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Here’s a story from Sports Illustrated about a kid from my old Notre Dame H.S. in Sherman Oaks who turned down a football scholarship from UCLA:
Baseball is reportedly on the verge of having its first $300 million man. CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman has reported that the Marlins have an agreement in place with slugger Giancarlo Stanton for a 13-year, $325 million extension, the largest in the history of North American professional team sports.
Now, the Florida Marlins’ ownership is pretty sketchy, so who knows how this will work out for him.
When I saw him play high school football, he was known by his middle name of Mike Stanton.(He is named Giancarlo Cruz Michael Stanton, but in 5th grade he gave up trying to get his classmates to pronounce his Italian movie star first name. Then after about his first 50 major league homers, he switched back to his real name.)
It’s an interesting question whether a youth who is growing up to be gigantic (he’s listed at 6′-6″ and 240 pounds) and fast like Stanton did should rationally concentrate on football or baseball.
The latter is a lot less brutal game.
On the other hand, hitting a baseball seems more or less like a knack, dependent upon eyesight and other subtle traits. Just because you are huge and quick doesn’t mean you can hit big league pitching, so you might wind up a project riding the buses around the minors for a long time, which isn’t much fun.
Just about anybody huge and fast who is willing to inflict and absorb pain can play football at least at the college level. So football is more of a sure thing. But you might get hurt and wind up huge and not fast, and then football becomes not at all a sure thing.
It seems like baseball is kinder to ex-fast players, who can switch from the outfield to 1st base or designated hitter, while football players don’t seem to switch much after they start in the NFL. I can remember back in the 70s talk about how when middle linebacker Dick Butkus comes back from yet another knee surgery, the Bears might switch him to center where his immobility wouldn’t be as much of a problem. But that was Butkus they were talking about doing this giant favor for. Mostly, they just cut you and get some fresh meat to fill your spot on the roster.
So, I’d focus upon baseball. But you have to have a knack for hitting or pitching. Just being a good athlete isn’t enough.
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Baseball is better than football because it is Whiter, DUH. Even a majority Nonwhite city like San Francisco has a predominantly White baseball team in The Giants.
Hockey is also better than football. And so is NASCAR. And so is the WWE.
baseball players – even mediocre ones – make a ton of money . Baseball is still a bigger sport than football an has very deep corporate interests that even football an basketball cannot attain. Yeah, it would seem like it would be harder to find guys who can hit a 90 mph ball consistently or be able to pitch one than finding fat guys who are fast and can take and inflict pain.
1) Ten times as many games to generate TV and gate revenue
2) Half as many players on each active roster
3) Better labor rules for players due to baseball players being more able to go without a paycheck than football players for cultural reasons
4) Later peaks for star players; A running back or defensive end is rarely better at age 29 than 24, and is usually washed up by age 33, but pitchers and hitters often peak at 28 or 29 and last until 35 or so, thus justifying a huge contract for a guy like Stanton (maybe not this huge, though).Replies: @Retired
I think the higher salaries in baseball relative to football are more due to:
1) Ten times as many games to generate TV and gate revenue
2) Half as many players on each active roster
3) Better labor rules for players due to baseball players being more able to go without a paycheck than football players for cultural reasons
4) Later peaks for star players; A running back or defensive end is rarely better at age 29 than 24, and is usually washed up by age 33, but pitchers and hitters often peak at 28 or 29 and last until 35 or so, thus justifying a huge contract for a guy like Stanton (maybe not this huge, though).
Sort of like the dichotomy between cricket and rugby; I’m trying to think of any cross-over players between the two sports (also same types of schools play both sports vis a vid football/soccer).
There's also the recent trend of NFL teams drafting college basketball PFs to play tight end.
There’s a recently retired soccer player who had a wonderful career at Manchester United – Ryan Giggs. When he was a boy he was also a very fine rugby player. He was asked once why he chose soccer as his adult sport. His reply boiled down to “more money, less pain”.
Two other ManU players – the brothers Neville – were fine schoolboy cricketers. They too followed the big money.
Yeah, no one plays cricket to get wealthy, do they? Babe Ruth once faced off against a cricket hurler, and the cricket team manager said afterward that he could make Ruth the top batsman in the world in two weeks. Ruth discovered that the highest-paid cricket player made about as much in a year as Ruth made for one baseball game. That was the end of the Babe playing cricket.
Why center for Butkis and not, say, nosetackle? Fear of blockers going for his knees?
Long snapper might be an exception in football. But then, again, maybe not. The long snapper for the Giants (whose father also played for the team) often makes the tackle on punt coverage.
When I think of football and baseball, I think of Bo Jackson at Auburn. He had three home runs in a game against Georgia in 1985 and of course the Heisman Trophy for football. But don’t forget Frank Thomas, who was a tight-end on the 1986 Auburn football team and a baseball Hall-of-Famer. A coach I know thinks Frank was the better athlete and that if he stuck with football he could have been in the football hall of fame.
Come on, didn't your friend see all those Nike commercials featuring Bo? Nike wouldn't make that stuff up.
Seriously, your friend might be right, but it's hard for me to think of a guy playing all those games at DH as being as being a better athlete than Bo Jackson.
Auburn football coach Pat Dye compared them as athletes.
“People ask me who was the best athlete I ever coached,” Dye said. “Bo Jackson was the best athlete I ever coached. Frank Thomas was the second-best athlete. And I might have had it reversed. But Bo was chosen as athlete of the century.”
Bo may have been the better athlete but I'm with you... I think Frank Thomas came out ahead. He's in the Baseball Hall of Fame, for Pete's sake. Bo briefly excelled at both sports, but, aligning with Steve's theme, his football injury washed him out.
@Gordon: The pay for cricket players is a bit different today than in Babe Ruth’s time. If your’e one of the best players you’ll make a few millions a years (particularly in India where endorsements can make you a lot). Now baseball is probably still paying much better overall (especially if you look at average salaries instead of what the top players make) but cricketers aren’t starving today.
Not to mention the whole guaranteed contract difference.
A coach I know thinks Frank was the better athlete and that if he stuck with football he could have been in the football hall of fame.
Come on, didn’t your friend see all those Nike commercials featuring Bo? Nike wouldn’t make that stuff up.
