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[AugustWest]

That opinion shows you never made fuck-all at a game.

Baseball is where all the challenged athletes go to flop about. Baseball is so forgiving it's charity.

Are you saying football requires one to be a well-rounded ath-uh-lete?

[littlefallsmets]

To PLAY the game, no, it ain't the thinking man's sport.

Football offensive leadership-skill positions probably are the sporting positions that take the most thought in the moment, I'd reckon.

However, from the outside looking in, baseball is kind of the sport you can over-think the most as an observer.

It's the same reason why Joe Morgan was a Hall of Fame player and yet seems to be a half-step away from a droolbib as an announcer and... Billy Beane was a huge washout with a coupla cups of coffee in the majors as a player and yet a great baseball mind in terms of organizational management.

Understanding how the game physically works from the player on the field and understanding how the strategy of the game works from the General Manager's luxury suite are about as different skill sets as you can get.

[jaydub]

Why was that fantasy sports are so popular again?

ALSO: D-Linemen require the lowest wondelic scores to get a thumbs up so think on that, y'dig.

So Vince Young has options if he washes out as a QB?  That would probably fill him with sufficient rage, and a couple steroid cycles would get the necessary bulk.

[littlefallsmets]

Catcher does seem to be the most intellect-based position, doesn't it?

Not necessarily that they're smarter as a group but... their position requires the most baseline smarts to apply from.

Hm. Lotta the managers and stuff who WERE successful players are catchers, yeah?

[littlefallsmets]

Hm. Willie Randolph was a second-baseman so...

His incompetence is probably more about cowardice and complacency than idiocy?

[jaydub]

Total options. Shit he's about as big as Dwight Freeney already.

Quick check: name a quality coach that came out of the d-line. Not an OK coach, a damn good one. It's like baseball and centerfielders.

Hmmm...well, Tim Green's written a few books.  May well be the exception proving the rule though.

[jaydub]

Good God - we'll have to see what comes of Luis Castillo once he's done playing.  Early signs were that he wasn't that bright: testing positive for andro before the draft in 2005.  On the other hand, his Wonderlic was 37 (rough IQ equivalent of 134), various coaches, journalists and whatnot say he's very intelligent.

[littlefallsmets]

It'll be sooner than later with Castillo...

Dude's knee is held together by bailing wire and hope.

Four year contract, what in the damn-friggin was Minaya thinking...

[littlefallsmets]

Good game, Ass Men... onto playoff round two!

[Carlos del Vaca]

Catching up:
a)  I certainly think some team will take a flyer on Michael Vick when he gets out of jail.  For cryin' out loud, Kyle Orton and Brooks Bollinger played in last night's NFL game.  Good quarterbacks are hard to come by.

b)  Speaking of last night's game, guess who picked the Bears to cover, AND nailed the 33-point total score to win the office football pool this week?  Nothing like watching a football game and rooting for both teams NOT to score for pretty much all of it.  Fortunately, it was the Vikings and Bears, so there you go.

c)  Here in Nationals territory, I was browsing the list of players named in the Mitchell report and thinking "None of our guys matter enough to be on here."  But then my eyes caught "Nook Logan," and had I been drinking coffee at the time I'd have spit it all over my monitor.  Look kids, proof that performance-enhancing drugs won't necessarily make you a major league talent!

[Carlos del Vaca]

Indeed.  I have a friend here who is convinced that steroids are safe if used properly, and since pro athletes have access to the best doctors and such, it should be legal for them.  And my counter-point is that college and high school players will inevitably believe they need to take that step too to get to the next level, but lacking access to the best doctors and pharms they'll end up hurting themselves.

[melack]

Apparently the Mariners are on the verge of signing Carlos Silva -- Carlos Silva! -- to a 4 year / 44 million dollar contract. It's moments like these when you should all feel grateful you're not a Mariners fan like me.

[littlefallsmets]

See, I think... the Nook Logans of the world are the ones who would be MOST likely to use, really.

The jump from September call-up cuppa-coffee AAA-lifer to 24th or 25th man on a major league roster... there's so much more marginal utility to that difference than the difference between making two million dollars a year and ten million dollars a year.

AAA guy still probably has to get a job in the off-season, AAA guy isn't getting into the MLBPA pension stuff, AAA guy has significantly less cred to build a second career as a broadcaster or a coach or a front-office guy or doing used car commericals or a scout or whatever.

Bob Ucker, y'know, there's a guy who MADE his second career out of the fact that he was a marginal major-league talent who was just able to hang around in the bigs for an extended period of time, somehow.

And a marginal MLB talent who can manage to say on the 25-man roster consistently despite having only the minimum talent to stay up there... that guy is banking, what's the MLB-veteran minimum? Somewhere between 300 and 500 grand, right?

If you can hang in there and draw that kinda water for four or five years and be smart about it, even after taxes and agent fees... it might not set you 100% for life but it'll give you a nice fuckin' nest egg and a whole lotta time to do figure out the rest of your days, y'know.

Give you time to figure out if you wanna coach or broadcast or... buy a small bar in Boston or... go back to your little hometown and live off your small-amount of fame by running a restaurant or a car lot or whatever.

That seems so much more worthy of risking your life over than the difference between a borderline All-Star making two mil and a borderline HoF making twelve mil.

This is just me, though, I love baseball but I didn't play many sports so I perhaps do not understand the competitive mindset.

[littlefallsmets]

I guess that's the difference between trying to make it in the arts and trying to make it in athletics...

If you've got the skills and the drive, you can get a look from a scout... at least enough to get yourself to a place where people the next step up will give you a cursory look and so forth.

Whereas you can be doing the best things in the arts or the worst and... if you got a friend in a high place who wants to do you a big favour, you can be bought and sold no matter how bad you are and... vicey-versey.

Whole different mindset, I s'pose.

[KeithHernandez]

Here is an awesome blog post about grittiness:


http://www.flotsam-media.com/2007/12/flotsam-data-special-tangiblizing.html