If anyone is interested in getting a copy of Ohelndor’f thesis (there are copying costs, etc.):

THESIS NO.: 19720
TITLE: Investing in Prospects: A Look at the Financial Successes of Major League Baseball Rule IV Drafts from 1989 to 1993 (140 pages).
AUTHOR: Ohlendorf, Curtis Ross (2006), Operations Research and Financial Engineering
ADVISOR: Carmona, Rene A.
LOCATED AT: MUDD

The link to order:
http://libweb5.princeton.edu/theses/index.htm

Mike—not my doing. If it was, the NBC comments wouldn’t be such a mess. Though to be fair, those have improved a bit recently.

Craig, I think there are always a good number of smart ballplayers out there…at least as many as the really dumb ones.(I remember that when ex-LA/St.L slugger Pedro Guerrero was arrested a while back, it was revealed that his IQ was 70 and he couldn’t read.) Moe Berg, of course, is the champ, and there are always the Doc Medich, Bill Lee oddities, but a lot of the greats, like Gehrig, Cobb, Williams, Ripken, Jackie and Frank Robinson, Sandberg, Yaz, Schilling and many more were or are above average in smarts, including many who skipped college.

I believe Ron Darling did the NY Times crossword daily and there are several Ivy Leaguers in MLB so baseball has it fair share folks that enjoys books over video games. 

What I find impressive is that he is preparing for his post-baseball career and he see himself as something more than just a baseball player/athlete.  Professional athletes have chosen a first career that has an average career span of single digits years at it peak and essentially an out before 40. 

There’s a whole lot of living left and to only perceive oneself as an athlete has to be a limiting and borderline depressing realization when trying to figure out what to do with the rest of your life. 

Kudos to Ohlendorf for seeing himself as something other than a ballplayer.

Chris Young (Padres pitcher) graduated from Princeton, penning a senior thesis titled “The Impact of Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball on Racial Stereotypes in America: A Quantitative Content Analysis of Stories about Race in the New York Times.”

These days, Glanville writes op-ed pieces for The New York Times, is working on a book he describes as “life in baseball through the soul of a player,” and is involved with Fri-Chiks, a restaurant franchising venture in Pakistan. Glanville describes the franchise as “Chuck E. Cheese meets KFC.”

—Does this involve a net wall where you then reach the top of a slide greased with chicken byproducts?

SIGN ME UP!