I think we need to just come up with an uber-stat that takes all these things into account, call it Heart, and make David Eckstein’s Heart scale to 100. Just for the sheer joy of hearing hackey sports writers grind their teeth when they find out that A-Rod has 279 Heart.

I never meant to imply that Pete Rose wasn’t a great player. He was, and probably even deserves to be in the Hall of Fame (though if I was Pete, I wouldn’t keep fighting that fight. Do you really want to be in the Hall of Fame, knowing that every current living member in the Hall probably hates your guts – Joe Morgan excepted probably- and that 7 people will show up for your induction ceremony?)
I will readily accept that Pete Rose was a great player through his hustle. I think I have watched Pete play only two or three times (on TV) in his career, and never really thought to myself “Wow, that guy plays hard!” but whether thatt.

Btw, I never said that everyone plays hard every day. What I said was that I think that 99% of all players show up to play every day. There are the few who come to the park and you already know they’ve taken the day off, even though they’re in the lineup, but most guys try their hardest to play the best game they can and to win the game for their team.

This seems endemic to baseball writing in general. Guys are always praised for “Running hard on a pop up to short!” or for “Running out a ground ball!”
Yet if you were to look at every at-bat, you’d see that 99% of all players do this. We never notice that though. We tend to see the one guy who doesn’t do it on a particular at-bat, and that’s the memory that sticks. If we have a few of those guys in a week, suddenly we have this idea that all baseball players are slackers, and only David Eckstein and Dustin Pedroia really care.

There are several players who don’t care. But the large, large, large majority does.

There are quite a few players who don’t play hard. Or perhaps not crazy insane hard every single day. But there are lots who do.

Pete Rose was a great player, and a great hustler. I just don’t subscribe to the idea that he was the all-time leader in Hustle+ and nobody has ever come close.

This is the same argument that Yankees fans use to say they’d pick Scott Brosius over Alex Rodriguez any day. Because Brosius, once, hit a big homer in the World Series. World Series he got to on the back of stellar pitching.

(Brett also cost the Royals 2 runs in the first game with a 2-error first inning.)

I will admit I’d go with Brett if my life depended on just one game. And I think that’s probably where Joe is coming from.

Lets look at some numbers:

Pete Rose 1963-1974 (his first 12 full seasons)

1859 Games, 2337 hits, .309/.376/.432, 394 doubles, 117 HR, 701 RBI, 8 All-Star teams, 7 top 10 MVP finishes (and 1 win), ROY, had yet to win a championship.

Derek Jeter 1996-2007 (his first 12 full seasons)

1820 Games, 2344 hits, .318/.389/.463, 382 doubles, 195 HR, 926 RBI, 8 All-Star teams, 6 top 10 MVP finishes (no wins), ROY, 4 championships.

Pretty close. Defensively, as you said neither were particularly graceful in the field, and both won gold gloves (jeter at a premium position), and both are talked about in that same “gritty, gutty, hustles” kind of way…but for some reason you praise Rose for it and snark at Jeter’s “gamerness.”

Honestly, can you think of any contemporary player that is more similar to Rose on the field while avoiding all of Rose’s baggage off of it than Jeter?

A couple of days ago, the Royals gave Mike Maroth his unconditional release. I wish him well. Assuming he wants another shot somewhere, I hope he gets it.

You have articulated the classic positivist argument. The philosopher/scientist Auguste Comte is the preeminent historical example of positivism (here’s ~a bit~ of info. on him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Comte).

But, 5 is a number, yes? 5 exists, yes? Can a number be measured? No, it’s a ~unit of~ measurement. Dreams exist, yes? Can we measure quarks or other subatomic particles? Barely. Can we measure the cosmos? No. By definition, the cosmos—and the other items—cannot be measured.

Therefore, non-material items do exist. God is among this group of non-empirical, non-measureable, non-material items.

- TL