Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 23:50:30 12/17/00
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On December 16, 2000 at 15:21:38, Mike S. wrote: >P.S. What is a short stop? Baseball is a game where a player (the batter) attempts to whack a ball with a wooden bat, and other people attempt to catch it and throw it to an appropriate place. The game is played in most developed form in the USA, although it is also played in the Far East (Japan, Korea, Taiwan), and Latin America (Cuba, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic), and in these non-US places it is actually played more enthusiastically than it is played here. It is extremely hard for the batter to hit the ball. If the ball is hit long, hard, and high, there are people (outfielders) whose job it is to catch the ball. If they catch it, it's a good thing. If they don't catch it, it's not a good thing, but in most cases there's nothing much that can be done after that point, they just throw it back with not a high degree of urgency. If the ball is hit low and hard, there are people closer to the batter (infielders) who have the job of catching it. They are fairly near the batter, so the ball comes at them very hard, and they need to have a high degree of atheleticism in order to get to the ball before it gets past them. If they catch the ball, they have to throw it with a high degree of speed, urgency, and accuracy to another player. In particular, the shortstop: 1) Is called upon more frequently than other players to handle an extremely hard hit ball. 2) Must cover a large area of ground and often is required to fling himself on his face in order to catch a ball, or occasionally to catch a ball going approximately 100 mph with his bare hand. 3) Has a long throw to make once he picks himself off the ground after diving for the ball and catching it. This throw must be made extremely quickly and extremely accurately. 4) Occasionally finds himself in a position where another player is trying to break his knees. Classic art of a shortstop doing his business: http://www.seanet.com/~brucemo/033b.jpg In that picture, the guy on the ground has just attempted to assault the shortstop, who has successfully evaded him. He has the ball in his right hand and is going to throw it very hard and with a high degree of accuracy, before he touches the ground. The reason that Alex Rodriguez is considered to be a premiere player is that he is able to do all of the duties described above, with a degree of skill and talent attained by only a few baseball players in the past hundred years. Additionally, he is able to hit the ball very well, both with high frequency (a good thing) and a high degree of power (a good thing). The ability to play a position well, and to hit with frequency and power, is enough to make a player a star. That it is a shortstop doing this is especially striking. Shortstops tend to be small people who are able to field, or to hit with frequency, but not both. That one is able to do both of these, and also hit with power, is extremely uncommon. bruce
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