Seriously, your friend might be right, but it’s hard for me to think of a guy playing all those games at DH as being as being a better athlete than Bo Jackson.
The ones who really clean up are the sportscasters and others who sit in panels on television discussing sports and players, on and on, endlessly. Most are couch potatoes who make a living being professional talkers. Marv Albert had his penthouse up for sale for 15M which goes to show there’s plenty of money to be made for a lot of people. No blown knees, torn shoulders, hip replacements or other surgeries for this group.
As I wrote a few months ago in response to a different post:
Just yesterday I was pondering how running backs tend to have short careers. The longest I could find was Emmitt Smith who played 15 years, but the norm for even the very best was around a decade. Baseball players are often productive into their forties–and should they stay healthy–young athletic players like Stanton, Harper, and Trout could probably play 20 years in the majors.
The other baseball/football crossover to note is guys with tremendous arms who play QB instead of baseball. There have been more than a few former minor league baseball players who have made a nice college career as a QB in their mid-late 20s, Brandon Weeden (current Dallas Cowboys backup QB) comes to mind as a guy who was able to turn that into an NFL career. Of course John Elway almost played baseball before settling on pro football. If you do choose football over baseball, it’s best if you’re a QB.
He played one season of Class A ball in the same county.
Your friend may not be the only one with that contrary opinion. Someone who should know seemed to be a little bit uncertain himself:
Auburn football coach Pat Dye compared them as athletes.
“People ask me who was the best athlete I ever coached,” Dye said. “Bo Jackson was the best athlete I ever coached. Frank Thomas was the second-best athlete. And I might have had it reversed. But Bo was chosen as athlete of the century.”
Bo may have been the better athlete but I’m with you… I think Frank Thomas came out ahead. He’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame, for Pete’s sake. Bo briefly excelled at both sports, but, aligning with Steve’s theme, his football injury washed him out.
https://www.facebook.com/knowyourmeme/photos/a.388857203736.156751.88519108736/10152607088513737/?type=1
I don’t know if Australian snooker star Eddie Charlton ever played rugger, but he played pretty much everything else at a decently high level, including cricket. (I assume the “football” reference there is to Australian-rules soccer.)
If there has been a high-level rugger/cricket crossover, he was probably from the Antipodes. Most likely a Kiwi—I’ve worked with a lot of them and never met one who wasn’t nuts about some sport or other.
http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2014/11/gruberism.html
Isn’t gruberism essentially Jewish?
‘We Jews are so smart, you goyim are so dumb. ‘
Cass the Ass Sunstein has his own version: nudging.
Nudging and fudging to fool us… supposedly for our own benefit.
We got into the Iraq War the same way.
We were too ‘stupid’ to have a real conversation, so we had to be manipulated via the Weapon of Mass Deception that is the Jewish-dominated media. (Where was Brooks on that issue?)
And since ‘gay marriage’ couldn’t be sold to ‘stupid Americans’ as a sane idea, it was marketed and sold as pageant, ‘rainbow’ colors, and celebrity culture.
Gruber is being disingenuous. The problem is not that Americans are too stupid. Americans can be smart if they are provided with hard evidence and extensive discussion. But smart people are critical and questioning. That is what arrogant Jews who think they know everything don’t want of us.
They bitch about how stupid we are, but they go all out to make us stupider to fool us into falling for their cons.
“Americans are too ‘stupid’ to go along with us, so let’s make them stupider so that they will.”
Same trick with immigration.
So they’re going to pay $25 million in the 2027 season to a washed out 38 year old ex-slugger? Did the baseball universe learn nothing from the A-Roid contract?
Now if this type of contract was for Mike Trout that would be entirely different matter. Surprised that its the Marlins giving this type of contract. No one would have blinked twice if the Yankees had offered it.
Ultimately its great for the game because it sets a higher benchmark for bigger and bigger salaries. Other comparable players are going to demand nearly as much. Call it payback of sorts for MLB's adherence to the well over a century of a salary cap in all but name, the reserve clause, which tended to hold salaries down across the board. Babe Ruth was worth a small fortune to the Yankees. His cut was only 80k in 1929-30 dollars. And the media was complaining even then about that "exorbitant" salary.
FACT: The national/local sports media will never be on the side of the players when it comes to salary increases. Hence you hear the old standby "You give the team a hometown discount." Know how sick that sounds? When Marv Albert was in contract negotiations, did he give ABC a hometown discount and accept a lower salary? Didn't think so.
Good for Giancarlo! This type of large player kind of reminds one of 6'8" Richie Sexson formerly of the Mariners. Tons of HR/RBI but also tons of K's and about a .245-.250 BA so lets hope that Stanton doesn't morph into Sexon over time.
Can't imagine the NBA ever paying this kind of salary to anyone, even LaBron, who you'd think should be paid this type of salary, wouldn't you?
Who's going to say that North America's most dominant athlete right now, LeBron, isn't worth about 325million/30 million per year?
Really? With all the endorsements and revenues he generates all by himself?
Seriously?
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-decline-downfall-the-democratic-party-has-arrived-11688
Both parties are really shill for the globo-oligarchs.
Brian McKechnie played for both the New Zealand rugby and cricket teams. (I started school in NZ the day after his most famous at bat, briefly mentioned at the link. It was quite an introduction to the whole Kiwis versus Aussies rivalry).
Exceptionally talented athletes wash out of the NFL all the time. Turns out it’s a little more rigorous than standing in a field chewing tobacco and waiting for a ball to come your way.
I once heard some talent scouts being interviewed. They said it was easier to tell if someone could make it in pro football than major league baseball. The reason? It’s hard to tell whether an individual will hit major league pitching until he actually does.
http://elitedaily.com/entertainment/celebrity/bill-cosby-1969-joke-video/853488/
‘Drinking the Kool Aid’ is passe.
The new meme should be ‘slipping in the spanish fly’.
That’s how Obama was turned into messiah. He and media slipped in the spanish fly, and drugged americans got raped.
And immigration? That’s just the hispanic fly.
Baseball is boring as hell and most of the game the players are either sitting or watching. Baseball is still thriving thanks to middle-aged, prosperous whites who grew up on it. It is more cultural than thrill of the game. You don’t have things like sabermatics in other sports because you can see the skills and play firsthand and you don’t need to tease it out from statistical analysis.
