I have a question for you guys...

Find a local batting cage, that has stalls with pitching speeds between 60 and 85 mph. Give him a bat with a barrel that is no more than 2.75" in diameter. Give him 1 round to warm-up. Then count how many balls he actually hits on the 2nd round. Then tell that he just faced something similar to most HS pitchers. Most MiL and ML pitchers slow pitches are that speed, while there average FB is 12-16 mph faster. That doesn’t even include any movement in the strike zone, that most satting cages can’t replicate.

Then remind him that is only batting. There is also defense, and baserunning to be considered. And you haven’t even touched on in-game stratgies both on offense and defense.

I’m old, but was an OK football player, very successful in 27 years of organized basketball, was exceptional in military combat martial arts ….. and although I played “at” baseball for several years, and was a good defensive outfielder, was never good enough at it to be a starting player on any team at any level. Yes there are historically some number of baseball players who were not “athletes”. But they shared one trait – most of them could hit the hell out of a baseball, at some level up to the major leagues. Today, those guys are really rare, unless they are weirdly successful pitchers or awesome power hitters who can DH. Yes, the game HAS gotten a little more demanding, physically, because players have to compete against progressively bigger, faster, stronger, more focused opponents … you know, “athletes”. But I’d still say there was never a time I was a good enough baseball player to start any any level above high school or a military base team. Thing is, a five level minor league system tends to weed out most of those who try to play professionally. Each level is incrementally harder than the one beneath it, and by the time you get to AA, you better be a skilled player ready to improve even more, or you still don’t make it. Ask him how many soccer players at high levels come straight from high school, or even a junior high in Brazil FWIW.

Then, considering how much an athlete has to improve to stay in the game, only about one eighth of those who make AA manage to get enough better to make the majors, and only a little over a quarter of those stick (stay in the game for a career span). The guys he cited from other sports, Jordan and Sanders etc. actually could not make it in baseball. Bo Jackson was one of the world’s rarest total athletes, and is an exception to any kind of rule.

So tell him nothing wrong with having an opinion, but “don’t go there” on his reasons for degrading baseball. It’s a more selective, progressive player weedout process than in any other sport except maybe golf (which doesn’t require his view of athleticism at all, even though it helps).

To even suggest that hitting a baseball is an easy thing speaks to a person’s lack of insight. I like the above suggestion of going to the batting cages.

You can play any sport without much athletic ability; I’ve done it all my life. But my inability to even hold down a serviceable left field has left me for a far greater admiration for the ones who can.

You have smart friends. Since he’s a Vol fan, he knows that Todd Helton failed miserably at the most difficult of them all, football(He couldn’t beat out Peyton Manning). Baseball has been a piece of cake.

Babe Ruth ate hot dogs between innings. Charlie Hough smoked cigarettes in the dugout. Mickey Mantle drank a lot, and he’s considered good at this “sport”, Ha!

Most of these losers fail 70% of the time.

Is considered one of the hardest things in all of sports if not the hardest. It’s hard enough to hit a 100 mph fastball off a batting cage (if you can find one) but then to not have any clue of where it’s going or if it’s coming (off speed pitch) makes it infinitely harder.

…..yet he couldn’t succeed at the AA level of baseball.

I know that’s a bit simplistic. But it sounds as if you are dealing with some simple-minded people.

Danny Ainge is one I recall being drafted by the Blue Jays but quitting since he sucked. Basketball he was OK. I seem to recall Dave Winfield being drafted for basketball but never suiting up. Can’t remember if Tony Gwynn was drafted but I think he won a Cal HS state basketball title as a point guard (although maybe that was Cecil Fielder).

. . . so? Lot’s of things in life are harder than football or baseball and are boring to watch.

If you’re a pitcher, you’re standing 60’6" away, throwing a baseball hard and with movement and have to keep that in a very small strike zone. The best of the best can put a ball that’s breaking 12 inches on the corner and do it somewhat consistently, which to me is simply amazing.

And trying to hit it is even harder.

Guys come out of their second and third years of college and sometimes even high school to become instant stars in the NBA. You don’t see this in baseball hardly at all. Most of the great players still have to pay their dues in the minors and earn their spot in the big leagues. Only a handful in history have began at the top.

Football is very difficult on your body. It requires a lot of strength and speed. Except for quarterback, though, I cannot see any position that requires anywhere near the kind of skill required to play baseball at a high level.

People say baseball players are slow and get injured too easily. Well, they should probably try running in spikes. Sliding into a base is fucking dangerous and doing it right is a skill in and of itself.

I don’t really know about hockey. It looks difficult to me, but then again I’m a person who somehow ran over my own finger trying to ice skate around the Tandy Center rink when I was in high school.

Soccer…I don’t see anything about playing it that cannot be learned. Obviously you’d have to be in phenomenal physical condition to be good at it.

Tennis…very underrated as a difficult sport, because the people who play it at a recreational level are not playing the same game that the pros are. But I found it much easier to be better at tennis than I was at baseball.

Golf…this is a game and not a sport at all. It’s much closer to bowling or something and doesn’t even belong in the discussion.

Anyway, getting to the top of the game in baseball has to be the hardest. They’re importing athletes in from all over the world and you have to succeed against all of them at so many levels before you even get a shot at the big stage.