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1. RB in NYC (Now with New iPhone!) Posted: March 24, 2009 at 02:11 PM (#3112708)This the NY Yankees. You can almost bet on the contract sometime in his career.
Nah. Much more likely to be trade bait. Even if Gardner hits his upside (slightly above average MLB CF) the Yankees will always be looking to upgrade. Either Austin Jackson develops, or they look for a CF in FA or a salary dump.
Yes, but who's going to grow into Brett Gardner's version of kevin?
Given the recent entries, Fidel Castro?
Same here.
Isn't Brett Gardner really more likely to be the next Willie Harris?
If Dustin Pedroia was not white, this article would not exist.
Oh, I forgot, he's Latin. Only white guys are gritty and have dirty uniforms.
You're a Yankee fan, so you'd have a better idea than me, but does Cano really deserve a gritty reputation?
Abrasive when rubbed? Pedroia has a stubble-beard, so it works for him.
Well, hasn't he been criticized for his work habits/after hours* activity? Even if I don't know exactly what gritty is, I'm pretty sure it's not that.
* I have no idea if those are fair criticisms, but it seems like if a guy is being labeled as those things, it's probably a good bet that he isn't a tireless worker.
* I have no idea if those are fair criticisms, but it seems like if a guy is being labeled as those things, it's probably a good bet that he isn't a tireless worker.
I can't speak for other years, but in 2007, Cano, A-Rod and Melky were the first ones on the field practicing every day. Of course, it is entirely possible the other guys were there before them and getting their work in behind the scenes, but take that FWIW.
I wouldn't disagree with you. But trying to turn Robinson Cano into something he's not doesn't really help fix that problem, does it?
Personally, if I had to pick one template for gritty guy it would be Luis Sojo, because I can't fathom how a guy with that body type and limited athletic skills fashioned any kind of big league career.
i'm really kind of deeply embarassed about it now, but for a while i actually thought gardner was black. i also thought austin jackson was white. even better, though, for about a year i thought chase utley was black and ryan howard was white - no earthly idea why, really.
/this is not to say i sat down and thought about what race each individual player was - just that an image of them popped into my mind based on god knows what and that's the color my silly little mind gave their skin.
i always personally figured that the yankees liked enrique wilson solely because he has the same type of body as sojo, and they'd gotten in their heads, perhaps subconsiously, that such a body type somehow makes a good utility infielder. my favorite current player of that body type is robinson cancel, who just looks too silly to be allowed.
Willie Harris. I'm telling you.
Also Pokey Reese. I have no idea if he's gritty or not, but with a name like Pokey, he should be.
Not a True Yankee in the bunch.
I think you are overplaying your hand
Not exactly what you were asking for, but this article describes a non-Caucasian player as gritty.
Without looking at the URL or the headline, you'll never in a million years guess which player they're talking about.
Unfortunately, it's more than ten years old.
i have to disagree. unlike adjectives like "strong," "fast," or hell, even "tall," gritty describes a weird accumulation of attributes which aren't well defined and in fact change depending on who's doing the describing. i would take it to mean "hard working," like SoSH, but i hear it used a lot by fans who couldn't say whether the player in question is hard working or not. "seems hard working" might be closer to what people really mean.
I get that "gritty" is a stupid adjective, that what it expresses is possibly irrelevant, and that it is invariably applied only to white players.
With that said, claiming that it is utterly meaningless or not even definable is taking this little objection further than you need to take it. And I think it's being dishonest to try and stretch and sell the point.
Some players do in fact end up with dirty uniforms more than others do, they are better at the take-out slide, they are more likely to knock into the catcher, etc. I think that gritty means hustle with a dirty connotation, and I don't mean dirty as underhanded, I mean it as getting soil all over your body.
gritty describes a weird accumulation of attributes which aren't well defined and in fact change depending on who's doing the describing
Probably true of most adjectives.
I think it stands up for position players (dirty hustle) but it is also frequently applied to feats and performances: "a gritty performance by Scott Kazmir after a 27-pitch first inning." I assume that any gritty performance is one in which you only narrowly win and it looks like you were trying really hard, or, shall we say, left it all out on the field.
It still has a messier connotation than hustle. Hustle can be sprinting into the dugout after the third out. Gritty describes a more serious and perhaps slightly reckless type of effort. One can hustle during batting practice. One not be gritty without a challenge to face down.
Here are two quotes that capture the two ways in which it seems the word is most commonly used:
There is a lot of common ground between those two usages. I think my ultimate definition would be something like: "characterized by the ability to meet challenges with brave and strenuous effort, frequently resulting in a dirty uniform."
Here are some baseball people to which gritty has been applied recently:
team Venezuela
Dustin Pedroia
Brian McCann
Brian Giles
Dustin Pedroia
Dustin Pedroia
Devil Rays
Red Sox
Matt Garza
Dan Wheeler's performance
Devil Rays
Gavin Floyd
Scott Kazmir's performance
Dustin Pedroia
Chone steals; presumably he bunts (AL west coasters are not my best area of expertise), does he "look like he's having fun out there?"
