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From Babe Ruth to Derek Jeter, Major League Baseball players have always had an affinity for the game

By Jack McCallum, Special Contributor, Sports Illustrated

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Derek Jeter stands alone in the center of attention, as so often, except that now, as he wields a 7-iron on the tee 17 of Avila Golf and Country Club in suburban Tampa, a swarm of butterflies fluttering in the stomach.

"It's not like we're in Yankee Stadium," said later. "I'm not nervous then. This is different."

Jeter and whistles changes tee ball on the ground, possibly a hard hit by the center in another medium but now only an embarrassing worm burners, the type that most of success when we have a gallery, disinterested or otherwise, is in compliance ... and this is definitely interested.

"Ooooh!" He says, grinning.

2009 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year cheerfully tees up another ball, and this time his shot rises majestically destined for dance floor, or disappeared or drawn. Gently dropped about 15 feet from the pin 175 yards away.

"Did you get that?" He tells a crowd of photographers, showing the famous smile that has paid a thousand female hearts.

Captain of New York Yankees said that not much golf. In fact, the Yankees are not known for having many golfers as the management, as is the case with some other equipment Major League bars players from their clubs to bring the road.

But that has not stopped the use of golf Jeter as the rainmaker cornerstone of its foundation Turn 2. The seventh annual Derek Jeter Celebrity Golf Classic was held several weeks ago, attracting not only the world of Alpha Golf Reviews - Michael Jordan, Fresh from the celebration of the eighth annual Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational in the Bahamas - compatriots, but also several baseball players past and present including his teammate Jorge Posada, a former teammate, Tino Martinez Yankee legend Reggie Jackson and Goose Gossage, Phillies, Ryan Howard, asparagus, and retired players Andres "Big Cat" Galarraga, Ron Gant, Fred McGriff and Carl Everett.

"Golf is the best way to bring people to their cause," Jeter said. "Even if you are not very good, everyone enjoys golf, right?"

It is also, of course, the easiest way to separate corporate sponsors for their money. This fact aside, there has long been an organic relationship between golf and baseball, both pastoral activities that seeks better in warm weather and dry. The old newspaper photographs harbinger of spring that showed that bats and balls being loaded for the preseason? Should have included golf bags. Take a few swings in the old cage, make a couple of lazy jog in the garden and a play of 18 or even 36 - has long been the daily training dirty little secret for many veterans.

And while Jeter clubs are packed away now, that does not mean that the golf season is over for all major leaguers. Particularly for a specific genre of the subspecies of baseball, as noted Jeter sarcastic humor.

"The pitchers appear to play the ball once every five days," he says, "and play golf for four. "

There is some truth in that, as we shall see. But the genesis of golf / baseball link can be traced back to two known baseball players beat (Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb) and a player not known much at all.

The latter is Samuel Dewey Byrd, the only man who has played in one World Series (the gardener reserve the Yankees appeared in the fall of 1932 Classic) and the Masters (he finished third in 1941 and fourth years later.) Byrd won six Tour events between 1942 and '46 and advanced to the finals of the '45 PGA Championship, where he lost 4 and 3 to Byron Nelson.

Byrd baseball player was known primarily as "Babe Ruth's Legs" because he ran as a pinch hitter for the great man at the end of the career of Babe. It has also been written that the anemic hitting Byrd helped Bambino instructing him to hold a towel under your left elbow in batting practice to make your stay to the elbow, thus promoting a flat spin, decades later that year became a teaching tool by David Leadbetter. Ruth golf game may not have been anywhere near the level of Byrd, but predictably attracted much attention.

On May 15, 1920 edition of The New York - Babe was then in the seventh year of his career and his first with the Yankees - Ruth has an account with a game in Englewood Country Club in suburban New Jersey with his Yankees teammate Bob Shawkey (yes, a pitcher) and the legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice. Ruth shot 51-47 - 98. But he improved as he pursued golf with the force, which is not surprising since, as John Daly, I liked the extracurricular activities as he was of the game that made him famous.

In one configuration of the news of the absurdly silly 1920, Babe can be seen instructing a group of sorority girls "on the similarities between the golf swing and his counterpart in baseball." monitoring and consolidation in both is exactly alike, "says the baby when the girls ooh and aah to their experience.

With less fanfare, Cobb, eight years older than baby, had picked up the game and play too eagerly after he retired from baseball in 1928. That was not surprising, he lived in Augusta, Georgia, 1904 to '32. Although Cobb had won a measure of respectability, making millions in Coca-Cola and friendship with Bobby Jones, who was never invited to join Augusta National, despite having played there often as a guest, perhaps because the number of members feared that the fire Cobb enter the clubhouse high peaks due to be completed on the losing side of a $ 10 Nassau.

