I read the Glanville piece yesterday in the NYT. The thing he left out is that star athletes are pampered almost from the time they exhibit their first exceptional ability. It is this exceptionalism more than anything else that is responsible for lack of transitional perparedness.

For example, my middle nephew’s team made the LL WS quarterfinals a few years ago. As the catcher he got some TV time and since then has played consistently with older kids in his various travelling leagues, etc.. I was comparing that to the articles in ESPN about the Uptons and Ryan Braun. Taken together these articles and what I’ve seen of my nephew and some of the other neighborhood kids from his area, like Zach Greinke, they have only an academic awareness of a world without baseball. No jobs, school isn’t that important, any mistake gets fixed by adult handlers, and so on.

Glanville is probably right that there should be a transitional program for retiring athletes. But based on most of their attitudes towards learning outside of sports, I doubt many would take advantage of such a a structure. Most of them simply have no memory of ever not being treated exceptionally.

Legal work is killing me today, Michael. But I did see it, and I plan to hit it up later this afternoon.