THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I loved his ‘training’ suggestion to simulate the pro ballplayer experience.

I think that if I played baseball year-round when I was 13 it would have permanently killed my love of playing the sport.

I don’t know what makes him right and other people (who suggest playing baseball year round) wrong.  Any evidence?

Without reading the article, I don’t really get the logic of, “Because baseball requires a lot of athleticism, you must play other sports.” How about, “You probably can’t be a MLB player if you do not possess several athletic skills.” And I don’t even know if that is true or to what extent it is, compared to years ago.

All of this is B.S. unless we have evidence and words with less vague meanings.

“I think that if I played baseball year-round when I was 13 it would have permanently killed my love of playing the sport.”

I’ve heard that refrain before, and obviously it is not true for all or even many kids. I know many, many kids who play baseball year round and love it.  In fact, I know more of them than those whose year-round play killed their enthusiasm.  Of course we have large selection bias there.  Most kids who play year-round already love baseball.

The caricature of the parent who forces the kid to play a sport and he secretly hates it or eventually ends up hating it (or their parents) is mostly a fiction, in my opinion, although it is not an opinion thing but a factual thing…

I believe it is good to be well rounded.  As a 5’6 basketball center, I know that my foot work in the post was greatly enhanced by the 15 years of soccer I played.  If only I had been born 7’0 O would have been amazing.

But all joking aside, I think the main point should or could be parents should just support their kids instead of pushing them. I am sure for every Williams sisters in tennis, there is a Todd Maranovich in some other sport.  And just think about all the kids and stories that we never hear about because they never went on to any sort of “success” at a higher level.

But most evidence of this is anecdotal I would assume.  For every Steve Nash, who played soccer growing up, I bet there is a Kobe Bryant, who was consumed by the sport he loved.

A personal anecdote, my nephew who I enjoyed watching play soccer and basketball, has a father who pushed SOOOOO hard to play football, gravitated to baseball, where he is doing really well.  He has a chance to walk on to a Pac 10 school next year.

So I guess my point is, parents should really let the kids make their own path.

"If only I had been born 7’0 I would have been amazing.”

Actually, if you were born 7’, you mother would be amazing!

The Freakonomics guys say the biggest influence on whether a child makes the major leagues is ... whether his father played in the majors. I suspect if you looked at the backgrounds of American-born MLB players you would find that many of their fathers played at some high level—college or minor leagues.

I agree with MGL on his skepticism.  I definitely believe that playing one sport year-round may make you more likely to lose interest.  But I disagree completely on the notion that playing multiple sports gives you a better chance at making it to a high level than playing one single sport and focusing on it.  And I don’t know of any research that could back up the assertion.

It’s fashionable to say things like this, just like it’s fashionable to say that Harvard/MIT/Stanford/etc. prefer applicants who are well-rounded.  But that’s garbage.  They prefer people who are the best at something, not people who are pretty good at a bunch of things.

What the heck does playing golf have to do with John Smoltz being a good pitcher?

Alex Rodriguez is probably better than me at basketball.  Is this why he is so good at baseball?  Or is it because he’s simply a heck of a naturally gifted athlete who’s worked very hard for the last 20 years?

Tiger Woods is better at his sport than any of those guys are at baseball.  Ask him how much time he spent playing table tennis as a kid, versus golf.  Ask him if he credits his golfing talent to playing ping-pong in his friend’s basement as a kid, or to practicing his ass off with the singleminded focus of being the best golf player on the planet since he was 2 years old.

Re: #4/MGL

Ha ha, yes, you are right.

Teemu Selane took juggling one summer to improve hand-eye coordination.
I remember reading some report several years ago that said that our brain remembers and processes better skills which are needed for more than one activity.

I don’t have any problem with the idea that one can develop or improve certain skills by practicing certain activities, as in #8 above (I don’t know who Teemu Selane is).

But, I agree with Mike above about it being fashionable, yet not necessary true, to say that kids need to be well-rounded in order to excel at one particular sport or in order to be happy.

More accurately than “it is not correct” is that it is just too much of a generalization or too broad a brush with which to paint to have any real meaning…

I think Ensberg was saying that these guys aren’t just good at baseball.  They’re good at a lot of sports and I think that’s probably true.  Are there big leaguers who have never played or excelled at another sport?  There probably is, but they’d be the minority.  I think that’s what Ensberg was saying.  What I think he meant was just poorly worded on his part. 

