Does size really matter?

By By Brian Witter

In most sports, the phrase "size matters" tends to be fairly accurate. Athletes like LeBron, Lance Armstrong and other sports figures wouldn't be the same without their workout plan and diets that are mandated by scientific methods. However, in the early-to-mid parts of the past century, the opposite was seemingly true, as the words "sports" and "figure" had no business belonging in the same sentence.

During the 1951 Major League Baseball season, the St. Louis Browns sent 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel to the plate to pinch hit. The opposing pitcher was not able to find the 1.5-inch strike zone. Gaedel walked and is the only player in history to wear jersey number 1/8.

There has been no shortage of shorties in the NBA, either, if you remember 5-foot-7 Spud Webb or even 5-foot-3 Muggsy Bogues, who could steal the ball faster than Manute Bol could blink. In the 1960s, Wilt Chamberlain was listed as only one of three players in the league over seven feet tall.

Size became more of an issue in the 1980s as athletes looked to science to grant them the big, shapely bodies they couldn't get at the gym. Olympic doping scandals and the Steroid Era in baseball show that the case for size has indeed mattered, sometimes even more than athletes' careers themselves.

Those who may have considered performance-enhancing drugs in the past will need to look beyond the bottle in order to get a competitive advantage today. Perhaps they need some inspiration.

Here's a start: Try watching film from last Saturday's Dunk Contest. 5-foot-9 New York Knick Nate Robinson was somehow able to vault himself over the 1986 Dunk Contest winner Webb, and jam his way to the title.

In the NFL, 5-foot-9, 185-pound receiver Steve Smith led the league in receiving yards in both the regular season and postseason this year. Both Robinson and Smith are relatively small for their respective sports, but the impact they have had does not go unnoticed. Clearly, those born with certain physical traits are predisposed to having a successful occupation as an athlete, but genetics are not always the final straw when it comes to measuring one's drive.

I stated earlier that size matters. That's a pretty vague phrase, though. The size of what? What's to be said about the size of one's passion or spirit? These men above were not blessed with the physical characteristics of a Greek god, yet they have shown the world that size, and whether or not it matters, is all relative.

Contact Brian Witter at (408) 551-1918 or bwitter@scu.edu.