The vast majority of players taken before the 10th round don’t make it either!

It bothers me, it does. I won’t deny that, but being black bothers me far less than not being a baseball player. I am for Affirmative Action. I had it explained to me in a sports metaphor once, and it made a lot of sense. “If you are a coach,and you have 2 fairly equal kids. One has perfect form and throws a 87 mph fastball. The other has terrible form and throws a 83 mph fastball. Do you want the kid with perfect form, and he is as good as he will ever be? Or do you want the kid who needs some polishing, and with proper technique, could be very good?”

Obviously, I want the kid who has room for growth. However, that kid needs to at least be decent to be a professional baseball player.

The vast majority of kids drafted after the 10th round never make it. The majority of kids taken after the 25th round don’t sign and go to college instead to try and improve their draft stock….those kids didn’t want the $45K, they want more than that and are willing to not sign now to try to get it.

No reason to be pissed at MLB for anything….again, lots of kids don’t want to sign and most of them have no shot at anything resembling a career in baseball. It isn’t like there are only so many spots that kids are clamoring for…they are willfully passing them up (or not qualified if they get them) in droves.

There’s a lot of people who would love to make $45,000 a year who don’t. I’m not going to fawn over a guy who tries really hard for 3 months. and makes a pro rated $180,000 salary.

He could have decided not to do it when it cost him something, but he didn’t. Instead, at 18, he went, alone, across the country to try to learn a new trade, and each year he’ll go to school (hopefully), do everything required to play football at a high level, and then work at baseball in his spare time. Doing far more than most college kids do during the year and during the summer (I know, I get to see the results of exactly how little they do on a regular basis).

So you could just think, “good for him”….instead you chose, “I’m going to be a sour old dick head.” Again, people generally don’t like to venture outside of their comfort zone.

I’ve read a lot of inspiring stories on here. This isn’t one of them. I’d prefer to read about the kid at Shaq’s high school who spent 3 hours in the batting cage everyday, only to attempt to walk on at the local community college. That is inspiring. A story of courage, and refusing to give up on your dream. Instead, I get an article about how inspirational it is that a great athlete has tremendous opportunities handed to him, because of the college coach he chose to play for.

Good article, obviously he focused more on football growing up. It is good to see he is willing to put in the extra work and not just take a check.

It’s amazing what football coaches with a lot of connections can do for their recruits.