Danny Ainge
Honestly baseball should barely count as an athletic endeavor. Being super good at basketball > being pretty good at basketball + baseball. Not saying baseball isnât hard, but you have a bunch of clearly unathletic overweight people at the top of the sport. Or did for a lot of the history of the sport.
I also played almost every position in baseball for the one season I played in middle school and was easily one of the best on the team in terms of athletic ability. I was super fast, probably the best catcher with one of the best arms. I wasnât even in the top 20 in football.
Charlie ward needs to be mentioned in best two sport athletes. Won the Heisman trophy but then decided to have a long NBA career rather than play in the NFL.
4 Likes
Anecdotes about how you performed in a particular sport in middle school tell you nothing about the athletic requirements of the sport.
3 Likes
I think this isnât quite right. The people you are thinking of are athletic overweight people. A lot of American fat pitchers were also like shortstops and quarterbacks when they were kids. Theres probably a thoroughly pointless debate in there somewhere about what âathleticâ means, but I think very few of them are actually totally inept athletes that can throw a ball hard.
1 Like
Deion Sanders is in Pro Football Hall of Fame.
2 Likes
MLB is the hardest sport to play. You got guys like John Elway and Russell Wilson being superstars in other leagues that couldnât even make the majors. Deion Sanders was a shitty baseball player but a Hall of Fame football player. Fat overweight baseball players are rare. Even a guy like Colon was skinny and athletic when he was younger.
1 Like
Obv I did that for fun and to share a personal experience. But like how do baseball players do on a combine? Iâm guessing its horrible
Yeah there are a lot or specific skills that are hard. Athletics just arenât a bit part of it.
Unathletic baseball players itt.
How many baseball players did well in basketball or football as a 2nd choice?
Dave Winfield and Tony Gwynn come to mind.
Bo wasnât even that much better at baseball. Heâs about an 8 WAR player to Deionâs 5 WAR in a similar number of plate appearances. Bo was certainly the coolest player of his time but the legend probably outreaches the reality.
Did anyone mention one-time All-Star and one-time Pro Bowl alternate Brian Jordan?
Good one. Brian Jordan was a terrific baseball player.
Baseball is selecting for different stuff than other sports.
The ability to see a 90+ MPH fastball and then hit it with a bat with any kind of consistency is a pretty specialized skill.
The ability to throw a ball at 90+ MPH consistently and accurately thousands of times per year for many years is a specialized skill.
Baseball cares way more about those skills than how fast you can run. Being able to run fast is a nice bonus, but someone who can run average in shape person speed and see the ball like a god is going to be worth more than MJâs athleticism is worth for the sport.
Basically MJ could have picked any other sport on earth and been instantly better at it than he was at baseball.
None of this means baseball players arenât athletic. Some of them are very very athletic. Itâs just that they are athletic AND they have that special sauce that baseball runs on as well. If you canât deliver or hit major league pitching you basically arenât viable.
1 Like
If youâre talking multi-sport athletes, look no further than Jim Thorpe.
1 Like
Ken Griffey Jr. was cooler, and he had the most beautiful swing ever.
2 Likes
Juniorâs personality was not as vibrant as Bo, IMO.
1 Like
