Red Sox chasing Gilly

[Alphabet Man]

Sox it to me, Gilly

Robert Craddock

07apr05

BATTING dynamo Adam Gilchrist has received an approach from the world champion Boston Red Sox baseball club, despite having played the game once in his life.

Gilchrist's thunderous strokemaking has echoed around the world and led to the offer of a personal assessment to see whether his dynamic skills were transferable from cricket to a game he played only once as a 14-year-old in Lismore.

Australia's Olympic baseball coach Jon Deeble, a Red Sox recruiting agent, informed the club of Gilchrist's freakish power and triggered the interest that could rise when the 33-year-old retires from cricket.

"We expressed interest in him and we think he has a lot of potential and the club has tapes of him batting," Deeble said last night. "Boston has a pay roll of US$160 million ($208.7 million) a year and it's something worth having a look at."

Gilchrist's manager Stephen Atkinson said no decision had been made on whether to accept the offer of a skills assessment session, most probably before pitchers and a pitching machine in Perth, and Gilchrist's primary focus was on the Ashes series.

"Adam has taken this as a compliment," Atkinson said.

"There are any number of collegiate players in America who would cut their non-pitching arm off to get a call from a major league team saying we would like to come down and have a look at you.

"Cricket remains his number one priority and the approach may not come to anything, but it is genuine. If we did anything, it would have to fit in with his cricket commitments. But it is not pub talk or someone daydreaming. It is this guy's job to identify players and he likes the look of Adam. Baseball people have been saying for years that Adam would be suitable."

Major league salaries dwarf those earned by Australia's top cricketers, who make about $1 million a year from Cricket Australia and often as much again in sponsorship.

The average major league salary last season was US $2,555,476 ($3,331,810), according to the Associated Press.

New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, arguably the league's best all-round player, will earn US$25 million ($32.6 million) this year.

Mike Young, fielding coach with the Australian cricket team and a former Australian baseball coach, said several years ago Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds and Matthew Hayden had major league potential had they started as youngsters in the sport.

"Had Adam played baseball as a youngster, he would have had a real good shot at it," Young said. "I commend Boston for having an open mind, but he is too old now.

"I don't think there is any chance he could make it."

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No, No , No never let this happn, the Aussie Cricket Team needs him.... he is the best batsman in the world- Gilly, don't go to baseball

[DEAD!]

You can rest assur aussie that this will never happen. As the person in the end of the article said Gilchrist is too old to start playing baseball. The only postition he could possibly play is DH.

[pcgd]

Ok, I've never tried cricket before and only seen it limited on TV, but I've got to think that the only thing the two sports have in common is hitting a pitched ball and catching. The skills for each sport seem that they are unique to that sport and wouldn't translate well. Cricket uses a larger, flat batface for one, an unlevel swing, and a bouncing ball. Baseball you swing at a ball on the fly with a level swing with a round bat. Each sport has unique skills that I don't think anyone could pick up in a short time.

I'm not going to claim to know which would be harder to switch too because I have no clue. My instant thinking would be the switch to baseball would be more difficult. But, I'm sure its extremly hard to hit a ball that bounces once and could break any direction.

I do think that the little things in baseball would be very hard to pick up. You can be a lifelong fan and still learn about situations and such.

[Alphabet Man]

how fast is an average pitch in baseball? in cricket he faces balls ranging from about 80km/h to 160 km/h

[The_Admiral]

Fastballs range from about 87 to 98 mph, breaking balls less so. Knuckleballs are around 55 mph

[pcgd]

Aka...speeds are about the same. The big difference comes in for Cricket you have rollers (the person that throws the ball, I think I got that right) who are spinners who throw much slower but the ball will go in any which direction and the guys that throw it 100 mph (160kph) You don't have nearly that big of a difference in speed with baseball, which almost makes it easier. You pretty much know that its gonna be at least 80mph. But, seeing 80 from 60 feet and then seeing 97 from 60 feet is a HUGE difference. And there are guys that throw change ups at 80 and fastballs at 95 with the exact same motion and arm speed.

I guess you could say a Knuckleball pitcher (Aussie: this is a pitch that has absolutly no spin, so it floats and it can litterally break in two or three different directions in mid-air. but the pitch has to be very slow, probably in the 60's mph/100 kph) is like a spinner while a hard throwing pitcher is like the other guy.

[Alphabet Man]

Aka...speeds are about the same. The big difference comes in for Cricket you have rollers (the person that throws the ball, I think I got that right) who are spinners who throw much slower but the ball will go in any which direction and the guys that throw it 100 mph (160kph) You don't have nearly that big of a difference in speed with baseball, which almost makes it easier. You pretty much know that its gonna be at least 80mph. But, seeing 80 from 60 feet and then seeing 97 from 60 feet is a HUGE difference. And there are guys that throw change ups at 80 and fastballs at 95 with the exact same motion and arm speed.

I guess you could say a Knuckleball pitcher (Aussie: this is a pitch that has absolutly no spin, so it floats and it can litterally break in two or three different directions in mid-air. but the pitch has to be very slow, probably in the 60's mph/100 kph) is like a spinner while a hard throwing pitcher is like the other guy.

yeha your nearly right.... in Cricket the 'throwers' are called bowlers and are not allowed to bend their arm at all but get to use a run-up (no limit).... the Pace bowlers bowl from anywhere from 16m to 33m and Spinners have about 10m run-up.... Spinners turn the ball by letting it spin out of their hand(wrist spinner) or fingers (finger spinner)

i'll wait for tomorrows match (should there be one) on Fox or ESPN