Tom Selleck's passion for baseball has resurfaced, this time coming in the form of something more fully rounded out than simply hinting his love of the game by having his character don a Detroit Tigers ball cap.

The former "Magnum P.I." star has just finished shooting a comedy pilot for NBC, titled "Touch 'Em All McCall." Selleck, 58, stars as a former baseball player who returns to his hometown where he winds up coaching a farm team.

Airing in September 2003, fans are already anxiously looking forward to Selleck's re-entry into primetime television and are keeping their fingers crossed. This is Selleck's second go-round at returning to the tube as the lead role of comedy series since the doomed "The Closer" (1998) in which he played Jack McLaren, a Denver advertising man who was legendary in the business for always closing a deal.

Paul Dooley (who played the recurring role of "Judge Philip Swackheim" in "The Practice") and dark-haired beauty Susan Diol (wife of actor Shaun Cassidy) share the co-star spotlight.

Also slated to appear in this series is actor Gregory Jbara, who had once before worked with Selleck in an episode of "The Closer."  Jbara will now take a recurring guest star role as "Bobby Mellinger," proprietor of the Mellinger Duckport Hotel.

Serving as Executive Producers on the "McCall" project are the show's two writers, Jay Tarses and Norman Steinberg, as well as Michael Brandman.

Brandman has partnered up with Selleck on several tremendously successful television projects over the years, most notably "Crossfire Trail" and "Monte Walsh," both phenomenal record-breaking TNT Original westerns. Given the success that the Selleck/Brandman team has had in the past, it may certainly better the odds that this series will have the potential to indeed fare better than Selleck's '98 attempt assuming the critics will accept the show with open arms.

Taking on a television comedy series does not signal Selleck has left the western behind. In fact, he and Brandman are also hard at work currently developing two more westerns for TNT ...watch for more about those projects right here in our future online issues.