Someone Else Getting A Free Ride

Evil

Just read this article on ESPN and it gets me worked up in the same way that the "Michelle Obama is sexy" topic gets me worked up.

The article gushes over the intellectual brilliance of major league baseball player Ross Ohlendorf. Not to knock him because I'm sure he's a pretty smart guy. But just because he's a professional athlete, he suddenly gets credit for being "brilliant" because most pro athletes are dumb rocks.

"Ohlendorf majored in Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton, a major that combined mathematics, engineering and economics."

Ummm, yeah. At the university I attended, this major was also known as the major that people fell into when they didn't have the programming chops to cut it as a Computer Science major or the pure intellect to cut it as a Math major.

"The 126-page thesis is brilliantly written and so complex, only a mathematician would be able to completely comprehend its meaning."

Exactly how is this journalist, Tim Kurkjian, qualified to make such a statement? Did he actually ask a brilliant mathematician to read the paper? I doubt it. I am guessing this statement is based on a layman's reading of the thesis.

"His thesis was written on the June amateur draft, which will be held on Tuesday. Ohlendorf examined the top 100 picks from 1989-1993, tracked the progress of each player for a 12-year-period, starting with the draft, to determine the value of the picks. Ohlendorf studied the investment (signing bonus) and the financial return from signing the player."

Cmon now. This topic does not sound that impressive. I would estimate that the vast majority of the people I've worked with could have written a thesis like this one. I guess that's just the point: because this guy is a baseball player, he's apparently a genius. But in fact, put him into the same office as people like KillerB, Sparks, Xtian, Mamacita, or even me, this guy is nothing more than average.