David Ortiz is 39 (officially), and he is still knocking the ball out of the park. Plus if you are betting that better designer performance drugs and more tolerant attitudes towards “modification” are going to extend the careers of todays 25 year olds, you are probably making a good bet.
OT: Just saw this and had to share. These girls are amazing. Not a huge fan of Metallica but I always kind of liked Enter Sandman. Keep in mind the drummer is 12 and the guitarist is 14.
Does he coach girls air hockey? You coach friend is an idiot.
Better than Bo Jackson? Right.
Also, don’t forget Kirk Gibson. Top college football wide receiver who made the smart move of picking baseball.
If you are one of those few who can actually play both well at the pr0fessional level, then baseball, no contest. Guaranteed contracts + relatively little risk of debilitating injury or winding up with tapioca pudding for a brain.
But if you’re a kid who’s really talented but not really sure you can make it at the pro level (and who can be?) it gets much harder to decide. Football hands out a lot more full scholarships, I think, and a college scholarship is a very valuable asset.
Most kids don’t have a choice, of course. The skill sets and physical types differ a lot. And I understand a lot of black kids growing up today never learn even the rules of baseball.
Why Giancarlo? I mean, There’s a diverse heritage there, but, to my knowledge, none of it is Italian. And I wonder, now that he’s made this big news, how many people are finding out only today that Mike and Giancarlo are the same player.
Hmm. People who changed their name after becoming famous? Ali, of course. and other Muslim converts like Jabbar. Prince doesn’t count since that symbol was unpronouncable. Women getting married (Babe Didrikson, Nancy Lopez) don’t count either.
Ottis Anderson, who was once asked by a teamamte whether he was related to O.J. ? Just switched from his initials.
From the world of music: Keith Richard/Richards. I keep forgetting which one he is now. But nah. John Ono Lennon? That never took hold. Katy Huson wasn’t really famous till she changed her last name to Perry. But there’s Mickey Braddock / Mickey Dolenz. John “Cougar” Mellenkamp. Johnny Cymbal (Mr. Bass Man) / Derek (Cinnamon). OK, now I’m really stretching it.
Mercifully, my lunch break is over.
The NBA occupies a middle position. However, the front-line players Center and the 2 forwards are extremely tall, so if you’re not at least 6′ 7″ you can forget it. I can still remember the starting line ups for the 1986 NBA finals: two 7 foot centers, four forwards all over 6′ 9. Magic at 6-9, and the other three guards all 6-5. Danny Ainge, on-court, used to look like a little kid.
So, if you’re 6-6 and under you can try for a Guard or Small Forward swing man slot, but the competition is draconian. 30 NBA teams x 4 Guard slots =120 guys. And if you’re white, its like trying to be NFL running back or cornerback.
Hold it a second. ARod lived up to the first part of his contract; at the time it seemed like a relative bargain. You can’t predict the future so you plan ahead as best you can for the here and now.
Now if this type of contract was for Mike Trout that would be entirely different matter. Surprised that its the Marlins giving this type of contract. No one would have blinked twice if the Yankees had offered it.
Ultimately its great for the game because it sets a higher benchmark for bigger and bigger salaries. Other comparable players are going to demand nearly as much. Call it payback of sorts for MLB’s adherence to the well over a century of a salary cap in all but name, the reserve clause, which tended to hold salaries down across the board. Babe Ruth was worth a small fortune to the Yankees. His cut was only 80k in 1929-30 dollars. And the media was complaining even then about that “exorbitant” salary.
FACT: The national/local sports media will never be on the side of the players when it comes to salary increases. Hence you hear the old standby “You give the team a hometown discount.” Know how sick that sounds? When Marv Albert was in contract negotiations, did he give ABC a hometown discount and accept a lower salary? Didn’t think so.
Good for Giancarlo! This type of large player kind of reminds one of 6’8″ Richie Sexson formerly of the Mariners. Tons of HR/RBI but also tons of K’s and about a .245-.250 BA so lets hope that Stanton doesn’t morph into Sexon over time.
Can’t imagine the NBA ever paying this kind of salary to anyone, even LaBron, who you’d think should be paid this type of salary, wouldn’t you?
Who’s going to say that North America’s most dominant athlete right now, LeBron, isn’t worth about 325million/30 million per year?
Really? With all the endorsements and revenues he generates all by himself?
Seriously?
“There’s a recently retired soccer player who had a wonderful career at Manchester United – Ryan Giggs.”
Ryan Giggs has Negro ancestry in his family tree, yet the irony is that phenotype wise he still looks Whiter than George Zimmerman.
Ryan Giggs looks similar to the half Irish and half Italian Brian Kilmeade from “Fox And Friends”.
The local high school star here in Manatee County had this choice thrust upon him last year. He was the QB on the state championship football team and also a very good center fielder on the baseball team. He was offered a football scholarship to Mississippi State and was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies contract came with a substantial amount of money up front, I forget the exact amount but it was at least several hundred thousand dollars so he signed with the Phillies.
Playing in the SEC even as a QB on a top ten team is no guarantee of an NFL contract much less ever attaining the pinnacle of the sports pyramid as a Tom Brady, Peyton Manning level QB. Alabama’s A. J. McCarron , e.g. was a fifth round draft pick by the Bengals despite winning two national championships at Alabama. OTOH batting .240 and hitting 15 homeruns per year will make you a multimillionaire in MLB even if no one recognizes you at the airport or in restaurants.
If I had a choice, I would choose the PGA. Stardom on the tour makes you fabulously wealthy and globally famous. Even just a couple of top ten finishes per year makes you wealthy. You work at beautiful country clubs and resorts with mostly warm and sunny climates. Your fellow tour players are almost all white with middle class or better backgrounds and when you grow too old to be competitive with the young players you can join the senior tour.
Lorenzo Cain, the black center fielder for the Royals, only started playing baseball in high school after being cut from the basketball team. He was going to play football, but his mom didn’t let him because she was worried about him getting hurt and now he’s having success in the big leagues. He’s very fast and a good athlete. The Royals depend on speed on the bases and good outfield defense since they play in a huge ballpark.
“But you have to have a knack for hitting or pitching”
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to tell EVEN IN COLLEGE if your knack is good enough to get to the big leagues and to stay there.
Is football more projectable than baseball?
