The Art Neuro Weblog

Aussie Comeback Kid
This was in the mailbag from WalkOff-HBP.
Who is Glenn Williams? He's a little Aussie battler:

Discovered at 14 while starring on Australian youth teams, Williams, a smooth and strong switch-hitting infielder, was the most polished young prospect his country had ever produced. And he wasn't some raw project from the Outback; Williams had been around baseball all his life. His father, Garry, had been a member of the Australian national team a generation before, playing in international tournaments against Tim Wallach and other future big-leaguers. The day Glenn left the hospital after being born in July 1977, Garry took him straight to the ballpark.

A half-dozen organizations fell all over themselves trying to sign Williams when he turned 16 in July 1993, and the Braves won out with that $825,000 offer – the highest bonus international baseball had ever seen. Atlanta brass predictably compared him to its top prospect and a fellow switch-hitting infielder, Chipper
Jones.

Williams never showed that type of talent again. From 1994 to 1999, playing just 57 games above Class A, he hit in the low .200s with little power but lots of injuries. A fungo bat slammed into his shoulder. A pitch crashed into his elbow. Another pitch hit his bad shoulder. He dislocated a finger before dislocating his left shoulder twice and his right shoulder once.

Just like any American bonus baby, Williams knew he hadn't lived up to the hype.
"It was tough – you never see yourself failing," Williams said. "What got to me was the expectations. There were a lot of things said about me and a lot of things written about me that I tried to live up to, and whenever you do that and you stop concentrating on what you have to do, it makes it tough."

Williams' huge bonus was a byproduct of baseball's industrywide Australia fix in the early 1990s, when scouts believed the huge nation could become a serious talent hotbed. Australia hadn't produced much before – its only notable export was a 19th-century second baseman, Joe Quinn, who later managed the historically inept 12-104 Cleveland Spiders of 1899 – but with Dave Nilsson and Graeme Lloyd just breaking in with the Brewers, scouts thought investment in Australia would reap future All Stars.

They were wrong. No Australian ever proved even half as good as Nilsson – particularly Williams, who at least symbolically soured the scouting community on the nation as a whole.

"I would say that's right," said Dan Jennings, Marlins assistant general manager and
longtime scout. "I think Australia still gets scouted pretty heavy, just not as much as in the past. Probably Japan has taken the place of Australia in terms of priority." Released by Atlanta after the 1999 season, Williams got picked up by Toronto and spent the next five seasons in that system, including 2002-04 with Syracuse. It began to look as though his finest moment would be helping his home country win the silver medal in last summer's Athens Olympics.

Which goes to show, the gap between performance and results can be an ocean. He probably had it in him all along and took until his Age-27 (a magic number for most players) to prove it.

Psychiatry Not For Tom Cruise - Then What Is?
The psychiatrists struck back at the sientological one today.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) and a national charity, SANE Australia, advised Australians using psychiatric drugs who are concerned by the screen idol's remarks not to change their treatment.

"It is reckless and potentially dangerous of Mr Cruise to make uninformed comments about the treatment of mental illness; many people are well because medication plays an important role in managing their health," said SANE's director Barbara Hocking.

"The stigma and misunderstanding of mental illnesses, such as postnatal depression, prevents help-seeking behaviour for people who are unwell." The president of RANZCP, Julian Freidin, said: "Scientific research has clearly demonstrated that modern treatments for psychiatric illnesses - including medications - are safe and effective."

The joint statement, entitled "Tom Cruise's 'Mission Irresponsible'", said his comments should be seen in the context of his religious beliefs as a Scientologist.

Cruise created controversy recently when he criticised actress Brooke Shields for revealing that she went into therapy and took anti-depressants to deal with postnatal depression.

Defending his remarks later on NBC television's "Today" show presented by Matt Lauer, Cruise launched into an attack on the whole field of psychiatric medicine, which Scientologists spurn.

"Psychiatry is a pseudo science," Cruise said. "She (Shields) doesn't understand the history of psychiatry. She doesn't understand in the same way that you don't understand it, Matt. You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do."

Man, I wonder what Mr. $25Million/year Alex Rodriguez thinks of Mr. $25million/picture Tom Cruise, because A-Rod went public that he's been in therapy and that it has helped him a lot, making a big plug for the psychiatric cause. Judging from this year's number's, A-Rod might be a lot more right than Tom and the Martians who together with rest of Hollywood are on a 18week losing skid.

Or more succinctly, if you had the choice of careers, do you want A-Rod's or Tom Cruises'? I'd want A-Rod's any day of the week! - I mean, it's no contest really - Do I want to be the hard hitting Yankee thirdbaseman with a Hall of Fame career with 400+ Homeruns who visits a shrink; or a closet-gay, short-ass, smugazoid actor that was sham-married to Nicole Kidman for many years, who gets his mental health advice from L. Ron Hubbard's men?

- Art Neuro