Today's Max Kellerman and Brian Kenny show was centered around baseball with a little sprinkling of MMA and a fair amount of basketball. As I really haven't been following the NBA playoffs this year and mixed martial arts has never been my thing, I would like to focus on some of Max and Brian's thoughts on baseball.
Today's show led with a discussion of Joba Chamberlain, his anticipated start and how he is the most heralded Yankee pitching prospect to come up through the system and make a start for the Yankees. Although I missed some of the show, I later heard Max and Brian say that some callers had suggested Al Leiter and Dave Righetti as comparable prospects, but Max discounted them as he correctly noted that the hype surrounding their recall to the parent club and role as starting pitchers was not comparable to the one surrounding Joba. I also heard the name Whitey Ford mentioned, but I have no clue as to what type of press there was when he came up (he retired three years before I was born).
Of course what was not said was that the reason that many Yankee pitching prospects did not have Joba's hype when they came up was because the Yankees traded them before they could don pinstripes. Some recent examples include: Eric Milton (much hyped when traded to Twins, made his MLB debut at 22 but never panned out); Jake Westbrook (traded to Indians for David Justice after having made two starts for the Yankees) and Ted Lilly (traded to Oakland in mid '02, has gone 71-57 as a starter since the trade). If the Yankees had held on to these, who knows what kind of hype there would have been.
Another interesting chat involved who was a better player/candidate for the Hall of Fame - Ken Griffey Jr or Manny Ramirez. Given the fact that both have been in the news of late for passing career HR milestones, I guess that its not a big surprise to hear them mentioned together, but it was an interesting conversation that Max Kellerman and Brian Kenny had about the players' various attributes and who would be the best choice.
As a sidebar to this, someone (I did not catch if this came from a host, intern or article) pointed out that Griffey is actually the second best outfielder to be born in his home town on November 21st, since Stan Musial was born on the same day (obviously many years apart) in the same small town. They always have something interesting that sticks with you.
Speaking of interns, Max wished a mazal tov to his intern Zach Abramowitz (sp?) on the birth of a son. It was nice to hear this from Max and further underscores what kind of guy he is. I remember when he first introduced himself to Sarah and me when we were in the airport on the way to Barbados. He asked whether we have kids and when we answered in the affirmative, he then asked what their names are. Many people make small talk (especially when a flight is delayed) and ask about kids. Few if any people ask what your children's names are and it says something about the kind of guy that he is underneath. But that's just my opinion.
Speaking of the guy underneath, the reference to Griffey Junior and the humble type of player that he is (certainly in comparison to ManRam) was just another indication of how the Max Kellerman show touches on Torah thought. Last week's daf yomi (Sotah 5a) discussed the trait of haughtiness and how Hashem punishes those who display it, while rewarding the humble. As is apropos to the coming holiday, the Gemara discussed how when Hashem was choosing which mountain would be the site of the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people, he did not select a high mountain and instead chose Sinai which was considerably lower. It is also written in Pirkei Avos that one who runs after glory, the glory will run from him, where one who runs away from glory will be chased by it. Ken Griffey Junior is known as a good guy in baseball circles, in large part because he has hot 600 home runs without a major ego or chasing the spotlight. As such it was nice to see Max and Brian give him his due and allow the honor to chase him.
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