biggentleben

As someone who has put on the pads, these are not grown men. No more than any college freshman is a grown man. They're also not part of any industry. They're pawns for an industry that makes billions of dollars off of their bodies, their minds, and their failures. Tens of thousands of players strapped up to play college football across this country last year. Roughly 300 were drafted or signed as an undrafted free agent into the NFL in April. Those are the 1% of all college football players who will even have a training camp at the next level, let alone play at that level. The players receive no benefit from the industry. When I played, over half of the team qualified for scholarships on their own merits coming out of high school, so trying to sell the "free education" is bull, especially when that education is not extended to the athlete when he/she leaves their chosen sport due to injury or pursuit of a professional career in that sport. To put it more clearly - if right now Annexstad said "F- you, Fleck, I'm out of here." He has no choices for another school in any FBS or now FCS school with new added regulations if he wants to be able to play in the 2019 season. He could pursue lesser competition for one season and then come back up for one season, but he doesn't get the ability to move. On the other hand, if Minnesota tells Fleck the same thing at the end of the season, they are on the hook for the rest of his contract, and he can pursue a job at any school he wants while still being paid the rest of his contract by Minnesota. The industry has nothing to do with the players on the field. You want to rip on the coaching, go right ahead, but click into the young men on the field, and that's where you'll get a big charge from me. Those guys are indentured servants, not "part" of anything profited from their actions on the field.

All that said, the Gophers are down two legit All-Big 10 caliber running backs. They also had a teammate for many of these players pass away over the weekend due to cancer, so that had to be hard to emotionally deal with. Add in Maryland getting a boost in that they expected to lose staff and/or players this week coming into the game, so they had a rallying point when that didn't happen, and it was really a perfect storm. Not saying this performance was "okay", but it's also not purely based on a talent differential, either.

Rodney Smith is one I like a lot. Winfield is fun to watch, as is Barber. The receiver corps has some interesting pieces, but whether they'll be able to get the ball to them in the B1G conference remains to be seen. Good win last night, though.

While this is true recently of Vandy, and Rocker would be well-served to head there (better such than Ethan Hankins, for instance), don't sleep on the Orioles. They made some personnel changes in their minor league system on the pitching side, and the results this year have been incredible at every level. Their Delmarva pitching staff at times has featured five starters with sub-2 ERAs and better than a 9 K/9 (promotions and such has changed who has been in the rotation at times, but still...). Now, if the Orioles would ever, EVER sign an international talent....but I digress. It is something to review those with commitments to a big-time school that often lands a good chunk of their commits, like Vandy guys. For reference, of the pitchers in BA's top 100, here are the breakdowns: Arizona - Liberatore Baylor - Ashcraft Florida - Denaburg, Lyon Richardson Georgia - Wilcox LSU - Jaden Hill Miami - Cecconi Mississippi - Hoglund Mississippi State - Stewart, Winn, Ginn South Carolina - Owen White Southern Cal - Chandler Champlain St. Johns - Torres Texas - Woods-Richardson Texas A&M - Grayson Rodriguez TCU - Kloffenstein Vanderbilt - Rocker, Weathers, Hankins, Becker, Northcut, Brett Hansen Washington - Schroeder

The Pirates and Orioles both like him a lot, and there are some who think he'd be in play if the Marlins go for another HS arm (which would be ridiculous). The Marlins have been after hitters primarily, but they've seen plenty of Rodriguez, Cole Wilcox, and Mason Denaburg lately. The Rays and Royals could also both grab Grayson as well as they both like him a ton. He's moved up big on boards this spring with his showing in spring ball.

I'd be very surprised if he made it there, but if he did, the Twins should jump all over that selection.

He's an extremely good 2B, but he needs time at Elizabethton. I think he was an even better get than Maitan. If I had to rank them coming from the Braves, I'd have had Yefri Del Rosario #1 and Severino #2. Maitan and Livan Soto would have been very close for #3, and then there was a big gap to the next player.

My nephew was over last night and had the chance to see the handbook, so he started thumbing into it. His eyes got big, and he looked up at me with surprise, and then he quickly thumbed forward in the book. His mom was curious what was up, but he kept shushing her, telling her that he would answer her in just a second. Then... "Did you know Ben has a story in this Twins book?! It's right here...and it's pretty good!" I'll take that.

Matt, I've shared with you before how much I love these, and I'm glad to see you posting them here again! The Molitor story in the comments is a big reason why....seems like there is something like that coming out of about one of your Twitter posts every 10 days or so as well. Great memories to share!

