Rob's wrong about Wright

As I've grown (matured? not so sure), I've used a percentage scale to gauge how important sports were/are/will be in my life. When I was 12 years old, it was an easy measurement: sports occupied about ninety percent of my waking hours, either playing them, reading about them, talking about them, or lying in bed at night planning to do all of the above the next day.

By my early twenties I was a married father, and a soldier, so the percentages shifted a bit. Sports took up about 40-60 percent of my time, give or take, depending on the time of year and the day of the week. Obviously, you can't sit in a foxhole at three a.m. reading Sports Illustrated with a flashlight.

By the time I was in my thirties, things shifted back. I was divorced. My daughter was in high school, or just about. And, I was a daily sports journalist for a small Pennsylvania newspaper. Although high school and small college sports monopolized our coverage, sports of all kinds were now back up to about seventy-percent of my life.

I mention all this for a reason: Now that I'm nearing my fortieth birthday and I'm a full-time teacher, and sports are inching back down the scale at about twenty, maybe twenty-five percent, even I know that ESPN.com's Rob Neyer is nuts! when he calls David Wright the best young -- and best future -- player in the major leagues. He's nuts..... NUTS!

I know Neyer makes his living watching baseball, and I don't. His opinions have infinitely more credibility than mine do. I understand all that. But while Wright might be the best 25-year-old player in the game, or at least in the National League, Neyer claims Wright will be the best player in baseball over the next five seasons. Excuse me, but has Neyer heard of a player, right across town from Wright's Queens day-job address, named Alex Rodriguez?

Obviously, Neyer has. But the travesty doesn't end with the Wright-over-A-Rod claim. Neyer has A-Rod tenth. Tenth! The tenth-best player in baseball? Rob, please.

As a matter of full disclosure, I have never been a fan of A-Rod, and even wished him away from the Bronx a time or two over the past few seasons, particularly during his anemic playoff disasters. But a slight is a slight, and Neyer's slight can't go unanswered.

A-Rod is not just the best player in baseball now, he might be the best player ever. Might, I said. And at 32, a very young, chiseled, determined 32, A-Rod may be ready to blow up in ways we haven't even seen yet, his 2007 MVP numbers notwithstanding. For Neyer to think that Albert Pujols -- I mean, Jesus.... Albert Pujols? -- is going to be a better player over the next five years is just ludicrous. And Jose Reyes? JOSE REYES!!??!! Who is Neyer kidding?

I try not to make a habit of defending people who instigate most of their own headaches, and A-Rod is a master screw-up at managing his public image, but this is a special case. Moving into a new Yankee Stadium, with its smaller dimensions, next season, and looking like he's in the prime shape of his life, A-Rod may be about to register numbers that make Barry Bonds' late-career (steroid-aided) numbers look pedestrian.

David Wright? He may be great, but he's a backseat passenger when it comes to taking his place on the list of best players in baseball, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.