THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Maybe it’s just me, but something about it rubs me the wrong way.  There are SO many people who would kill to be a pro athlete.  Then, for example, you hear a baseball player say, “Well, baseball is okay, but I would much rather be playing football.  That’s my true love.” I appreciate the honesty, but it also bugs me.  That guy is so lucky to be playing baseball, but that comment makes it sound like he doesn’t even appreciate it.  A million other guys would give anything to take his place.

That all being said, my post was just my honest reaction.  My gut reaction is exactly what I said above.  However, when I had time to think about it, I decided that I admired the athlete for being honest and not just giving the answer I wanted to hear.  I wrote the post as an honest portrayal of how I, as a fan, reacted to an athlete who didn’t just say what he’s supposed to say - how I moved from taken aback to appreciating his honesty. 

I think there are plenty of fans who would have the same reaction.  It’s not that no athlete has ever said it before (I believe Tom Glavine has revealed that he loved hockey more), it’s just that I’ve never really examined my own reaction until yesterday when I read this one particular interview.

It’s interesting.  I guess it all depends when we first came across this situation.  For me, I was pretty numb to it early on.  I remember Dave Winfield being a three-sport star (I was pre-teen), and wondering why he would choose one sport over the other.  And other players excelling in multiple sports.  Bo Jackson pretty much numbed me to it all by then, and then Deion Sanders.

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For you kids out there, one of the best commercial I’ve seen is the “Bo knows...”, and then you see Bo competing in sports and the great players of those sports giving their assessment of him.  It was like “Bo knows basketball”, “Bo knows soccer”, and when it came time to tennis, McEnroe says “Ehh (meaning, so-so)”.  And then they had Gretzky skating to the camera, and he was: “Uh, no!”.

I loved that.  The Gretzky thing when through so many takes and rewrites, and then they finally just settled on “Uh, no!”.  Great stuff.

Youtube it if you can.

My son has a friend who is incredibly gifted in one sport, and will get a major college scholarship as a result.

It’s not his favorite sport.

His dad played a major college sport at a Division I school, and his maternal grandfather played a different major pro sport.

As stated, it’s not his favorite sport, but it will probably be worth 6 figures in terms of scholarship value.

There are a lot of kids out there like this one.

Tangotiger, I think you’re missing my point.  I grew up in Atlanta (loving “Prime Time"), so I certainly understand that the best athletes are usually guys who excel in more than one sport.  I also understand that often guys choose say baseball over football because they think they’ll have a longer career.  I get all that, and I’m fine with it.

It’s more about what we expect guys to say.  We say we hate the canned answers some guys give, but then we crawl all over a guy when he says something honest that isn’t necessarily the expected response.  If the question is “Did you play other sports growing up?” then we expect the answer from a baseball player to be “Yeah, I played football and basketball,” not “Yeah, actually I played football and I loved it way more than baseball, but I was too small to play professionally.  In fact, I don’t even watch baseball when I’m not playing.”

I don’t think it bothers me at all because I can empathize with the athlete we’re talking about.  I’m no professional athlete, but growing up I competed in a number of sports (and was pretty good at some, relatively speaking), and at times I definitely had to pick certain sports over others - and sometimes that means choosing between a sport you’re better at vs one you enjoy more, and heck, as a kid/teenager you’re changing your mind/preferences all the time anyways...so yeah, I guess it just seems like a natural situation to me.  I really wouldn’t even notice a comment like that, had Kristi not brought it up.

not “Yeah, actually I played football and I loved it way more than baseball, but I was too small to play professionally.  In fact, I don’t even watch baseball when I’m not playing.”

I guess the difference between you and me Kristi is that I would change “not” in there to “especially”.

I think it’s just like you and me, that we may love baseball, but we are better at law and computers or whatever.

For the players, it’s a high-paid hobby, but they do like the rest of us and follow the money, and are not shy to say that.

I don’t have any problem with them being honest about it, that they don’t show any deference to their “overlords” (team, fan, or game).  And I’m not surprised when they say it.

Threadsurrecting here, but I thought I’d point to the aforementioned commercial, since I watched it tonight and remembered this thread:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXVAiFBEpwA

That’s the full minute one.