sweaver
09-18-2003, 08:48 PM
In the middle of a rumination about athletes in different sports, there was this, by USS Clueless blogger Steven DenBeste:
"Of all the major sports, the one which seems to have the most balanced requirements is baseball, and that's demonstrated by the very broad range of physical characteristics of the men who play it professionally, especially those who excel. I don't know of any sport where there's as much variation in height and weight, for example, and when you meet a baseball player, unlike most other sports professionals he generally looks like a man who is optimally developed without being freakish. Baseball requires both arm and leg strength about equally, since it involves running, throwing and batting. The one thing it doesn't require to the same extent as most other sports is stamina. Most baseball players who are on the field spend most of the time standing around, without the kind of sustained activity present in other sports. There's no single aspect of the game which particularly favors some particular physical trait over others, the way basketball favors height or the way jockeys benefit from slight build. That's why baseball players don't look like basketball players or jockeys.
It's also why, once societal racial barriers were finally eliminated, baseball ended up with a greater racial mix than most other sports. No single racial group has a genetic advantage. (Soccer and other sports which primarily emphasize stamina also tend to have a very broad racial mix, since no single racial group has a genetic advantage when it comes to stamina.)"
You can see the whole thing here: http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/09/MoreonAnna.shtml
Agree? Disagree?
"Of all the major sports, the one which seems to have the most balanced requirements is baseball, and that's demonstrated by the very broad range of physical characteristics of the men who play it professionally, especially those who excel. I don't know of any sport where there's as much variation in height and weight, for example, and when you meet a baseball player, unlike most other sports professionals he generally looks like a man who is optimally developed without being freakish. Baseball requires both arm and leg strength about equally, since it involves running, throwing and batting. The one thing it doesn't require to the same extent as most other sports is stamina. Most baseball players who are on the field spend most of the time standing around, without the kind of sustained activity present in other sports. There's no single aspect of the game which particularly favors some particular physical trait over others, the way basketball favors height or the way jockeys benefit from slight build. That's why baseball players don't look like basketball players or jockeys.
It's also why, once societal racial barriers were finally eliminated, baseball ended up with a greater racial mix than most other sports. No single racial group has a genetic advantage. (Soccer and other sports which primarily emphasize stamina also tend to have a very broad racial mix, since no single racial group has a genetic advantage when it comes to stamina.)"
You can see the whole thing here: http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/09/MoreonAnna.shtml
Agree? Disagree?