Dad Bods and Baseball
Dad bods and baseball go together like peanuts and cracker jacks. It just makes sense. We’ve never questioned it. But why is this? How is it that with modern technology and sports medicine/science that baseball is seemingly the last sport where being somewhat overweight doesn’t really matter nor affect the performance of such athletes? I understand some would like to counter this argument with saying, “What about an offensive or defensive linemen in the NFL?” To which I would ask, “Can anyone on the Dallas Cowboys offensive line run a 4.3 forty?” No one on the offensive or defensive line of any team could really come close to a 4.3 forty. What if I told you that the minimum weight to be an offensive linemen in the NFL was 285 pounds — ok? Now let’s take one of baseball’s all-time classics when it comes to the dad bod — Prince Fielder. Fielder’s size and presence alone was enough to take the crowd’s attention. Standing at 5-foot-11, and weighing 275 pounds, Prince was technically a linemen playing first base for the Milwaukee Brewers. When he was drafted in 2002, his prospects were rather low. Milwaukee knew he’d be a good addition with a powerful bat and steady field work around 1st base, but the thing that came to surprise the fans and the Milwaukee Brewers organization the most was his speed. At the rookie showcase, Prince ran a 7.17 second 60-yard dash. The average for the 2002 draft class that year was 7.30 seconds. A simple google search will show you that offensive tackles and guards average over 5 seconds when it comes to the 40 yard dash.
So what does this mean? From at least one example, we can begin to formulate a hypothesis, which is that baseball is a dad bod friendly/accepting sport. It would seem these ball players who possess this dad bod type physique might just be the most elite form of athlete. Let us catalog just a few other belly protruding studs who not only absolutely shit on dingers, but look good doing it as well.
The first visibly and widely accepted gut in baseball dates back to July 11th, 1914 when a man by the name of George Herman “Babe” Ruth, made his major league debut for the Boston Red Sox.
Ruth had a good size stomach. Even his nicknames had girth to them. “The Great Bambino,” “The Sultan of Swat,” and “The Colossous of Clout” — these all sound like hoagie sandwiches you’d order at your local Jewish deli. We all know The Babe for his towering homeruns, the legacy he left with the New York Yankees, and the icon he became throughout pop culture then, and even throughout today; but what we don’t know is how The Babe managed to maintain a belly of that size and still knock 714 homeruns. In today’s era, we are treated to the same build in players such as David Ortiz, Pablo Sandoval, Andruw Jones, and many more. Yet, it would seem the borderline obese player could also hurl.
When I first started paying attention to baseball, I was always fascinated by the velocity some pitchers could throw. I can specifically remember asking my dad at the age of about five, “Can anyone throw 100 miles per hour?” At the time, names such as Bob Gibson, Cy Young, and Nolan Ryan were the only ones that could come to mind when thinking of a someone who could consistently throw upper 90s. Nowadays its rare to find a team without two players who can touch this mark. When I asked my dad this question, our team — the Chicago White Sox — had only a handful of talented guys at the time, but we did have one pitcher that actually did have the potential to throw 100 mph consistently. Bartolo Colon. More commonly known as “Big Sexy.”
Colon’s nickname is exactly like calling a bulldog adorable. We all know that a bulldog is cute because of how absurdly different and quirky their appearance is. This same mode of thinking can be applied to Colon’s abilities as a major league pitcher. For as different — structurally — Colon presented himself as, his longevity for the size he was can only go to support the notion that baseball can and continues to foster borderline obese productive athletes.
Colon made his major league debut with the Cleveland Indians on April 4th, 1997 and finished his career with the Texas Rangers on September 22nd, 2018. Within Colon’s tremendous tenure he was able to rack up a Cy Young award in 2005, appear in the All-Star game 4 times (1998, 2005, 2013, 2016), collect 4 pitcher of the month awards (June 1998, May 2002, August 2005, June 2013), as well as hold the record for the most wins by a Latin-American pitcher — 247. This goes to show, not only can the fat man play well, but he can go the distance too. Eventually Colon changed the approach of his game due to his widening frame and age. What used to be an upper 90s fastball, eventually crept down to 89mph. Though sad he couldn’t bring the heat in his later, chubbier days, I believe his ability to achieve longevity showed his excellent ability to adapt to the game as well as address how to approach the game according to his physique.
The last successful tub of lard we should take a look at is CC Sabathia. This guy was pushing three bills by the end of his career and didn’t care. I guess when you you’ve been to the All-Star game six times (2003, 2004, 2007, 2010–2012), earned the CY Young Award (2007), win a World Series (2009), and be the MLB’s win leader for two years in a row (2009, 2010) — the proof is in the pudding — and that pun was absolutely intended.
My favorite part about Sabathia has nothing to do with any of these awards and victories he earned throughout his career, no. In fact, I had a disdain for him when he played for Cleveland because he would repeatedly make the Sox look like garbage, which they were, but CC made them look like bad garbage. My favorite part about CC is that he entered the league relatively large, probably hovering around 275 lbs. Eventually he started to see numbers north of 300 and it was then when the Yankees basically told him to loose weight or we’re going to have problems.
He lost a bunch of weight, but sadly gained pretty much all of it back in the span of little over a year. Today he is still pretty big, but not as big when he was in the league. Leading me to question — was it necessary for CC and the rest of these names I have listed to be overweight in order to be successful? To which I would say — absolutely.
