Can BASEBALL make you a better RUGBY player?

Can baseball help you become a better rugby player? Grab your short shorts, sunflower seeds, and eyeblack, because we're about to explore this unlikely connection.

When I was growing up in the South, I always wanted to play football, but my mom was concerned I was too small. In a land where football reigns supreme, that left me with one option: baseball. And so began my journey into America's pastime, along with a lifelong love-hate relationship with sports requiring running.

I loved baseball and everything about it. It's a summer sport where you get to wear hats, and somehow, ridiculously tinted sunglasses are always in style. Every three outs, you'd hang with your buddies in the dugout, chewing sunflower seeds and stuffing so many Warheads in your mouth that you'd give yourself sores. It was a simpler time.

But beyond these glorified memories, baseball instilled in me some very useful habits that carried over into other sports, including rugby. The most important of these? Being prepared, or: situational awareness.

……

I remember my very first baseball practice. I was kind of nervous, but I figured if I could hit and throw the ball okay, I'd fit in with all the other gum-chewing, booger-pickers out there.

So when the ball rolled to me at second base, I scooped it up in my mitt, revved up my chicken-wing arm, and rocketed it to the loudest person calling for the ball - who happened to be the third baseman.

"HEY BUDDY! THE PLAY WAS AT FIRST!" I was informed by a beer gut with legs.