Jeff Biggs Interviews Darin Erstad

…his numbers last year were Steve Finley-esque. .194 BA, 2 HR’s and 11 RBI’s in 134 AB’s, .268 OBP, .328 slugging, .597 OPS. And that’s in the NL. And he’s a year older.

No.

Lets have fun with this 2010 season.

seems like an easy choice to me.

if hes ok with it bring him back and let him retire as an Angel… he always was my favorite player

His work ethic is second to none. If he can’t still play, it would be great to have him as a coach. If a few more Angels can take on his hard-nosed attitude that would be awesome.

You know, the play where he dives headlong into the catcher at home. The one that gets replayed a lot.

I wanna say it was like Pudge or Posada, but I can’t remember now. One of the sickest plays I can remember.

I say yes just for the sake of sentimental memories.

Good to hear ersty again

Jackson Brown could have been writing this song about Darin Erstad. Loved him as a Halo, but he’s done. Put a fork in him and put him in the Angel Broadcast booth.

Give him a day when he retires and hand out Erstad bobbleheads. I’d go for that one.

Ersty is the perfect model for how to play sports: you go for it all the time.
Combine that with the humor of a OC or Torii Hunter, the pleasant demeanor of a Tim Salmon, and the eating habits of Sosh, and you’ve got it…ok, maybe not the last one…

And you can talk to your kids, students, nieces and nephews ‘til you’re blue-in-the-face about working hard as the only (or major) strategy for success, but it may not get through, and you just end up sounding like the parents in Peanuts—you know, “blah, blah, blah”. ..
But when you can point to a guy like Ersty—a larger-than-life role model—and help them to perceive his character and his actions, that seems to resonate better with them, then their geeky parents (and I’m thinking more of you, Stirrups, than me…lol), rattling off about themselves, etc.
The problem is, kids and people in general don’t want to work so hard; they’d rather be like Rev and sit around all day goofing on the internet and living off the girlfriend. Most kids have to be dragged from one event or another, even if they are really talented. If it’s too much work, than f..k it.
A guy like Jamarcus Russell (or JaFatass Fumble, as Raida fans call him) makes all that jack but is failing miserably partially due to a very poor work ethic. There’s a mixed message there, because on the other side of the coin—in his case—you don’t have to do much to acquire your bling etc. But is that enough? He made it, but he’s gonna lose it all if he doesn’t get hip to what a hardworking mofo like his teammate Bruce G. is accomplishing, as he (and all pro football teams) leave[s] Russell behind…

I also like your sports-guy-as-motivational-tool-for-acquiring-a-ph.d model because students don’t see scholastic endeavor as cool and to visualizer someone in a more sort of ’romatic field ’as a role model can create new visionary possibilities, or models—it makes success at college or at any level seem more accessible.