Like many competitors superstar, the Sultan of Swat and the Georgia peach exchanged speak ill of their golf games and settled together in the course inevitably. In the summer of 1941, as the winds of war swept into the United States, these two enemy combatants, possibly two best baseball players ever, participating in three 18 - golf matches organized by the hole promoter Fred Corcoran. Published reports, including an account of the journal Time, years of age have the Cobb-closing 54 to 46 years old, Ruth on the 16th hole of the first match at the Country Club of the Commonwealth in Boston, and Ruth winner in the hole 19 in the next one (certainly not the first time say that the baby had won in the 19th), at Fresh Meadow Country Club in Long Island.

The rubber match was held at the Country Club Grosse Ile, near Detroit, with Cobb prevailed 3 and 2. The contest raised money for the United Service Organizations, although it is likely that suppliers drinks distilled water out better than anyone.

As a 162-game schedules and travel across the country took over the game, it became more difficult for players of every day to cart their clubs during the season. Some managers concerned about energy from the sap, other than a corrupt golf swing the swing of baseball. However, two superstars generation launcher no post-Ruth, San Francisco Giants teammates Willie Mays and Willie McCovey, were golf nuts, and, later, what was the Phillies slugger Mike Schmidt, who tees up as regularly as possible.

But gradually began to make pitchers most golf news. Los Angeles Dodgers Sandy Koufax immortal never liked crowds, especially if someone in that had a tape recorder or notepad, but he loved to play at Pebble Beach in what used to be known as the Crosby Clambake, now AT & T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Koufax still gets regularly with former Pro Tour Ken However, remember that they played a round at Madison Green, a field in Wellington, Florida

"We the seventh hole, a par-5, and a sign at the T says it is 304 meters into the water, "says yet, he had three victories in the Tour and played in the Ryder Cup team 1969. "Well, we found Sandy ball tee in the water."

Koufax is 74 years, and that round last year. The pitcher was a member of a club near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for a while and was considered a Zen master. Wondered States almost never saw him play because he preferred the range, where, for hours, might hit Koufax to nothing more than, say, 5-irons, hitting all of them with deadly accuracy.

The issue of where to play outside day has long been popular among launchers, even if it was supposed to be playing. One day during the 1986 season, the Giants pitcher Mike Krukow had the opportunity to play Cypress Point and decided it was worth the risk to defy the ban on golf equipment. Oh, he chose that day to record a hole in one, making the report daily ACE in the Bay Area newspapers, and incurring the wrath of the general manager Al Rosen.

Lefty Tommy John was an avid player, providing a theory about why he needed Tommy John surgery, and so were the pitchers Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. We can be thankful that the blogs have not yet had invented or would certainly have read the endless stories that competition from Schilling, who is never reluctant to draw it.

The king once and future launcher can stays pure Rick Rhoden, the 6'3 "right-hander who pitched 16 seasons for four major league teams before winning 52 times in the Celebrity Players Tour. He also played in a few dozen senior tour events, made two cuts in four Higher Open he called, and still carries a edge-3 disadvantage.

"We can only speculate about whether I had done as a professional golfer," says Rhodes, who finished his career with a 151-125 record. "I like to think there was. But it's not like I would not have a career in baseball. I have plenty of both."

For all the achievements of Rhodes, however, rumors of golf's most intriguing pitching in recent years has probably come from three pitchers Atlanta Braves - John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. The three men were released together in Atlanta for 10 years, collectively compiled 453 wins during that time - and probably playing as many rounds of golf. If you were not as successful in the field, his addiction to golf almost certainly would have been criticized, mainly because on several occasions colleagues chuckers Steve Avery, Pete Smith and Charlie Liebrandt also played. It was not a staff much as it was a league of golf.

The most devoted golfer, and best of them is Smoltz, ranging from a 3-disabled and zero. Smoltz, who turns 43 on May 15, has not yet signed a contract for 2010, but when it does can be sure it will be with a team that allows its players to pack their clubs during the season.

"I would not go to an organization that does not can take their sticks, "said Smoltz, who on a recent day was at a golf high, having joined Julius Erving (an average golfer) to win the fight Jordan of two men for the second consecutive year. "Some teams allowed to play on days off, but not allow you to carry your clubs. That's not golf. One of the most fortunate in my career I end up in Atlanta, where Bobby [Cox, Braves manager] did not care one way or another and if I had some great teammates to play. "

Given any opening, Smoltz is not reluctant to proselytize about the benefits of golf for the success and longevity of his career in baseball.