I remember Giancarlo, while still going by Mike, spoke in an interview about consciously choosing baseball for the contractual benefits and lower health risks. If you ever hear the guy in an interview, he seems like he has a good head on his shoulders. Mike Trout may be the better player overall, but he comes off like a real meathead whenever someone gets a microphone near him.
On the same topic of choosing baseball, during the Detroit-Baltimore playoff series, the tv crew was talking about the career of Torii Hunter. Hunter has had a very good, all-star caliber career but is nearing the end of the road. They were talking about that, where he’ll play the upcoming year and so forth; but they also mentioned how he was talking about his kids and how several of them are starting to become athletes in their own right. They have chosen football, they said one of his kids was at Notre Dame right now; and they said though Hunter was happy they were pursuing an athletic career, he tried to talk them out of football due to all the known factors- shorter career, less money, long-term health risks.
So the differences are very much discussed, at least with pro athletes. It’s awfully hard to hit a baseball- but hitting a baseball may be the only “sport-specific” skill that is required. All the field and baseball running work is translatable from other sports. Now that sabermetricians are starting to quantify those skills on the field, there are plenty of guys with weaker bats who can have solid careers on their glove alone.
I wonder how much of it comes down to contact with the sport. The narrative on Lorenzo Cain, who really took to the national stage this playoff, is that he didn’t start playing baseball until late in his teens when he didn’t make his HS basketball team (the sport he wanted to pursue) and his mother forbid him from playing football. The guy started relatively late, but is now a top 50 player, an ALCS MVP and a face of the sport. Though the guy has an okay bat (hit a weak .300+ last year, ) he really shines on defense with the amount of ground he covers. He’s essentially a guy who may not have any natural baseball instincts and the years of repetition his peers have, but has closed the gap by being athletic enough to be a top 3 defensive centerfielder. I’m sure a lot of guys in the other sports could make that transition if, at some point, they were introduced to baseball before they reached college.
I don’t mean to be a cynical bastard, but if a franchise is going to give a contract of that size and length to a player they’d probably want to be sure of two things. First, that he is on PEDs, and second, he intends to stay on PEDs for the life of the contract.
If he’s caught? Well, that means they won’t have to pay him during his suspension. So it would be a no lose proposition.
The second A-Rod contract was a disaster but the first one wasn’t. The first A-Rod contract was worth it if one takes the numbers he produced in a vacuum. He produced more value than what they were paying him. These disaster contracts, I think, are more or less finished for players in their late 20s/early 30s like the second A-Rod contract or the Albert Pujols deal. Stanton is only going to be 25 years old this upcoming season. Most of the contract will occur during his prime years, and with offense down (and inflation for players value being a constant in baseball) the contract is a really good deal for Miami. Fangraph’s Jeff Sullivan estimated that Stanton could easily have been the first player worth a 40+ million dollar contract during those prime years. Like a lot of these contracts, the Marlins will underpay his value for the prime years with the understanding that they’ll be overpaying him in decline. Of course by securing him through his age 38 year, they pretty much lock up a Hall of Fame caliber guy for the life of his career. They are betting that he doesn’t fall off a cliff until 34 or so, and that he would be first Marlin to enter the Hall of Fame -something that will generate enough revenue for those later years to be totally worth it.
And of course, when all is said and done, his agent negotiated an out-clause to the whole thing. He’ll probably exercise it and end up making even more money by shaking down some team with a new long term contract that will be as onerous as the Pujols one or the second A-Rod deal.
“Now, the Florida Marlins’ ownership is pretty sketchy, so who knows how this will work out for him.”
“Him” being Stanton? Or ownership?
Stanton made out. The Marlins maybe for a few seasons, but more likely they are stuck with an albatross contract a la Arod or Ryan Howard.
Football is undoubtedly the more glorious of the two because it is closer to war, the medium from which all true sports are derived and serve as a substitute.
Money or glory? That’s the choice. And professional athletes make that decision at a young enough age that many would choose glory without a second thought.
OT:
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/11/18/unauthorized-immigrant-totals-rise-in-7-states-fall-in-14/
But the best thing ever is being Paul Walker.
Let’s be honest. Baseball is the last bastion of whites in American professonal sports. (There is still hockey but its market share is a bit limited and it has been dominated by European whites and Canadians)
[Incidentally the LA Kings seems to have more better-known American-born players than other teams for some reason I do not understand]
There are some foreign players but not numerous enough to de-bleach the game. The managers, the umpires, etc are mostly white.
And the ‘talented’ blacks go to football and basketball, making competition easier for the whites as well.
Blacks don't have the advantage in baseball like they do in football or basketball because of the coordination and mental aspects of baseball.
AP story from Sept-Jim McMahon battling early dementia, wishes he’d played baseball
http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2012-09-27/jim-mcmahon-dementia-would-have-played-baseball-nfl
Steve’s old schoolmate made the right choice. Everybody knows baseball is a better game them football! (Begin throwing objects at me now…) Baseball is athletic chess (and that’s why some people think it’s boring.)
Football is certainly fun and popular though. It is perfectly proportioned for the dimensions of HDTV, so it’s great to watch on a holiday weekend. It’s also fun to play with a small group of friends on any random lawn.
Football is a battle. You advance your platoon across a field. It is a game of tactics.
Baseball is a war. There are nine battles. It is a game of strategy.
…Now basketball is just endless dribbling and shooting…so it’s basically porn.
1) Ten times as many games to generate TV and gate revenue
2) Half as many players on each active roster
3) Better labor rules for players due to baseball players being more able to go without a paycheck than football players for cultural reasons
4) Later peaks for star players; A running back or defensive end is rarely better at age 29 than 24, and is usually washed up by age 33, but pitchers and hitters often peak at 28 or 29 and last until 35 or so, thus justifying a huge contract for a guy like Stanton (maybe not this huge, though).Replies: @Retired
Injuries, Period
Don’t worry, $25 million in 2027 won’t buy two Happy Meals.
“Just about anybody huge and fast who is willing to inflict and absorb pain can play football at least at the college level.”
Sports like football(for linemen and defensive players), that don’t require hand-eye coordination, still require a kind of total body coordination that most big, strong, fast men don’t have.
Former slugger Bobby Bonilla retired in 2001, and last played for the Mets in 1999. The Mets will continue to pay him $1.19 million per year through 2035.
