Hot Carl

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Travel ball soccer is pretty expensive.

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I’m sure it is. But what exactly is the OP’s question? Cheapest child sport to get them into to get them moving, learning to become part of a team, meeting new friends, etc…or cheapest to get them into if you want them to one day excel in? And how old is the child?

If the child is younger (5-6), I’d say get them into as many rec league sports as time—and their interest—allows. I’m a big believer in playing multiple sports for as long as you can. Almost all sports translate physically, especially when you’re younger. (Ex. playing soccer and those movements and “foot-eye” coordination helps you become a better basketball player, helps you become a better football player, etc…).

I know that a lot of towns/cities have terrible rec league sports now, if they have them at all. But a lot still do, and for a young child, they are mostly year round. Soccer, t-ball/baseball, flag football, basketball, etc…And at a young age, most shouldn’t cost a whole lot more than the registration fee and the uniform. Gloves for kids are cheap.

But if you have to pick one, and without the longterm goal of them becoming a professional or getting a college scholarship, whatever, I think soccer is the best and most translatable to other sports. It’s great for conditioning, both long distance and sprinting, change of direction, playing with a team (passing back and forth, etc…), and “foot/hand-eye” coordination. We didn’t have it in NLA when I grew up, but my son played it when he was 3-4 in both EBR and Ascension Parishes, and watching it, I wished I had it played it growing up. For a little while at least. It didn’t stick for my son, but without question helped him become a better basketball, baseball, and football player when he got older. The skills translate.

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Why not both

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He can at somewhere like Nebraska, but not LSU. Lane doesn’t like allocating a lot of money to freshmen that won’t be ready to immediately contribute.

If Hudson is as good as he’s hyped to be, he won’t be cheap, and if Lane doles out that money to him, he’s going to expect him to play. And he’s likely not gonna let Wade borrow him if it prevents his football development in any way.

We were like 1 or 2 more decent bullpen arms away from making a serious run at the CWS in ‘24. Or maybe even just the ‘25 version of Sam Dutton at Auburn as the 3rd starter. Or for Thatcher Hurd to not have sucked cock. There weren’t a lot of teams with their top 3 guys ad good as Jump, Holman, and Herring by the end of that season. And Herring may have been the best pen guy in America.

And we were SOOOO close to getting out of that Chapel Hill regional. Jump only gave up 3 in 7.2 innings to Wofford in the opener, and struck out 9 to 0 walks, but our bats couldn’t do shite and we had to come back and score 3 in the last 2 innings to win, I think. And we had to use Herring in the 9th, who did strike out the side in order, I believe.

Holman wasn’t terrible against UNC, but gave up 4 runs—all on 2 homers (a 3-run early, and a solo late). He did give up 7 hits, but that UNC team could hit. I think he came out in the 6th with 2 outs, Loer faced a batter and got us out of the inning, then Dutton gave up 2 in .1 to make it 6-2, which was the final. We weren’t winning that game no matter what, though, only scoring 2 runs.

The 2nd Wofford game is where I think we lost the regional. (Obviously we still had a great chance at the end of the final game, but we should have been going to Herring to close it out instead of Jump out of the pen and on very short rest.) I think Ack gave up 5 runs without recording an out. (Just looked it up, and he got 2 outs). But Herring had to come in and shove for 6.1 innings—against fricking Wofford. So, in our 2 wins over them, we had to use Herring for 7.1 innings. We needed him for UNC. Oh well. (Btw, Kade Anderson struck out the side in order in the 7th or 8th of that game fwiw).

That team was so close. But so are a lot of teams. That’s baseball.

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Let's see pitchers today go 250IP a season.

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This is a good point. 1, people way underestimate just how hard Maddux and Glavine threw in their primes. Maddux sat 93/94 and could get it up to 95 when he needed. A lot of people just remember the guy at the end of his career who threw 87/88. Glavine sat 92/93 in his prime too.

2) The guns are a bit hotter now, so they probably threw a couple mphs harder than we think relative to the guys today.

3) Those dudes prepared to get 27 outs every 5th day. If they were only asked to get 15-18 outs every time out, they would obviously have thrown harder.

4) Who cares? You can only play in the era you played in. And they were unbelievable in theirs for an impressively sustained period.

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The time constraints and the conflicting incentives (pure development vs winning) make anyone, not just Yeskie, taking on too many "projects" a fools errand.

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This is such a good point that most people—myself included—don’t really account for to the level it actually plays out. It’s not the summer league or the minors where immediate results don’t really matter, and you can develop for the long-term. The biggest part of Yeskie’s job is to help LSU win immediately, not develop guys to be at their absolute best 3 years from now. It would be great if those 2 interests aligned, but they often don’t.

So Yeskie—hell, all college coaches—are forced to think more short term. “How can I get this guy to help us win NOW, and be at his “best” by the end of THIS season?” Their “long-term” thinking with guys they’re counting on to contribute to the current team is development over a season.

And a lot of times they are forced to take “short cuts” that may not necessarily be in the best interest of a guy’s development over a 2 or 3 year period when they likely will be long gone from Baton Rouge.

And somebody above mentioned mindset and the mental part of pitching, which I believe, is mostly just innate. Can you miss your spot, give up a 425 foot bomb, and immediately put it behind you, take the pill, and go back to work? Or, like what happened a lot with our defense this year, can you make a good pitch that turns an out into an E4, or a bloop that finds a hole—especially if they happen back to back—and dig down deep and not let it blow up into a huge inning?

It’s hard to throw 5-6 “outs” in an inning and overcome it. Again, I think a lot of that is innate. But you have to have the stuff 1st. Like put Gavin Guidry’s head on William Schmidt’s body, and he’s probably an All-American. Yeskie can help that some, but he’s limited like all coaches.

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Came here to say this.

If you can’t point to this without looking it up, you are not a college baseball fan.

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:lol:

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your want to

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:lol:

Totally agree. Ruckert could wind up playing as much or more than he did last year. But it’s nit gonna be all at 2nd base. He needs to be a super utility guy like you said. Be able to play 2nd, 3rd, corner OF, SS in a pinch, and be a dependable LHPH that you know is gonna give you a good AB every time he steps in the box,

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Ruckert played a lot last year and proved himself worthy.

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Ruckert played well for a true freshman and has a nice career ahead of him likely. But what did he prove himself worthy of exactly? A roster spot? Sure. Playing time? Absolutely. A starting gig? Not even. The ‘26 version of Ruckert is not good enough to start on the ‘27 LSU team. He’ll have a chance to develop, make a jump, and win a job.

But unless there’s an injury, Ruckert and Pearson look to be the odd men out on the IF as far as starting jobs go in ‘27. Right now. It will be interesting to see if they decide to stick around and compete and maybe have to wait until ‘28 to start. I sure hope they do—we’ll need guys like them to contribute over the long haul. But they have to do what’s best for them, and they have 2 weeks to have discussions enter the portal. Really hope they stay. But would understand if they don’t.

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They celebrated James' 40th birthday together last year.

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There is no way James Franco is only 40/41.

Anyway, I agree with OP. Rogen knew what he was up to. His distancing himself so aggressively is kinda weak.