"I am convinced that there would be no golf played 24 years," said Smoltz, a limit of Hall of Fame with a record of 213-155 in 21 seasons. "First, it is an outlet. Secondly, there are many similarities in what I like to do on the mound, but mechanically. You have to have balance and a solid base of low and medium.

"And then there's the mental part. When you're pitching, you can not think," I can not hang the slider, like, if you can not think, "Do not hit on the left." Why? Because the brain recognizes only the last command. Hey, 'left'. Do not listen to 'no. " Both sports are risk-reward, and we must think only of the reward. I do not feel under pressure than trying to make a great shot I golf a big field. "

Rhoden notes other similarities.

"Sometimes you have to get through a game when only has two fields of work rather than four, "he says," like how you have to get through a round, with success, when the entire game not is working. You have to come to the realization that a round of golf is a collection of shots, like a game is a collection of pitches. You will not to be a success as a golfer or a pitcher unless you have a short memory. "

But we must not leave the impression that participation has become exclusive domain at the junction of the launchers. Take slugging right fielder Jeff Francoeur, the New York Mets, who is as jealous as Smoltz on the health benefits of golf.

"I can not imagine getting the season without golf," said Francoeur, 26.

It felt that way even before he came - How lucky - the Braves in 2005, giving him four full seasons of golf with Smoltz, and sometimes, with Maddux and Tom Glavine, both of which were by then playing elsewhere.

"John is the best teammate in the world," said Francoeur, a low handicap getting a couple of shots next to Smoltz. " When you hang with John, I showcased some very good people, golf-wise. "

In fact, Francoeur when he was traded to the Mets for outfielder Ryan Church in July, much of his sadness stems from the loss of Smoltz as a playmate, full time. A guy who can get almost anywhere really a treasure.

But Francoeur was lucky: The Mets do not have bans golf, perhaps because manager Jerry Manuel likes to get himself there, and found with quartet members willing pitcher Livan Hernandez - probably the best golfer of active majors - outfielder Jeremy Reed and pitching coach Dan Warthen.

It's probably a good thing that Francoeur was not transferred to that other New York team because he believes strongly that, except during the abnormal heat, is well for position players to squeeze in 18, even on match days. (But not out of day - outside of the days are 36.)

"The last three seasons I was with the Braves that we have entered Pittsburgh in May, "Francoeur says," and I played Oakmont three times on the day of a game. On those nights I have three hits, three hits and two hits. "

Remember with joy the day he and Smoltz came to Merion (for a round of game-day) in just minutes before your departure time.

"I was sick as a dog, literally sick, and this is a place where you can not have a second ball from the tee," says Francoeur. "So, feeling terrible, I am the skull of a 5-iron off the tee. This will be a horrible day, I thought. But then I hit a hybrid to a two feet and made a birdie. things that happened to be around. I've also played Pine Valley on the day of a night game against the Phillies. No problem. "

Francoeur, a .271 career hitter, he admits that once concerns about the idea that golf would ruin his baseball swing, a theory still is offered as an excuse to keep players off the field. But he got over it. Way past.

"I would be lying if I said that my swing course is exactly my baseball swing, "Francoeur says," but there are similarities. "You want to be left behind. does not want to stay ahead of the ball. You do not want to let your hips open. "

But when it comes to the end, Francoeur, and Smoltz, has not played the game better in their own sports, play back from their own sport.

"Golf is an outlet, an escape and helps to loosen up," says Francoeur. "I totally I am convinced that a better baseball player because I play golf. "

Back at the tournament Jeter, the host is relaxing while waiting its guests to reach the 17th in the shotgun format. The routine is typical for an event to celebrate: The host welcomes each member of each group four people with a blow to the chest. Business guests will be asked to sign a shirt or a picture, your day is done, and if you're a big fan of the Yankees or Jeter, their year is made. gentle ribbing, the lingua franca of golf, ensues.

"Let me guess," said Jeter Galarraga, "has played two holes and you're 15-under. "

When the marquee quartet gathers for the group photo, Jordan points to the great lineup of Jeter, in mid-swing, at the apex of his takeaway, looking like a professional. Jordan smiles as saying, "You're not as good."

But it's definitely no trick photography. Jeter is modest about his golf game - he was asked if his five World Series rings sometime in the path of his swing, he responds: "All what gets in the way of my swing "- but as the day follows the Yankees captain begins to look better and better, and almost certainly to be a low handicap, if you started taking the game a little more seriously. The best estimate that says that will happen over time.

"It can be frustrating for me because I I have not the opportunity to work on my game all that much, "Jeter said, relaxing between swings." Yet, it rarely bothers me. "

He throws another ball practice tee. It hit hard, but left him lying, out of bounds behind the green, which was to provide an amendment to its statement above.

"Unless the cameras are on, what it is."

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