Forget the Athletes, Give me the Gamers!

Is it true? Are there less athletes in baseball today than ever? That's what they say, what they've been saying for years now. The athletic, talented kid who can run and jump and hit and catch better than you or I isn't playing baseball anymore. If it doesn't involve a football or a basketball, our truly athletic American kids aren't playing it. Baseball is slow. Doesn't grab the interests of kids. The game hasn't evolved. It's bad on TV. There are less fields in the inner city. It's expensive to play with equipment and travel leagues. Although there may be some apparent truth to some or all of these arguments, there are several factors to consider on the contrary.

The first being the "The beauty of baseball" factor and that is that you can succeed at it, make it to the Show and flourish even, regardless of your height, build, vertical leap or speed - and that's the way it's always been. Pete Rose never blew anybody away with his height, size or speed. He could hit and if you can hit, you can make it in this game regardless of size, height or speed. It didn't hurt that he always played aggressively and outhustled the next guy. Some attribute that success to the era he played in, but some of today's stars in MLB: Ichiro, Tejada, Rollins are all well under six feet and in addition to their speed, can hit the baseball for avergae and power.

In the same regard, if you can throw strikes with differentiating speeds consistently, you can make it no matter how big you are.  For every six foot plus, two hundred plus hurler like a Roger Clemens or a Ben Sheets there's a five foot something, a hundred and something Greg Maddux or Rich Harden.

Based on what it takes to be a successful hitter and/or pitcher in baseball, I don't know if I fully buy the argument that the game is lacking of superior athletes. Would Ken Griffey Jr. be playing pro basketball if he grew up in this era rather than the 1970's? I'm not so sure. A sweet swing is a sweet swing. Is A-Rod really going to choose football or basketball over baseball, a sport he's dominated since he was a youth. Even if you look at the premier athletes in basketball and football in the 80's and 90's, Michael Jordan and Deion Sanders, one couldn't hit and the other was above average but not great.

You hear it a lot that African Americans don't play baseball anymore. Well, is it just African Americans?  They say that African Americans make up for 8% of MLB players today compared to double that ten years ago. White player percentages have stayed consistent over the years hovering around the 60% level but both of those numbers are a lower representation than how each race is represented in the overall American population. African Americans making up 12% of the population and whites at whites at 66%.

Let's face it, the growing Hispanic representation in MLB has cut into both of these groups overall numbers. As far as the true athletes go, I believe there are actually more true athletes in MLB today than there were say twenty years ago. How many players twenty years ago had the size, speed, power and hitting ability of Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds or Vladimir Guerrero.

It's funny, I don't remember Mike Schmidt, Steve Garvey and Reggie Jackson swiping 40 bags along with hitting 40 jacks for a .300 average.

Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but there's always these truths to consider for the Big 3 American sports:

Football - you need size and speed, excellent chance of getting hurt, extremely short career life span, no guaranteed contracts, players salary cap.

Basketball - you better be tall and quick and durable, there's only 12 spots on an NBA roster, European players are cutting into your chances, salary cap.

Baseball - less chance of getting hurt, long career life span, guaranteed contracts, no salary cap, strong union, you can be 5'8" and be an MVP (see Jimmy Rollins).

The whole athlete argument is overrated anyway. I'm so tired of watching a football game and the commentator rambling on about what an athlete he is, but can't catch a football when his team needs it or how physically gifted a basketball player (see Lamar Odom) is only to see him disappear when his team needs him the most. You can keep your athletes, give me a Gamer!