You probably couldn't get through nine innings of any baseball game without hearing one player or another described as being smart. That description only applies between the lines, though. Book smarts are a different category, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Journal scoured media guides from all 30 teams in the major leagues and found that only 26 current players and managers received a college degree. They also ranked each ballclub by its level of education, i.e. players and managers who had spent any time in college, to see if there was any correlation between success in the classroom and success on the diamond.
Unsurprisingly, the results showed that there wasn't any link.
The teams that scored the highest and lowest, Oakland and Atlanta, each have losing records and the runners-up, Tampa and Texas, are each above .500. Arizona and Washington each score the best in their divisions when it comes to collegiate accomplishment, but are at the bottom of their divisions when it comes to baseball accomplishment.
The findings, particularly the low number of degrees, are interesting, but it isn't particularly surprising that there's no link between the two worlds. The skills needed to be a successful baseball player (or painter, musician, carpenter) have very little in common with the skills needed to be a scholar. It helps to be smart, of course, but you can master a craft without any of the tools needed to master algebra or physics.
It's neat that A's reliever Craig Breslow has a degree from Yale in molecular biophysics, but if it predicted baseball success, he wouldn't be with his fifth team in four big-league seasons.
Baseball's player development and procurement systems don't lend themselves to a bias in any one direction when it comes to college. Players come from college, high school or outside the United States and every team is going to be built as a combination of the three. Organizations may favor one kind of player over another, but they all favor talent, no matter where it germinated.
