Say you’re hungry — and in the mood for a baseball game, only no one is playing right now. Chef Melvin Johnson, 38, is the man to see. He’ll fix you up with a Curve Ball Burger or Short Stop Shrimp in his Market Creek Plaza restaurant, Batter Up!

And while you eat, you can watch a baseball game on one of four oversized plasma TV screens, peruse the historic baseball photos and other memorabilia or sit in one of four stadium seats from Dodger Stadium.

Batter Up! Is Johnson’s dream come true. It’s in the neighborhood where he spent much of his childhood and in the same spot where his grandfather worked in an aerospace plant.

Johnson’s goal always was to bring his skills back home. A San Diego native, he attended the Atlanta Culinary Institute/Clark Atlanta University. For a couple of years he was co-owner of the Juke Joint Café in the Gaslamp Quarter, but he left to study and work in New York until 2003.

He married Virginia, his “best friend since we were 15 but I had to ask her three times,” he says. They have Miles and Morgan and a third child due in February.

Chef Mel sponsors three youth ball teams, providing uniforms, equipment, wall space for children’s sports information and a team party. He is active in the International Special Events Society and the National Association of Catering Executives, and he occasionally provides special events catering.