by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Jamieson Boulanger doesn't envision a future in sports, in spite of a season at Con U so amazing that baseball ghosts might've marched out of Iowa cornfields to see it. The 22 year old mixed a curve, change-up and moving heater to silence and shatter bats, allowing a single, solitary run in 25 innings hurled, and he hit over .400 to boot. The ace of Con U's staff - the best in the country - was rewarded for his season with the Best Pitcher silverware from the Canadian Intercollegiate Baseball Association.

But the 31st-round Expos pick in the 2001 draft and Rosemount High grad from Ahuntsic is thinking bright lights, not big leagues. Boulanger's baseball dreams hit the dirt when he hurt his arm on the mound during his scholarship season at a Florida community college that year. Since then his velocity has only been maxing out at 84 miles per hour on the gun, down from his former 87.

So the hurler aimed his sights on another type of pitching: nowadays he's featured on several commercials, including a Molson ad (he plays a character from the 1930s in a plot that involves spilled beer). So impressive was he in selling the swill that he's landed the lead in 11 Somerset, an upcoming kids' program on the Space Channel.

"We just finished shooting it. It's a mix of Junior X-Files and Scooby Doo - I'd be like the Mulder character," he says. Cameras are no sweat to the guy teammates call "Hollywood" - a title he earned in 1996 after co-starring with Burt Reynolds in L.A. on a flick called Frankenstein and Me. But Boulanger hasn't entirely given up on his baseball career. "I was one of only a few students at Eric Gagné's pitching school [three years ago] - we're still friends - but back then he wasn't throwing as hard as he does now. If I could gain velocity on my fastball like he did, then things could happen."