Anthony Rivers' Baseball Thoughts

MAY 4
WHICH IS HARDER, BASEBALL OR FOOTBALL?

Hello again and yes I’m back to settle another dispute: Which sport is harder, baseball or football. Now I attend Bok Tech and we are known mostly for football and everyone that goes to our school loves football for the most part, and there is nothing wrong with that, but most of the football players don’t realize that there are other hard sports out there. See I play both baseball and football and I have a pretty good idea of how hard each sport is. Personally, I think that all-around baseball is a harder sport. Now there are a lot of people that would disagree with me and for good reason. Football is a lot harder on your body and if you play a very important position such as quarterback, tackle or guard, you have to remember a lot of things like plays, who to block, and how to do it. So, yes, I do feel for football players and I can see their point. Now think about it -- if baseball is an easier sport, why is it so hard to get to the actual MLB? In football all you need is two years of college and you can go straight to the NFL. In baseball when you get drafted, you don’t go straight to the highest level of play. You start off in single-A, maybe double-A, then there is triple-A and if you do make it to the Majors and then do badly, you get sent right back down. Another point is that every few years you might hear of a player that didn’t start playing football until they were in college and now they are getting drafted in the first or second round. You rarely ever hear of someone just starting baseball in college then getting drafted into pro ball. Baseball requires a lot of skill and you have to come as close to perfection as possible for everything to happen right. If you are up to bat and the pitcher throws you a fastball right down the middle (which is probably the best pitch to hit in baseball) and you swing under it just a little bit too much or you swing a split second too late, you will pop it up or strike out. In football, I can be going to make a block and not hit the guy the way I was supposed to and get run over. However, my running back can still score and I don’t look bad (well, until maybe the next week when we're looking at the game film -- ha ha). But the fact that he scored excuses me. That’s basically all that I have to say now. I will let you guys tell me what you think and I will post the responses on this page. So, please write in with your opinions of which sport is better and tell why. Send them to Ted at silaryt@phillynews.com and he'll post them. He's a lazy dude, man. We need to get his butt workin'! (ha ha). Thank you.

APRIL 25
UPDATE . . .

PLAYERS I FORGOT BUT DESERVE TO BE ON THE LIST:

James Allie - University City

Lenny Nicoletti - FLC

Dave Doggett - Frankford

Javier Lafuente - Thomas Edsion

Damien Wilmer - Washington

Julian DiPietro - Bok

Thanks everyone for your comments on my article and I will be writing another one soon on the difficulty of sports and which is harder, football or baseball.

APRIL 18
THE PUB VS. THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE
My friends and me on my Fairmount Braves summer league team always argue about which league is better -- the Public League or the Catholic League? And it always starts a huge argument and we never can agree on an answer. My team is pretty much split down the middle.
Public League Catholic League

Anthony Rivers Jr.- Bok Tech Tom McGee- Roman

Joe Maloney- FLC Rich Yoka-Roman

Adam Chandler- Masterman Cody Yoka-Roman

Evan Hunt- Masterman Colin Andrews-Neumann Goretti

David Kremer- Central J.V. John Walton- Penn Charter(Interac)
Exactly 5 players from each side so there is never anyone with a deciding vote. Now the argument isn’t really about which league is better because the Catholic league is clearly better, as much as it hurts to say it. The argument is whether or not there are players in the Public League that are good enough to play in the Catholic league and the answer is yes.

Now we all know that the Catholic League teams have more depth than the Pub because of freshman teams and the J.V. system, there are only a few Pub schools that have J.V. teams. So here is my list of the players I think could play and start in the CL, no question.

ADAM CHANDLER-MASTERMAN

JOE MALONEY- FLC

BRANDON HENSON-GAMP

ANTHONY VENAFRO-GAMP

MATT STEWART-BOK

ISAIAH JOHNSON-WASHINGTON

MICAH WINTERSTEIN-CENTRAL

JARED FARBMAN-CENTRAL

EDWIN PADUA-EDISON

ESTEBAN "SHORTIE" MELETICHE-FRANKFORD

SEAN HENDERSON-FRANKFORD

JOSE BURGOS-FRANKFORD

EDWIN ROHENA-FRANKFORD

JAMES PAULK-ROXBOROUGH

CHRIS SCHROEDER-ROXBOROUGH

ANTHONY RIVERS JR.-BOK

EVAN HUNT-MASTERMAN

So, what do you think? Now this is just my opinion. If you feel differently or think that I forgot some people please e-mail me at rivers441@yahoo.com.