On the same topic of choosing baseball, during the Detroit-Baltimore playoff series, the tv crew was talking about the career of Torii Hunter. Hunter has had a very good, all-star caliber career but is nearing the end of the road. They were talking about that, where he'll play the upcoming year and so forth; but they also mentioned how he was talking about his kids and how several of them are starting to become athletes in their own right. They have chosen football, they said one of his kids was at Notre Dame right now; and they said though Hunter was happy they were pursuing an athletic career, he tried to talk them out of football due to all the known factors- shorter career, less money, long-term health risks.
So the differences are very much discussed, at least with pro athletes. It's awfully hard to hit a baseball- but hitting a baseball may be the only "sport-specific" skill that is required. All the field and baseball running work is translatable from other sports. Now that sabermetricians are starting to quantify those skills on the field, there are plenty of guys with weaker bats who can have solid careers on their glove alone.
I wonder how much of it comes down to contact with the sport. The narrative on Lorenzo Cain, who really took to the national stage this playoff, is that he didn't start playing baseball until late in his teens when he didn't make his HS basketball team (the sport he wanted to pursue) and his mother forbid him from playing football. The guy started relatively late, but is now a top 50 player, an ALCS MVP and a face of the sport. Though the guy has an okay bat (hit a weak .300+ last year, ) he really shines on defense with the amount of ground he covers. He's essentially a guy who may not have any natural baseball instincts and the years of repetition his peers have, but has closed the gap by being athletic enough to be a top 3 defensive centerfielder. I'm sure a lot of guys in the other sports could make that transition if, at some point, they were introduced to baseball before they reached college.Replies: @Steve Sailer
There’s also a mental “knack” aspect to chasing flyballs — Andruw Jones, for example, just got a better jump on where the ball was going.
Any athlete with a brain is going to take a professional career in baseball over football. Less chance of injuries. But those who are addicted to the weekly adrenalin rush plus more babes throwing themselves at you in high school and college…Then football is your choice. Football is more sexy for sure, its a gladiator sport.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/u-k-report-is-latest-evidence-that-crime-stats-heavily-undercount-rape/
anyone have a jello pudding pop?
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to tell EVEN IN COLLEGE if your knack is good enough to get to the big leagues and to stay there.
Is football more projectable than baseball?Replies: @Steve Sailer
“Is football more projectable than baseball?”
You can tell from how many rounds they have in each sport’s draft. Baseball’s draft goes on forever. Mike Piazza was a 62nd round pick. The NFL draft goes 6 or 7 rounds, and the NBA’s draft goes only 2 rounds. Basketball is extremely projectable because height is so important, with football in-between.
Business Insider, 01/26/11. MLB vs. NFL Pensions…
http://www.businessinsider.com/nfl-nhl-nba-mlb-retirement-pension-plans-lockout-2011-1
MLB players must play 43 days in the majors to earn a minimum $34,000 annual pension plan. Just one day in the majors gets them lifetime healthcare coverage. After 10 years in the big leagues, benefits grow to $100,000 annually…
NFL players are also vested after three seasons. They earn $470 a month for each year they played…Brett Favre, who played 20 years, will get about $112,000 a year once he turns 55. The NFL’s optional 401(k) plan matches player contributions at 200%. Players that participate in four or more seasons can also get a $65,000 annuity bonus.
Ever notice how just about every ballpark is described as having a “huge” outfield? Shouldn’t this cliche be retired? Which are the ones that don’t, Wrigley and Fenway?
NY Stadium CF was 461 as was Forbes Field. The original Braves Field in Boston started out at 510 to CF and Ebbets Field was nearly 500 to CF. Also, many of these same parks had power alleys that were anywhere from 25-50 additional feet over the modern ballparks' power alleys of around 330-350. I think NY Stadium's one power alley was somewhere between 410-440ft. That's just the POWER ALLEY and not straightaway CF.
Nope, won't be returning to those large outfields anytime soon.
Jim Brown is in two Halls of Fame: football and lacrosse.
I dunno about giving a third of a billion dollars to a guy who caught some serious chin music and hasn't swung a bat in anger since.Replies: @Steve Sailer
Hmm. People who changed their name after becoming famous? Ali, of course. and other Muslim converts like Jabbar. Prince doesn't count since that symbol was unpronouncable. Women getting married (Babe Didrikson, Nancy Lopez) don't count either.
Ottis Anderson, who was once asked by a teamamte whether he was related to O.J. ? Just switched from his initials.
From the world of music: Keith Richard/Richards. I keep forgetting which one he is now. But nah. John Ono Lennon? That never took hold. Katy Huson wasn't really famous till she changed her last name to Perry. But there's Mickey Braddock / Mickey Dolenz. John "Cougar" Mellenkamp. Johnny Cymbal (Mr. Bass Man) / Derek (Cinnamon). OK, now I'm really stretching it.
Mercifully, my lunch break is over.Replies: @Steve Sailer
Giancarlo was the name he was called as a child, then he switched to Mike to make it easier on other children, then when after a couple of years in the big leagues and it was clear he was going to be talked about by professional announcers for a long time, he went back to his real name: professional sportscasters ought to be able to pronounce it. This also cleared up the confusion in baseball circles with the other Mike Stanton, a relief pitcher who played 20 seasons in the majors.
Wrong. Football is not fun (I started both ways in high school). Even in college and the pros, a large share of players don’t enjoy it at all. But it is high status, and better than being an office shlub when you don’t know anyone at Goldman. One key difference between baseball and football: in baseball, experience really helps, and having seen 10 yrs. of big-league pitching is a big edge on youth. So, Jack Clark was a much better hitter in 1987 than in ’77. Kirby Puckett, same in ’91 over ’84. But as a running back or linebacker, you’re liable to lose your job to a kid with springier legs.
A football injury ended Bo Jackson’s NFL and MLB careers.
A talented baseball player who’s not quite good enough for MLB may be able to make some money playing in the minors, and might even get occasional callups to the parent team. Playing in another country also is a possibility. A talented football player who’s not quite good enough for the NFL can … well, what can he do?
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1190204-kurt-warners-grocery-store-checker-to-nfl-mvp-story-a-tale-of-perseverance
Ask Tim Tebow.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20141118/NEWS02/141119779/army-draws-new-battle-line-against-asian-carp?utm
xenofishophobia!
amnesty, i say!
