LL Cool J grew up watching baseball with his grandfather, cheering for the Yankees even though he grew up in Queens, solid Mets territory. (His grandfather emigrated from Barbados and originally settled in The Bronx.) He played little league but his interest waned as hip-hop took over.

As such, he knows his limits. He’ll be at Tropicana Field Saturday to spit rhymes, not throw baseballs.

Asked if he’d be throwing out the first pitch at Saturday’s game, the rapper born James Smith, laughs that he might “throw it out of the park or hit the catcher in the kneecap.”

“I’m athletic. I’ve got good hand-eye coordination. I’m a professional when it comes to working out,” he says, and he’s published a work-out book, 2006’s “LL Cool J’s Platinum Workout,” to prove it. Baseball, though, “is a whole other thing. I know my limitations.”

Cool J, who will perform following Saturday’s game, knows fewer limitations in his chosen field.

He’s about to release his “Exit 13,” the latest in a string of albums that stretches back to his 1985 debut, “Radio.”

Hip-hop and longevity sometimes seem mutually exclusive but LL Cool J is one of the precious few exceptions.

“I love what I do and I don’t take it for granted,” he says. “Just like in sports you make mistakes. I look at having an unsuccessful album like a team having a bad season.”

The occasional setback, he says, keeps him “digging deep. You keep working toward your goal. I maintain ambition and that desirem the hunger to keep going. I’m blessed – my luck hasn’t ran out.”

LL Cool J performs Saturday folllowing the Rays-Tigers game at Tropicana Field. Game time is 6:10 p.m. Call (727) 825-3137.