I wonder if that meant anything to Ainge at the time. Ainge has certainly lived a charmed life. The article mentions he played basketball on national TV only twice in college. That might have been more than he was as a MLB, because I don't ever remember the Blue Jays being the game of the week back then. I have never seen even video of Ainge fielding a grounder or swinging a bat.

I remember this SI issue. The West regional cover was of him fielding a grounder with the title "The Next Brooks Robinson". Anyone know the reason he couldn't hit in the majors? Was it breaking balls? You would think hitting .507 even in Oregon high school would translate to better than .220 in the MLB.

I have posted before that one of my colleagues coached the dbs at his North Eugene HS. When he found out I was LDS, he just gushed about Ainge's athleticism. He said he never saw anybody that could pick things up as quickly as Ainge. He said he was a HS All America in football, because he had 8 ints playing free safety while only playing 1/3 the snaps on defense to protect him from injury. Basketball and baseball were his future and he had to talk coaches into letting him play football. My colleague talked most about his golf game though. This guy was a lifelong avid golfer and could not believe how quickly he went from being brand new to the game to a near scratch golfer.