was the Sandtown Blue Jays. Harris’ was the Gresham GA Yard Dogs. Those two teams consistently met in big matchups, with stakes as high as a trip to Puerto Rico on the line for the AABC Willie Mays World Tournament.

“I just remember he would hit some bombs against us,” Harris said of Butler. “But we would still win, so that's what matters most.”

Butler begrudgingly corroborated Harris’ account of those encounters.

“The record, they probably beat us more times than we beat them,” Butler said. “The game to see who would go to Puerto Rico, we lost. But I hit two homers. I tried. I did everything I could. It would always be a championship game and there would always be a good crowd. I remember we played them in a couple of NITs to go to the Elite 32, and at the time, it was at the Braves Spring Training complex in Disney World. … It was always fun.”

Naturally, the two teams became youth rivals. The competition on the field was always fierce. There was, however, a sort of kinship formed through those battles.

“After the games, we would hang out and chill,” Butler said. “We would just play them so much that we started knowing their players and they started knowing our players.”

“We always had fun playing against each other,” Harris said. “Growing up playing baseball in Atlanta, everybody knows each other. So, being rivals for so long, we were friends still.”

Through those off-the-field gatherings, Butler and Harris soon realized they had similar personalities and similar interests. This led to the two developing a close bond.

“We’re both left-handed hitters,” Butler said. “He’s goofy and I’m goofy. Any joke, we would just be laughing together all the time.”

Given that both were the best players on their respective teams, it was only a matter of time before they ended up on the same team, whether it be an All-Star or travel-ball squad.

That opportunity finally materialized around the time both were entering high school in the mid-2010s.

After Marquis Grissom closed the chapter on a decorated 17-year Major League career as a World Series champion, two-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove Award winner, the former Braves outfielder and Georgia native sought to teach the next generation. He founded the Marquis Grissom Baseball Association in 2006 with a mission of providing athletes in underserved communities the opportunity to compete in a competitive baseball league.

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Butler and Harris were both brought in by Grissom and soon teamed up for MGBA. There, the two truly began to grasp how talented they were.

“When we both started playing with Marquis, that was just fun,” Butler said. "That was when I really got to see [Harris] every day. He’d go 3-for-4 and then pitch and throw like six shutout innings with eight [strikeouts]. It was unreal. He was switch-hitting at the time, too. Throwing 97 mph from the left side off the mound. It was crazy.”

Grissom assembled an elite group of players from all sides of Atlanta. In addition to he and Harris, Butler estimates around 15 players from those teams are now either professional or about to get drafted. That list includes Chandler Simpson, Marc Church, Termarr Johnson, Taj Bradley, Xzavion Curry, Will Benson and Marquis Grissom Jr.

“Atlanta is deep with baseball players,” Butler said. “It’s the mecca for baseball now.”

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Beyond the competition, Grissom and his staff put his players through grueling offseason workouts at “The Hill” in Georgia, a facility set up on a large farm owned by Grissom. The workouts only increased in difficulty each winter as they progressed through the amateurs and pros to ensure that if their big league dreams were one day realized, they would be prepared.

“They were trying to bring us out there to break us,” Harris said. “See if we would break. None of us broke. It really showed how much we really cared for it and how much we wanted to succeed in our career, and it's starting to pay off now.”

“That’s their whole point,” Butler said. “It’s basically just trying you until you just don’t want to run anymore. It’s a mental thing. Even in the Minor Leagues and high school, they were getting us ready for 162 games. They would constantly tell us, ‘If y’all think y’all high school and travel-ball season is long, just wait until you have to play 162!’ They would always make us work to be able to withstand a whole 162-game season. Now I understand what they were doing that for. … If I could run up a hill, I could run down a fly ball in the outfield.”

Butler was drafted by the A’s in 2018. Harris was drafted one year later by the hometown Braves. As they ascended through the Minors, both became huge supporters of one another, constantly posting each other’s highlights on social media.

Harris reached the Majors in 2022 with Atlanta and burst onto the scene by winning NL Rookie of the Year. Butler got his first Major League callup last season with Oakland and has since emerged as a power-speed threat atop the A’s lineup.

“Our dream was to make it to the league,” Harris said. “To see [Butler] start off like this and have some success and have fun and be an exciting player is huge. … We root for each other.”

As soon as the 2024 regular-season schedule was released, the two immediately circled May 31-June 2 on the calendar. It was a three-game series between the A’s and Braves at Truist Park, setting up the first matchup between Butler and Harris as big leaguers. A monumental moment for the two Atlanta boys.

Unfortunately, things did not work out as planned. Butler was optioned to Triple-A Las Vegas on May 14 after a slow start to the season and did not return until June 18, missing the road trip to Atlanta.

The new circled dates are July 8-10, 2025. That’s when the Braves will visit Sutter Health Park in Sacramento -- temporary home of the A’s from 2025-27 -- for a three-game series which also happens to fall during Butler’s birthday.

“It’ll be a full-circle moment,” Butler said. “It’ll feel like when I was playing him when I was a little kid. He’s probably going to go out there and have himself a good game. I’ll try my best to do the same. It’ll be fun, though, because he’s goofy. We’re probably going to be laughing the whole game.”

Before that, Butler and Harris will connect for a special non-baseball occasion. Harris will be getting married this offseason, and he’s asked Butler to be one of his groomsmen.

“That’ll be fun,” Butler said. “He’s going to have it in Atlanta. A lot of our friends will be there. I’m excited for that.”