Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

[Tarheel]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

Just because you're beating the living **** out of your body repeatedly doesn't mean you're more conditioned. Recovery time has nothing to do with conditioning.

What are you reading? I was speaking on the notion about running 90 yards and not being winded...remember?

[KSUowls]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

Part of the reason baseball players are injury prone is because of the nature of the sport. Unlike every other sport baseball has long periods where your muscles are sitting cold until at a moments notice they need to be going all out.

In other sports you are almost always at least jogging around so your muscles stay warm. Even in football guys aren't "sitting" for very long and don't necessarily have to go from a dead stop to 100% as soon as the ball is snapped.

There may not be body to body contact but you are in a sense fighting with your body.

As far as running the bases for something like a triple, you are talking about 90 feet between each base for 270 total feet (90 yards). How many football players do you think can go for a 90 sprint on a play and not be winded? I noticed some people said they used to run wind sprints like this and "were not winded", but I'm guessing by "not winded" they mean they just weren't bending over about ready to fall over. I'm sure anyone who makes this claim was certainly out of breath, and of course it once again comes down to the fact that football is a sport that demands that kind of endurance so players are forced to make an 50 yard sprint down field then get back and get ready to do it again. Whereas in baseball if you are lucky enough to hit a triple you won't have to make that run again for a while so why waste time conditioning yourself for that when you could be working on other aspects of your game.

[KSUowls]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

Not sure what you're hinting at. Plus the 1B not being a good fielder is a stereotype and really a misconception. Speed wise that may be slowest person but fielding wise that is totally false.

1B is a power bat position. If you can field that is a bonus, but it is a position that you are put at to a.) save your body and/or b.) because the team wants your bat but they don't really trust you to have to make a lot of good plays. Just take the throws from the other infielders and cover a small area.

[bkrich83]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

That's why I referred by my perspective. Heck at least I played on some level... and no one said they weren't conditioned. So who's screaming? Also, if it's "simply" not the same, please simply explain how vast the difference is.

HS baseball vs. the Major Leagues? Simple. In HS baseball you play what 2 or 3 games a week for 8 or 10 weeks? In the majors you play 6 days a week for 6 months. There is no sport out there that requires that kind of schedule. You can not compare HS baseball and recovering in a weekend to major league baseball. That's simply ridiculous.

[KSUowls]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

HS baseball vs. the Major Leagues? Simple. In HS baseball you play what 2 or 3 games a week for 8 or 10 weeks? In the majors you play 6 days a week for 6 months. There is no sport out there that requires that kind of schedule. You can not compare HS baseball and recovering in a weekend to major league baseball. That's simply ridiculous.

That is another good point. A HS baseball season doesn't even begin to compare to a full MLB schedule. A full HS season consists of around 30 games over about a 3 month period. That equates to roughly 1/5 of a MLB season. Also those games are far more spread out. In a 3 month period a MLB team should have played somewhere between 80 and 85 games, almost 3 times that of what a HS team would do during that same period.

Conversely HS football is far closer to emulating their professional counterparts. A HS season consists of about 9 games with 1 bye week (I don't remember the exact number of games). So in 10 weeks they are playing 9 games, the same number of games an NFL player is expected to play during that same span (assuming they have a bye week).

[UF Fan]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

HS baseball vs. the Major Leagues? Simple. In HS baseball you play what 2 or 3 games a week for 8 or 10 weeks? In the majors you play 6 days a week for 6 months. There is no sport out there that requires that kind of schedule. You can not compare HS baseball and recovering in a weekend to major league baseball. That's simply ridiculous.

Whoa I think he was making a distinction b/ football and baseball conditioning not MLB and HS conditioning.

I played 1st base in baseball (high school) and LB in football (high school and college)...no way are the conditioning requirements the same.

[bkrich83]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

Whoa I think he was making a distinction b/ football and baseball conditioning not MLB and HS conditioning.

Right but read what he said. It took weeks to recover from a football season and a weekend to recover from baseball. As I said big difference recovering from a HS baseball season and the MLB.

[UF Fan]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

Right but read what he said. It took weeks to recover from a football season and a weekend to recover from baseball. As I said big difference recovering from a HS baseball season and the MLB.

He said it took HIM a month, not that it was the norm for everyone, and a WEEK for baseball. Again, IMO I think he was referring to his own perspective. It's all good though.

[GreenReign86]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

I don't know, some of those 350 pound NFL linemen might take home the honor of being the most out of shape athletes in sports. NASCAR drivers aren't exactly the most lean either.

[KSUowls]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

He said it took HIM a month, not that it was the norm for everyone, and a WEEK for baseball. Again, IMO I think he was referring to his own perspective. It's all good though.

I think the issue though was, to use an overused phrase, comparing apples to oranges.

He used his own experiences between football and baseball seasons to justify his point that baseball is not that demanding of a sport. Because remember the whole point was brought up due to people stating how demanding it was to play a 162 game MLB season.

Now, as I pointed out in my previous post a HS baseball team plays a fraction of the games that a MLB team would in the same span. Thus losing one of the more demanding aspects of a baseball season, playing just 2-3 games a week instead of 6-7. Whereas a HS football season runs for about 10 games through 11 weeks, no different than what a professional team would be required to do in that same time span.

For these reasons, and the loss of the marathon that is an MLB season, it just didn't seem like a very relevant comparison.

[CMH]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

I don't know, some of those 350 pound NFL linemen might take home the honor of being the most out of shape athletes in sports. NASCAR drivers aren't exactly the most lean either.

I've seen those same 350 lb linemen outrun lean guys in their early 20s.

[ryan36]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

Plus all the damn travel over 162 games, these guys play 14 games in 16 days, and fly 3 times in between.

NBA teams get mad about having to play basketball two nights in a row.

[Blzer]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

And they'll do pre-game warmups as early as three hours before games, and the MLB is nine innings while high school ball is only seven.

[Sportsforever]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

And they'll do pre-game warmups as early as three hours before games, and the MLB is nine innings while high school ball is only seven.

The worst in high school was when you had a DH and the game was only 5 innings...the game seemed over in a heart beat and if you were in the bottom of the order you may only get ONE plate appearance.

[Scottdau]

Re: Are Baseball players the least conditioned athletes in team sports?

I played both as well. Can't compare HS baseball it's simply not the same.

Seriously though, do people really believe you can survive a 162 game regular season playing 6 games a week for 6 months and not be conditioned? That just screams ignorance on the subject.

I think if you look at the past. Some of those players were not really well condition. But I agree playing 162 games is not easy at all.