I get e-mails from time to time about various Cardinals related things. Generally, it’s from people I’ve never heard of or met before who have mined my info off of VEB or FR. That material generally goes straight to the trash folder but today’s made me chuckle a bit:
I’d be grateful if you’d consider posting this on your Web site. The mightyPujols wins the 2010 Radbourn Award for combined greatness and grit.
I still think that Old Hoss Radbourn must be a VEBer on twitter but I’m not sure anyone has ever stripped back the mask of internet anonymity for that particular feed. I also have a (somewhat) serious question: Can elite players – aka ones who are actually good at baseball — achieve a ‘grit’ moniker?
Tomorrow, I’ll give you a more meat and potatoes look at Lance Lynn.
Entries (RSS)
A three-word answer: Cal Ripken, Junior.
I always thought grit meant like courage, fearlessness, or guts, which no offense to baseball players, I don’t really seeing any player being gritty. Tough on the otherhand, players like Cal Ripken Jr. and Albert Pujols who play through injury even though they are ridiculously talented, they are elite players that it can be applied to.
Isn’t Scott Rolen gritty? He dives for the baseball and gets dirty. He has that “blue collar white guy” look to him. He works hard and doesn’t make much of a show of himself other than his excellent play (and his feuds with managers, oops).
Anyway, I think excellent players can be gritty, it’s just that people don’t have to talk about their grittiness as much due to the fact that they’re actually very good at baseball. The bad players who are gritty don’t have anything going for them but their grittiness.