Tim Kurkjian recently published an article on the underrated athleticism of baseball players:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=kurkjian_tim&id=6614933
It's not even close, baseball players are the least athletic of the four major sports (and five if you include soccer). I know Kurkjian pointed out tons of players who were recruited to play other sports out of high school or whatnot, but you would find more players from other sports who were recruited to play sports different than their current one than those in baseball for sure, and that is purely based on the fact that they are all better ATHLETES than baseball players. I agree with Adam Jones in that baseball players could probably be more successful in, lets say, the NBA than an NBA player could be in the MLB. But that has nothing to do with athleticism. I've always contended that baseball requires the most skill (just beating out hockey) out of the four major American sports, but SKILL does not MEAN athleticism. Sure, hitting an 80 mile-an-hour 12 to 6 curveball is one of the hardest things to do in sports, and hand-eye coordination can be argued to be a part of the umbrella term athleticism, but it is not strength, speed, or agility, which I consider to be the three most important parts of athleticism. I also think that Kurkjian needs to stay away from the whole dunking thing. He cites players like Chris Young who are 6 foot 10. If you're 6'10'' (or anything above 6'3'' for that matter) and you cannot dunk a basketball, all I have to say is shame on you. I was a baseball player all my life. I claim to be an average football and basketball player, but I do not claim to be a superior athletes. There are exceptions in the MLB, but the league is not full of superior athletes.
