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Well done. You've sorted through the embarrassment of riches that is the modern podcast landscape and found me Rob Briden on my podcast.

In this series of Briden and I talk to among others, Harry Hill, Ben Elton, Charlotte Church, Steve Cougan and Dame Harriet Walter.

And that's just a few. We tend to chat for about 45 minutes to an hour never longer. It's terrific conversation,

reminiscent, sweat appropriate and exchange of anecdotes. So do join me Rob Briden wherever you get your podcasts.

New episodes of Briden and are available early and ad-free on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.

And now stepping in for the first time, the catcher from Uganda, Dennis Kasumba.

We alluded to it earlier. Dennis Kasumba, quite the story folks, look him up.

Earlier this summer in the MLB draft league, a league for players looking to improve their draft stock.

A catcher from Uganda, Dennis Kasumba, step to the plate for the Frederick Keys.

Swing and a mess, he struck him out. And the game is over.

And even though that first at bat didn't end how Kasumba would have wanted, the fact that he was there at all at a stadium in Maryland was quite pretty incredible.

Today, Kevin Baxter from the LA Times joins us to tell the story of Dennis Kasumba and the coach who believed baseball could save him.

Paul is kind of a life coach more than a baseball coach. One of his favorite phrases is if you don't have hope, you don't have anything, why you even get up in the morning.

And so he looks at Dennis and says, that's what I mean, that's what I'm talking about that guy right there.

And how a cell phone ultimately gave Kasumba a shot to pursue his dream. From Wondery, I'm Tiffany Oshinsky.

It's Friday, June 23rd, and this is The Lead.

Kevin Baxter, welcome to The Lead. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me. And by the way, that at bat you mentioned, Dennis is first at bat. He fell off a pitch and the dugout all of his teammates weren't crazy.

He wound up striking out, but the foul ball got his teammates on their feet. And that's all you need to know about Dennis. Everyone loves him.

I love that so much. Now let's talk about Dennis Kasumba because you wrote this really powerful story for the LA Times about this journey of this Ugandan baseball player.

How did this story land on your radar?

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