Those same boring elements can also be incredibly thrilling moments though. Late in the game in an important game late in the season, each pitch can be extremely intense, nerve racking, and exciting. To someone just passing by it’s just a guy standing around the batter’s box waiting for the next pitch, so it looks like nothing is going on, but it’s that waiting nervous intensity that can make games thrilling.
OT The Washington Post claims Do They Know It’s Christmas? is racist:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/11/17/they-know-its-christmas/
[Incidentally the LA Kings seems to have more better-known American-born players than other teams for some reason I do not understand]There are some foreign players but not numerous enough to de-bleach the game. The managers, the umpires, etc are mostly white. And the 'talented' blacks go to football and basketball, making competition easier for the whites as well.Replies: @Anonymous, @Dave Pinsen
Baseball is a white American bastion among pro sports, but it’s also the most “diverse” major pro US sports league since there’s a sizable number of Hispanic players and even some Asian players.
Blacks don’t have the advantage in baseball like they do in football or basketball because of the coordination and mental aspects of baseball.
Jim Brown always said baseball was his weakest sport.
It’s not a cliche that’s used for every ballpark. Camden Yards for example has a small outfield and is a hitter’s park. The Royals’ Kauffmann Stadium really is very big and has a huge outfield. It’s hard to hit homers there
There’s really only Canada. Unless you are a QB it is not very lucrative – CFL players’ salaries
I played football through high school and even that limited experience was enough to tell me how crazy tackle football is. It isn’t just the concussions, the wear and tear on the body that accelerates arthritis in the joints you banged up, or the pain you are supposed to ignore, it’s all that and the ever screaming control freak coaches demanding you play demolition derby with your body on every play. If you get great seats to a NFL game and you are right up on the action you can tell tell that the hard hits really are like being in a car accident.
That aside, it is a great game to watch. Play the game, forget about it. I seriously doubt if any more Chamberlin’s will be playing that crazy sport. My son is 6 foot 5 with a 6 foot 10 inch wing span. He would love to play pick up basketball because effectively he is 6 foot 8. But he can’t, he blew out his knee playing high school football and it will never be the same. The intensive weight lifting that is mandatory if you are going to be competitive in football takes it’s toll on the body just like all the bone crunching contact from practice and games. I think the NFL will stay very popular but the serious risks to players will keep the sport from expanding to the rest of the world. The fans need someone on the field they can relate to and very few foreigners would want to play that sport. If you look at the top college recruits it is amazing how many of them come from either the south or southern California.
Football viewership has received a huge shot in the arm thanks to fantasy football , thirty million Americans are now playing it, and of course the huge money spent on sports gambling increases viewership. The NFL says they are opposed to gambling but that is just lies and hypocrisy, gambling increases the audience which results in more money stuffed into the billionaire owners pockets.
At this point I was going to write that if something like that happened to me today, I'd cut the activity short, but then I remembered that I did deadlifts Friday after injuring my shoulder bench pressing (a rotator cuff injury, an orthopedist informed me on Tuesday). So I haven't entirely outgrown that hardheadedness.
Kurt Warner was making $5.50 an hour as a grocery clerk after being cut as the 4th string QB for the Packers. He did go on to play in the Arena Football League and in NFL Europe before returning to the NFL to win a Super Bowl:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1190204-kurt-warners-grocery-store-checker-to-nfl-mvp-story-a-tale-of-perseverance
I don’t know about cricket, but Sam Whitelock, a 6’8″ member of New Zealand’s rugby team, was a member of NZ’s U18 basketball team. Check out the family tree http://i.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/avenues/features/8843872/The-Crusaders-super-siblings
There’s also the recent trend of NFL teams drafting college basketball PFs to play tight end.
Started watching the mediocre sitcom Rules of Engagement in syndication. One of the male characters, Oliver Hudson (Kate Hudson’s brother), looks like he could be Paul Walker’s brother.
Indian cricket league (6 week competition) pays MLB level salaries. http://m.espn.go.com/general/story?storyId=10709445&src=desktop
[Incidentally the LA Kings seems to have more better-known American-born players than other teams for some reason I do not understand]There are some foreign players but not numerous enough to de-bleach the game. The managers, the umpires, etc are mostly white. And the 'talented' blacks go to football and basketball, making competition easier for the whites as well.Replies: @Anonymous, @Dave Pinsen
I wouldn’t be surprised if football gets a little bit whiter in the near future, at least culturally. Who wants to gamble on recruiting the next Ray Rice or Adrian Peterson? Or the current Jameis Winston?
Like golf, baseball is a sport where young players derive a HUGE advantage from the constant leadership and tutelage of a helicopter father who drives the kid’s advancement in the sport. This locks out blacks because daddy is not around, and as blacks have regressed to their mean (non-nuclear, mother-led families) you see that baseball is down from about 27-30% black in the 1970’s to about 7% non-Latino black today.
Baseball hitting and pitching skills are developed over a long, long period of time. The only American blacks left in the sport are true superstars with some unique ability that is difficult to find or teach – if you want a utility/marginal performer you’ll always choose a more manageable white or Latino player.
Football and basketball are more absolute – big, skilled people always win out over smaller, less skilled people. In football and basketball you’re simply a machine – a scout can take off-field measurements of your hand size, weight, arm length, leaping/agility drills and 40 yard dash results and get a reasonably accurate picture of whether you have any chance to play at the highest levels — in contrast no one could have looked at a young Pete Rose in raw workouts and predicted 4,000 hits for him, but Hakeem Olajuwon was discovered playing pickup basketball in West Africa by alums of several universities who called the coaches at their alma mater in the states urging them to send a scout to look at the diamond in the rough.
Another thing that makes it less enjoyable to play is the high ratio of practices and preparation to games. Two-a-days in the middle of August are no fun. The games are too few
Yes, but will $25 million buy a trailer park in Malibu in 2027? That’s the real question.
Historically speaking, the newer parks’ outfields are tiny. The Polo Grounds, while 257 and 279 at the corners had a CF straightaway that was 482. That’s a huge outfield.
