First note, Welcome to the site, Sunwalkingvalley...
We noticed early on that my son enjoyed both watching and playing baseball. As a really young kid he was passionate about playing and his attention span and interest was longer than the other kids. He liked his other sports, and up until his senior year of high school he would always say that his favorite sport was "what ever season it was." He was given opportunities to play up both in little league and Legion which was truly beneficial. (U12 as a 10 yr old, and 17U as a rising 8th grader). He was smaller than most but his hitting ,running and fielding could always "hang with" the bigger, stronger, older kids.
At the start of high school when he received accolades his freshman year, he began thinking about baseball in college with the goal of playing for and attending a top academic school. As I saw him perform at showcases where talented kids come from across the country (against kids who threw harder than he's accustomed to seeing) I thought it may be possible. He saw baseball as his "hook" for getting into his select school, and put the work in to make that happen.