The overall point seems to be ignored here in favor of whether or not one can play baseball at the big league level if they don’t play other sports well.  The point of the article was summed up nicely at the end:

“What is cool is that the parents of these kids really love their children.  They want their kids to have every opportunity to succeed.  But I am afraid that they are setting them up to fail.  Maybe their children will be better at baseball at an earlier age, but they won’t get a much needed mental break that comes at the end of a traditional season.  Nor will they get the benefits that other sports bring.  Playing more than one sport at an early age is vital to understanding team environments, comprehending the need for hard work in areas you may not be good at, and finally learning game theory.”

So he does explain why playing more than one sport is necessary in his opinion.

My guess is that, in general, people who excel at one sport tend to excel at more than one sport (in large part because many sports skills are transferable).  However, this doesn’t mean that playing several sports contributes to excellence in any one particular sport.

I think there is some truth to this, but it is difficult to prove beyond an anecdotal level.  Tennis players jump rope (jump roping is probably a sport at some level) to improve their agility.  Many skills from Sport A are a cross-over to a skill in Sport B (especially racket sports).

Interesting that Wayne Gretzky was quoted above, as he had his son go through one of our local Little Leagues and he is now the backup QB for Joe Montana’s son at one of the local High Schools.  I have no idea if he plays hockey though.
vr, Xei

Learning game theory?

Learning game theory?

I thought you’d be all for that one MGL .

Notwithstanding the hopelessly long odds of any one 8-year-old making the majors, and the even longer odds against a solid career, another problem with picking one sport for your child is: How do you know you’ve chosen the right sport? If you choose at age 8, do you choose the kid’s best sport or the one he loves the most? How many adults are qualified to make such a projection?

A guy I grew up with was the first to 6 feet tall, and he became center on the basketball in seventh grade. He got to 6-1, everyone else caught up, he had no ball-handling skills and quit playing by 10th grade. His one advantage had disappeared. Everyone’s projection for him was wrong. (I know it’s an anecdote.)

If I had a star athlete child, I’d insist that part of the year go to different activities that complemented the game he loved. I think.

Teemu Selanne (I omitted double n above) is pretty famous hockey player, recently became highest point-scorer in Olympics, 3-time NHL-leading goal-scorer, scored 599 NHL goals. With the amount of hockey-related posts here, I thought he would be recognized. Sorry.
This one sport vs multi-sport question actually confronts two training philosophies. On one hand, there is maximized training, and automated response - multiple sports take time and concentration of primary sport, and allow for situations where reflex reaction isn’t optimum reaction for sport in question, on the other hand, more sports allow more balanced development of body and skills, like footwork, balance… Personally, I don’t think that children up to age of 14 or so who train more than one sport lose too much - both their brain and their bodies are flexible enough to quickly pick up necessary skills in all the sports they play. Problems may arise when they are old enough to take more intensive trainings. Then time spent playing other sports may take away necessary time from primary sport and leave that player missing some basics, which he would have if he had concentrated on one sport only (like two-sport college pitchers who don’t pitch the whole season). On the other hand, player who is good in multiple sports should be able to adopt any necessary changes in any sport more quickly.
One thing I would like to see more is children who, in addition to other sports, train more martial arts, like aikido, or maybe karate, tae-kwon-do, nanbudo. Definitely not judo. Martial arts that develop balance and quickness, and quick thinking, but aren’t so injury-prone.

I see there being a pretty simple tradeoff.  If you play multiple sports, you develop a wider range of athletic movements and perhaps retain more interest (I was a one-sport guy from about age 14 on and I still love playing baseball despite having already ruined my arm).  On the other hand, concentrating on one sport allows you to polish the specific skills required of that sport. 

If you’re freakishly athletic, your optimal choice might be to play as many sports as possible and develop a wide range of athletic ability.  Your athleticism should give you the ability to learn the sport specific skills after you’re drafted.  And even if they don’t develop, you can get a princely signing bonus. 

On the flip side, if you’re only sort of athletic, you might be better off focusing on baseball so you can learn how to get great jumps in the field, barrel up breaking balls, etc.  It behooves the less naturally gifted to learn the little things early.

That’s my theory on the matter.  My prescription to parents is to let kids do whatever the hell they want within reasonable limits.