NY Stadium CF was 461 as was Forbes Field. The original Braves Field in Boston started out at 510 to CF and Ebbets Field was nearly 500 to CF. Also, many of these same parks had power alleys that were anywhere from 25-50 additional feet over the modern ballparks’ power alleys of around 330-350. I think NY Stadium’s one power alley was somewhere between 410-440ft. That’s just the POWER ALLEY and not straightaway CF.
Nope, won’t be returning to those large outfields anytime soon.
However, per the NBA, its the top ten picks of the 1st round that count the most, the “lottery picks.” #11-15 are a step down, and #16-30 aren’t always all that. The second half of the 1st round are definite starters to be sure, but first ballot HOF? Not likely. If they were all that, then they’d have been chosen during the top ten overall picks.
Unlike MLB or to an extent NFL, the NBA is really a sprint sport; the most dominant players are easy to tell out of high school. Very little true maturation occurs in the NBA after age 22. You know who the most dominant players are by that time.
Kobe and LeBron were starting in the NBA by age 19, both were dominant since rookie yr, and they’re both slam dunk first ballot HOFers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Biggio#High_school
Ted Williams is, too: baseball and sport fishing.
I dunno about giving a third of a billion dollars to a guy who caught some serious chin music and hasn’t swung a bat in anger since.
Great point about the screaming coaches, Dave.
I was a mediocre athlete in high school, but had good size (6’5″; 200 pounds) for a small town high school. I was an okay basketball player (good shooter; poor quickness) but I got royally sick of being hollered at by my coaches at hoops practice.
Baseball practice, on the other hand, involved our coach sauntering over as I (a pitcher) was throwing the desultory practice pitch or two, watching for a spell, then saying ‘Throw strikes!’, and sauntering off again. He was also laid back during our games, so my catcher and I were free to call our own pitches/locations. This was fun, as we got to handle the strategic/tactical side of the game as well as its physical execution.
This style of laissez faire coaching seems to be a thing of the past, though, as now my peers’ kids are in high school, and even the baseball and softball players are controlled by signals from the coach down to each pitch and its location.
Anyway, at the pro level, would you rather spend all week in intensive coaching and film sessions, punctuated by extremely strenuous weightlifting, and then some physical therapy for fun and relaxation (football) — or would you rather play the game itself just about every day, with far shorter and milder practices? I know which I’d choose.
That said, several comments in this thread have been right on the nose about baseball’s hard-to-predict player development: hitting major league pitching (and, as Steve said, having the instincts to track balls hit to the outfield or to handle other advanced fielding and pitching requirements) are skills not easily taught, even to great athletes. So committing early to baseball is risky.
It’s also very risky to count on making MLB as a pitcher. Just as NFL players are one torn ACL away from irrelevance, many, many MLB pitchers are a torn rotator cuff or other arm injury away from losing the edge that makes them effective at the MLB level.
http://www.etonline.com/news/154076_janice_dickinson_details_alleged_bill_cosby_sexual_assault/
Another cosbycare victim.
@ Yojimbo
The old Astrodome was also cavernously huge. I once saw Hubie Brooks hit a homer to straight center and it seemed like it took 12 seconds for the ball to get there, just barely skimming over the fence…
I suspect that most starting pitchers in MLB could be an All-Star if they could just be wholly healthy for an entire first half of a season and get some luck with hard-hit balls being hit at fielders.
I dunno about giving a third of a billion dollars to a guy who caught some serious chin music and hasn't swung a bat in anger since.Replies: @Steve Sailer
Stanton has never played more than 150 games in a season.
Deion Sanders made an MLB career out of being a superb “big skills” athlete (running, strength, athleticism) whilst a subpab player at small skills (hitting for average, baseball IQ).
The one factor that kept him in the MLB? He could handle the road. Many better players than Sanders get beaten up by the road: the travel, the women, the lonely nights, getting up to the games on time, etc. Sanders could deal with that; that’s what “veteran ability” really means: he can pull the young guys out of the strip club in time to make the 1pm game tomorrow.
It’s likely.
Baseball pitching ‘success’ can vary wildly depending not just on how much luck you get on hard-hit balls, but when exactly you get it.
Casual fans soon forget the two-on-one-out situation in which the opponent’s three-spot hitter rips a one-hopper on a hung breaking ball that the third baseman turns into an inning-ending double play, but that single play ending what might have been a big inning could end up saving a pitcher five or six earned runs on his ERA.
Clayton Kershaw gave up just 39 earned runs in the entire 2014 season, and even a mediocre starter who pitches 200 innings will give up only around 100. A few big innings avoided therefore can make the difference between a ‘respectable’ ERA and one that looks pretty bad — and this can translate into millions of dollars come contract time.
This is one of the main reasons the stats geeks have been trying to get away from ERA and are turning to less fielding-dependent stats when trying to figure out how good pitchers really are.
Football is a great sport if you like contact. However, some more fragile types get roped into it because they want to a Jock and/or get some chicks. Usually those kind were wide-receivers or offensive linemen.
We had one WR we called “JNB” for “Johnny-no-block” – since he never seemed to make contact with anyone, even when we ran the sweep to his side. Fortunately for him, he was very fast and would catch an occasional long TD pass. He was also very smart.
You see the same thing in BB where some tall guy gets pressured into Basketball even though he doesn’t like it. I can’t imagine the same thing happens in Baseball.
The problem is that by emphasizing strikeouts, walks, and homers, they make the game duller and take longer.
Steve, concerning your comment/question about Butkus: that exact scenario happened with E.J. Holub of the KC Chiefs. He played in Super Bowl I at linebacker. By Super Bowl III knee injuries had caused the team to move him to center. He is the only NFL player to start on both offense and defense in Super Bowls. Holub had played both ways at Texas Tech.
Because of the numerous scars on his knees from his many surgeries, Holub said he looked like he had lost a knife fight with a midget.
Yes, exactly. That double play on the smash to third, maybe after a couple of singles, is much more exciting for fans than two walks interspersed with two nine-pitch strikeouts.
Yes, indeed. This happens quite a bit.
A prime example of someone who had phenomenal natural basketball gifts but who could care less about the sport – Joe Barry Carroll (often referred to as “Joe Barely Cares”)
After a long and listless NBA career he eventually moved into stock trading.
keypusher: Most kids don’t have a choice, of course. The skill sets and physical types differ a lot. And I understand a lot of black kids growing up today never learn even the rules of baseball.
