But you probably could have been a better the average ball player if you had devoted the time and energy.
The idea that you have to be a "star" to be in any field is a bit off. In sports they are only willing to pay you if you are a star or have star potential. In the real world this is not so.
For every "star" in the real world there are thousands of people who are "pretty good", "better then average", "average", "not bad" and "why oh why"?
Here’s the problem: everyone at birth is given a certain percentage of “fast twitch” and “slow twitch” muscles. If you do not have a certain threshold of these “fast twitch” muscles you cannot be a baseball hitter. I happen to have very good depth perception and this enabled me to see the baseball well but I lacked the high complement of fast twitch muscles to enable me to get the bat around in time to hit it. Therefore, I could have spent every waking hour practicing and I would never achieve any level of proficiency at batting. And, no, I could not have been a pitcher, either. Same reason.
On another note, I vividly recall the words of the chairman of the engineering department at a major university. He noted that maybe 15 percent of the students at his school had the aptitude to handle the higher math to succeed in his school’s engineering curriculum.
The emphasis is well-placed; there is strong belief that mathematical abilities are in-born, i.e., there is a certain place in the brain which enables people to handle “high math” and if it’s not there, it’s simply not there (one cannot create a “talent” and that’s what it is). Therefore, if a person who lacks this ability wants to be an engineer, he can work his or her little head off and never be able to successfully graduate from an engineering school. If this were not so, then you could take anyone off the street at random and with enough coaching and self-motivation make him or her a nuclear physicist. No, it doesn’t work that way and one would be extremely naive to believe otherwise.
But, some folks on FR really believe in the “little engine that could.” Evidently, they believe in fairy tales.