I also know from my work with the mentally ill that someone with borderline personality disorder is nearly 90% to report a rape or attempted rape within their lifetime. (Last numbers I saw before I left the field were in the upper 80s, but had risen 2-3% over the past 5 years or so, and that was 2 years ago) The town I live in has a high percentage of SPMI adults (severe and persistent mental illness - basically, the biggies, schizophrenia, bipolar, verifiable personality disorders), and in working at the jail part-time I was not surprised to find that there was nearly a 20% false report number. I worked with someone who made 11 reports of sexual assault or rape within one year. One had any merit. So right there are 10 claims that get added to the general number, but sans her mental illness, she most likely doesn't report a thing falsely, or at least nowhere near that frequently, and that can significantly skew the number, whatever the true number may be. Let's not utilize a number already skewed by those who do not have the capacity to understand their role in affecting the other persons who come forward to further victimize those who are brave enough to come forward in the first place.

Intriguing that the Twins site this morning before this broke had front and center an article about how pleased the Twins were with Sano's progress this winter so far. No such article anymore on the Twins front page....

And that, in the end, is what Myjah, myself, and TD are all offering to the degree we can each offer it - a platform for those same ideas to reach more eyes than an independent blog most likely would. It's not going to replace a day job, but there's a chance to see how you like it, and if you find your niche and want to grow it, you have a platform to grow that audience before you move elsewhere!

Took my time to read through this and think through how I wanted to answer/opine on this... I came to TD from BYTO originally as someone who had "friends" in the forum from that site. I'd written a few articles at BYTO, and not long after TD began, I got the opportunity to do my first writing. I've been spending the time since slowly building into my writing before really pushing into it a few years back. Finding my niche at that site led to a lot of great connections within the game that drove my passion even further and now has me editing two sites with FanSided. Of course, the downfall of that is recruiting for those sites, so I can completely understand the issues you're running into here at TD. I know that we've put out the feeler many times over that we're looking for writers at both sites, and bringing on writers is fairly slow, even though one of the two sites is a pay site. That said, one of the things that I have done with Call To The Pen (and I'd like to think that I offered with the one writer interested at Puckett's Pond) is intentional work with writers to help them gain views and understand what will help to drive views (and those search engine positions) on their articles. If the long-term intention with TD is to recruit and foster a team of writers that continues to grow, it'd probably be advantageous to consider one of the crew to be someone who intentionally oversees the blogs, promoting the blogs, coaching writers, and initiating first-time writers to the best ways to draw eyes so early on writers can see some success to spur the desire into further writing. I love the site, all, and I'll certainly be around on the forums!

Hear you there...not that I dislike Puckett, but I wouldn't keep the name if I had my drothers at PP....

I can speak for PP...not much for us to offer! LOL

I think with Fleck it's more what was in the cupboard already being so far from what he wants to have available that it's going to take that long. A similar case would be having an Alex Gibb running game system and going to a Wisconsin style system. You're going to require a whole different type of running back and lineman for each system and they really don't work in both systems outside of the rare freaks.

In chatting around, people who know of his system say it'll work in Minnesota long-term, but it's a 2-3 year process. I guess coming into the season, I enjoyed the energy, but I had no assumption that he would be coaching even a .500 team, let alone a conference contender.

One of the better ones out there. My brother is a salesman and could tell you all the stuff the company is doing around the world to grow their market share. In most countries around the world, if you ask a rural child to draw a tractor and then to "color it", they will choose green, and that's akin to Coke or McDonalds in world reach, even if a lot of people never see the brand in use.

Except that you had the rookie of the year, Chuck Knoblauch, Mike Pagliarulo, Scott Leius, a guy who finished with votes for MVP, Chili Davis, and basically an entire new setup crew - Mark Guthrie, Carl Willis, and Steve Bedrosian. The 1991 team was a big makeover from that 1990 team. Don't kid yourself.

Part of what can happen when you release the list this early, sadly, and especially when you go this deep.

Thing is that he asked not to be inducted if he wasn't by the time he passed. Many feel his nomination now is disrespectful to his wishes.

...and he didn't look out of place, either. That part impressed me quite a bit.

There were also a few that touched triple digits...

That guy is Graterol. Well, and Lewis. Lewis is considered by many a guy who could play in the majors in 2019, which is remarkable for a high school talent. The biggest questions I got from other teams' guys who saw him in GCL or Cedar Rapids was whether he stuck at short simply because the nuance of the pro game at the position may not have time to develop before his bat is ready for the majors.

Davis is fun to watch play the game. He's a guy who you can tell understands how lucky he is to be playing the game now after losing a season and having that chance possibly taken away from him (his injury to his shoulder was pretty gruesome). Hard not to cheer for a guy like that.