But yeah. Athletic black dude <> gritty. Non-athletic white dude = gritty. Athletic white dude can be gritty, but he's more likely to be a passionate, heart and soul leader. Non-athletic, beat the odds black dude can also be gritty, like that short basketball player (Bugsy something?) Or Chris Paul.
I do believe Mr. Eckstein, FJM whipping boy, came up #1.
I always pegged your 03 Marlins as the ultimate gritty champ. Pierre. Castillo. Lowell. Young brash pitchers. Crusty old manager who took over for younger ####### and team catches fire. True grit.
Billy Hatcher was gritty, despite the bags, which were alot due to the env. he played in. Plus he stole home.
I read that as "the same age, having been born white within a week...". The "white" part being the key to the comparison, of course.
like that short basketball player (Bugsy something?)
Ah, You mean Muggsy Bogues.
Except for the practice (we're talkin' about practice), Allen Iverson should most definitely be described as gritty. But he isn't.
EDIT: missed a word
His ball-hogging ways are a notable negative attribute that are attributable to having the wrong frame of mind on the court, and thus obscure any other grittiness in his play.
fixed
By the same token you're not going to have gritty football players because everyone on the field is constantly busting ass and getting dirty and putting themselves in the path of catastrophic injuries. You'll only hear it when a quarterback takes a tackle at the end of a run instead of sliding ... or throws three touchdowns after his dad died.
Kenny Lofton is #2 though. (Is late Kenny Lofton gritty? He had lost some of his footspeed...)
Yeah, they would work as the subject of a Disney movie, that's for sure.
Really, though, they were a well put-together team. NL league average OBP. League average SLG. Above average pitching. Best fielding percentage ranking/fewest errors in the NL (though towards the bottom of every advanced defensive stat I'm finding). Second youngest position players in the league, youngest pitchers (by a good margin). So people came into their prime in 2003.
That looks like an okay, but not great team, but you have to remember that the team ending the season was way better than the one that started. Conine instead of Encarnacion, Cabrera instead of Hollandsworth, Willis in the rotation, Urbina in the bullpen.
Take a young talented group, sprinkle in a little luck vis a vis Master Pythagoras, and boom! Your #### works in the playoffs!
It's a solid comp. And Blanco is even more like Reggie Willits, who is "'a real smart, gritty and talented player' ... a la David Eckstein".
Nobody else was surprised by this? Or are you all just lazy bastards who didn't click the link?
Yeah, but Jackson was a star high school basketball player who was highly recruited to play college ball. Not many of those guys are white.
my biggest problem is that, in my experience, it doesn't really refer to anything other than itself. that and it's become such a cliche i hardly know what it's supposed to have originally meant at this point. it seems to mean something very specific to you, which is of course the source of our disagreement.
i could not disagree with this more, although it's largely a matter of interpretation. people often complain that words, especially adjectives, in english are redundant; i've always loved the variety because of how specific you can by playing with subtle nuances between words and situations; as complex as things can get, we have enough words that it shouldn't be hard to find exactly what people mean.
I will copy it out of the rambling above post for clarity:
gritty: "characterized by the ability to meet challenges with brave and strenuous effort, frequently resulting in a dirty uniform."
"resolute and courageous; plucky."
OED has "Having firmness of character or courage; full of determination or pluck." A US colloquialism, first spotted in 1847 in a work called "Streaks of Squatter Life and Far-West Streams," which actually looks like a fun read.
This is a good word and a meaningful one.
Basically the definition that I invented is equivalent to this but with the added dirty uniform clause which just naturalizes it to baseball. But you can probably remove that clause entirely. The dictionary definition should be very satisfactory.
The problem with gritty is that it implies all other baseball players (not identified as gritty) are not putting forth a brave and strenuous effort. And to apply that to big power sluggers or real athletic CFs seems bunk.
And it is probably sometimes true: surely some players are in fact grittier than others.
Not to say that the laziness in only using it for small white players is excusable. That is stupid.
And rest assured that any preserved fish product I'll be eating will use nothing more than salt, oil, or butter as its preservative. Or possibly duck fat. But I took my handle from this guy whose name I found in a Washington Irving story. I thought he was a fabrication until just now, when I googled it.
Let's not overlook the Yankees' gritty pitching phenom, Andrew Brackman.
Oh, the fishmanity.
Nah, they have more of a Ben Vereen quality.
Sorry. I was still stunned by the link someone else provided to an article that described Eric Davis as gritty. I mean, can anyone think of a player who is farther from the classic definition of "gritty?" Athletic, black, center fielder with power, huge numbers of strikeouts, and an inability to stay healthy. I mean, I'm not sure he qualifies as a gamer, let alone gritty.
There are dozens. Obviously you don't follow the ponies as closely as I do.
You're one of those guys who was saying how Jacoby Ellsbury was like Grady Sizemore but better, aren't you?
Did you really need "subtle" before nuances?
Sold mac.
Best Regards,
Athletic Supporter
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