Monday, June 30, 2008

Max Kellerman's Monday Musings Vol XVI - Of Mets, Mets and more Mets, Shoes and Potential

Today's Max Kellerman show was a solo act as Brian Kenny was on vacation. There were not even any perspectives from Louie or Lundberg, who seem to have been permanently banned from public speaking. I am still at a loss to explain how Joey Salvia can comment on the Michael Kay show (and his thoughts never involve sports) , however the groundswell of support for the "Free Louie and Lundberg" movement seems to have died.

Back to my thoughts on the Max Kellerman show, today's program was baseball heavy which is to be expected at this time of year. What was surprising was the level of attention that was paid to the Mets. There were discussions about how Carlos Delgado still "sooks" despite his performance this weekend. (Max did slip a few times and had to correct himself to use the word "sook"). Of course Max is right, since a former power hitter will still feast on mistakes if a pitcher's control is off. He can't move to field anymore and has looked over matched against power pitchers since the end of '06. But its not like Mike Jacobs has better HR, RBI and OPS than he does. Oh, he does?

There were also shots taken at Jerry Manuel (Max says of Jerry that "he's always calling the Mets #2") as well as Jose Reyes (Max calls him immature and the "third best shortstop in NY"). I guess that the Yankees losing the season series to the Mets must have stung.

In fairness, Max did have some positive comments to say about the Metropolitans, including that Johan Santana has an ERA one full run below league average and that the team only needs Barry Bonds to "supplement" (my pun) the roster and they would be running away with the NL Eastern Division.

As has been his habit of late, there was at least one remark made about his unborn child. It actually was quite funny, Max referred to Erin as a centipede based on her shoe collection. He then said that one day his daughter will read about his shows and when she asks how he could say these things he will respond that this is how she got her 100 pairs of shoes. Max still has not let on the name of the baby (my money is still on Shayna), but maybe he is just superstitious...

There was some basketball talk as well, although it all revolved around the Knick fans and their booing of Danilo Gallinari. (You would have thought there would have been some conversation about the Nets dumping of Richard Jefferson, but Max knows that his listeners are overwhelmingly Knick fans). Max talked about how the Knicks "finally" made a good pick as Gallinari is a more polished player than Joe Alexander (the popular choice) and that while Alexander is a good athlete, Gallinari has upside potential.

Max's allusion to the potential for greatness and the investment in a player with the ability to star has its roots in Torah thought. In discussing how Esau was Isaac's favorite son (while Rebecca preferred Jacob) the question is frequently asked -- how could Isaac be fooled by Esau and not see that he was committing major sins on a frequent basis?

The Chasan Sofer answers that Isaac was not fooled by Esau, rather he saw in Esau the possibility to succeed if his talents were applied correctly. Indeed, there are some students with limited potential who when they apply themselves get good grades. But every once in a while there are students who are brilliant but choose to use that for alternative purposes. If a teacher is able to channel that student's energy into a positive purpose, the "cut-up" student has the potential to be even greater than the average student who merely does well because he applies himself. This was the reason that Isaac stuck with Esau according to the Chasan Sofer, because Isaac knew that if Esau could channel his energies for a positive purpose, he could have been greater than Jacob.

As correctly noted by Max, its not simply about who the best athlete is at the present. A good front office will be able to identify the player who is good at the present with skills that could be great if properly developed.

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