Are Baseball Players The Most Gifted Athletes?
6June 2, 2011 by Matt Musico
…well, according to Tim Kurkjian, the answer to that question is a resounding yes. In his article on ESPN.com, he goes into detail as to why he thinks that Baseball players are more athletically gifted overall than athletes in the NBA, NFL, or NHL. Hear me out though, Kurkjian makes some great points. After speaking with a large amount of MLB players, Kurkjian makes the estimate that about 75% of current MLB players have dunked a basketball at least once in their lifetime. This makes sense because not only is the average height of a MLB pitcher just shy of 6’3″, but there are nineteen players that measure over 6’7″. The upcoming stats are also pretty eye-opening:
Brad Wilkerson (somewhat decent former MLB player) was all-state in four sports in Kentucky during his high school years. Joe Mauer was an all-state basketball player in Minnesota. He claims he was a “defensive specialist,” yet he averaged 22 points per game his senior year. Austin Jackson is quite positive that if he focused on basketball instead of baseball, he’d be in the NBA right now. Matt Kemp got recruited by Oklahoma to play college basketball. Chris Young (Mets) and Will Venable (Padres) played college basketball at Princeton. Out of high school, Carl Crawford was recruited to play basketball at UCLA and play football at Nebraska. Grady Sizemore rushed for more than 3,000 yards in his senior year of high school. While he was not playing baseball, Jacoby Ellsbury worked out with the Oregon State basketball team. What I think is most appalling is that Al Kaline said that in high school, he was a better basketball player than baseball player, yet he won a Major League batting title at the tender age of 20.
Kurkjian pointed out that he didn’t want to put down other athletes because there are plenty of gifted multi-sport athletes in the other three major professional sports, but there seems to be an abundance of well-rounded athletes in Major League Baseball. It’s actually quite funny to see superstars in other sports struggle to complete simple baseball skills. There was a report that LeBron James took batting practice with a Major League team (I’m assuming the Indians) and according to an anonymous Major Leaguer, “he couldn’t even get it out of the cage.” Also, Larry Fitzgerald is one of the most physically gifted football players in the NFL, but when he threw out the first pitch of a baseball game, he looked extremely uncomfortable (sorry Matt, I know you love him, but it’s true).
It’s funny when some critics don’t consider baseball one of the hardest sports out there. One of the most difficult things to do in sports is to hit a moving ball. Whenever someone made fun of the athletic ability of baseball players, I enjoyed handing them a bat and saying, “Here, go hit a curveball.”
Adam Jones was quoted in Kurkjian’s article by saying, “I’ve told players from other sports, We [baseball players] could play your sport than you can play our sport.” A little cocky? Just a tad. Is he right? More often than not, I think so.
Category Sports | Tags: Adam Jones, Al Kaline, Austin Jackson, Brad Wilkerson, Carl Crawford, Chris Young, Cleveland Indians, ESPN.com, Grady Sizemore, Jacoby Ellsbury, Joe Mauer, Larry Fitgerald, LeBron James, Matt Kemp, MLB, NBA, New York Mets, NFL, NHL, Oklahoma, Oregon State University, Princeton, San Diego Padres, Tim Kurkjian, UCLA, University of Nebraska, Will Venable
Man, I’m not even having the argument with him anymore, but my roommate really needs to read that article. For someone who never played baseball he sure makes fun of baseball players a lot. Being an athlete is about more than being able able to run up and down a soccer field a few dozen times!
I would have to agree – although I am just a tad prejudiced having raised an awesome first baseman with exceptional talent..
Keep it up Matt
Q: How many baseball players can skate 29 mph on a blade only a few millimeters thick, while stickhandling through five defenders hoping to rip your face off, and then rip a 106 mile per hour slapshot from the top of the circle?
A: None.
Hockey players are the best and toughest athletes, pound for pound, among any major sport.
I don’t think that anybody would disagree with you that Hockey players are definitely a different type of breed, and by far one of the toughest type of athletes across any major sport. It’s my personal opinion that a Hockey player would probably win in a fight against a football player. However, the question wasn’t asking who was the toughest athlete or even the “best” athlete. It was whether or not baseball has the best all around athletes. From what I have read in the past, I’ve learn that a enormous amount of baseball players could have probably went pro in other sports, and if not pro, were All-State in sports in high school. Rarely have I heard anything about Hockey players being able to play other sports. Not to say they couldn’t, I just haven’t heard much. I’m also not saying that baseball, football, or basketball players could easily play hockey, because I don’t think that’s true, nor do I think that Hockey players would be able to play the other sports just as well. Just like the comment below yours, I’ll answer your question with another question. How many hockey players can hit a ball 400 ft? None……The debate is never going to come to a conclusion, because nobody is ever going to budge on their stance and we will never be able to come to some sort of criteria to determine “the best athlete”
If I had to take some guesses, I would say Justin Morneau? I know that he was quite a good hockey player before he chose baseball. Also, Matt Stairs and Larry Walker may have been pretty good players in their day. You could turn that statement around to see how many hockey players can hit a 95 MPH fastball.
You make a great point though in what will always be a never ending debate.