That one always puzzled me. I am fairly sure that native talent disparity or nominal equipment/facilities cost differences do not justify the significant relative paucity of blacks playing baseball compared to football or baseball. I believe the real reason for that is that due to the setup of the game, there is little or no opportunity for talking shit (pitcher and batter are 10 metres apart and both require extreme concentration) or for ostentatious and gratuitous ego displays (even the dimmest ones are aware they’d just look lame performing an analogue of the end zone dance after they throw three consecutive unhitable heaters or the relatively few times they’re lucky enough to be able run the bases).
What % of Deion’s batting average did he run for? In some respects making poor contact was almost an asset as a slow roller in the infield was a hit for him. I always felt he used that.
As a WVU graduate I saw Pat White go against his best interests by refusing a minor league contract out of high school to play college football. He had a fabulous college career and somehow managed to get drafted very high by Bill Parcells, but then he was rendered so unconscious I thought he might have been killed by Ike Taylor of the Steelers. He tried to go back to baseball but after six years away from it the skills, assuming they were there to begin with, were eroded by time and quite possibly football injuries and concussions.
His decision for football was a good one for WVU, but probably not for him.
The other baseball/football crossover to note is guys with tremendous arms who play QB instead of baseball. There have been more than a few former minor league baseball players who have made a nice college career as a QB in their mid-late 20s, Brandon Weeden (current Dallas Cowboys backup QB) comes to mind as a guy who was able to turn that into an NFL career. Of course John Elway almost played baseball before settling on pro football. If you do choose football over baseball, it's best if you're a QB.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
John Elway did play baseball, and almost made it to Cooperstown. No kidding.
He played one season of Class A ball in the same county.
I got a free ticket to a Dodger game this year out in the right field bleachers. I expected to be bored but the Dodgers had 9 extra base hits, mostly to right field, so it was very entertaining. Yasiel Puig started off single to right, double to right, triple to right.
One memory from high school football: the time someone crushed my thumb with a cleat during practice. The nail split vertically and bled. I squirted some antiseptic goop on it, taped it up, and continued with practice. That was the mentality.
At this point I was going to write that if something like that happened to me today, I’d cut the activity short, but then I remembered that I did deadlifts Friday after injuring my shoulder bench pressing (a rotator cuff injury, an orthopedist informed me on Tuesday). So I haven’t entirely outgrown that hardheadedness.
I went to a football camp in the ’80s in Connecticut that was run mainly by college coaches but would have pros stop in to work with you too. One was the nosetackle for the Jets then, Joe Klecko. He wore shorts and had some nasty scars on his knees.
A talented football player who’s not quite good enough for the NFL can … well, what can he do?
Ask Tim Tebow.
Any thoughts on why Tim Tebow didn’t go play QB in the CFL?
If the CFL paid $8 million per year you can bet that Tebow would swallow his pride and trudge himself up to Toronto to play for the Argonauts.
A prime example of someone who had phenomenal natural basketball gifts but who could care less about the sport - Joe Barry Carroll (often referred to as "Joe Barely Cares")
After a long and listless NBA career he eventually moved into stock trading.Replies: @Brutusale
Ah, Joe Barry Carroll. Every Boston fan remembers Joe Barry for being the guy the Celtics traded the #1 pick (Carroll) to Golden State for Robert Parish and the #3 pick, which ended up being Kevin McHale. Two Hall of Famers for a guy who didn’t give a damn. This the year after they drafted Larry Bird as a junior, who was eligible because his original college class had graduated. Red Auerbach was truly man among boys.
Screaming coaches make a huge difference. My high school football team suffered an exodus of decent athletes to the stands because of an excessive, ex-Marine idiot coach.
I don’t buy the draft outcomes being more predictable in football than baseball. The Red Sox drafted Henry Owens out of high school in the first round in 2011. Lefty pitcher, hard thrower, plus curve, 6’6″, he’ll be in the rotation next year. No surprise there. Juxtapose with Patriots running back Jonas Gray, who didn’t really play until splitting carries with Cierre Wood his senior year at Notre Dame, wasn’t drafted, and is on his third team in 3 years. He’s now the featured back on the team with the best record in the AFC, running for 201 yards and 4 touchdowns last Sunday. Who’d have predicted that?
And of course, there’s Tom Brady.
I saw Cierre Wood play against my son’s team in high school. He touched the ball seven times and scored five touchdowns. I was helping videotape the game for the coaches, so on the audio track, there’s me shouting, “No, don’t let that guy get the ball again! You haven’t tackled him yet. There he goes again. Punt it out of bounds next time.”
The CFL pays considerably less than doing sideline work for ESPN.
If the CFL paid $8 million per year you can bet that Tebow would swallow his pride and trudge himself up to Toronto to play for the Argonauts.
Tim Tebow has a net worth of $3 million dollars, so he is not exactly lower working class. Nobody here needs to worry about how will he be able to get by after being cut by the NFL.
“Don’t worry, $25 million in 2027 won’t buy two Happy Meals.”
Inflation is a bitch. On average I spend around $30 dollars whenever I go to the movie theater, when you factor in the price of the ticket, a large drink, and food.
And that is only when I pay for myself. I spend even more than that when I am treating somebody.
That has less to do with inflation and more to do with movie theaters enjoying monopoly pricing on soda and popcorn by banning people from bringing in food and snacks from outside into the theater. Movie ticket prices have been pretty steady for a while, hovering around $10 on average for a while. They haven’t been able to raise ticket prices significantly because of DVDs, Netflix, etc. They rip you off on sodas and popcorn.
Isn’t Tebow’s latest gig working for ESPN’s NCAA channel or something? Or maybe color commentary for Florida games?
That was a good earlier point though. How come Tebow isn’t in NFL Europe? That’s where Kurt Warner resurrected his career to return to the NFL. Why doesn’t Tebow try for NFL Europe? Or doesn’t he want to play in the NFL again?
Still not getting it with Tebow. He won a playoff game and proved the experts wrong. He has a winning record as a starter. 32 NFL teams and there’s not one single team that can place him on their roster as a backup?
Not saying there was a concerted effort to run a Heisman winner out of the league, but sometimes it does tend to make you wonder. And, he’s the complete opposite of Ray Rice, Peterson, Hardy, etc.
Bo knows baseball. Bo knows football.