What sport can you pick up later in life and maybe go pro?

[doyung9]

Anyone who thinks jumping into baseball is that easy is a complete moron.

MMA is the only sport. If you can fight, you can fight. By the time you start fighting guys that are going to be black belt this, former division 1 that, you should have received some sort of proper training that would help you be work your way toward being a more well-rounded, skilled fighter.

I'm not saying you'll be Anderson Silva or Jon Jones, but it's legitimately one of the only sports where you can start you career from scratch at 18.

 

[dland24]

Originally Posted by Wade187

Yes I have actually. It's laughable how difficult baseball fans make it seem. Although no one has made it to the majors (lazy dudes) I come from a baseball family, uncles and cousins have played minor league, and they aren't even hard workers when it comes to the game. Everyone I know who's made it somewhere in baseball, aside from pitchers, was able to play damn near every position in high school, and every single one of them was simply a beast as a athlete. As I said you dudes are making it seem like these dudes cannot train and must just walk straight up to a new sport. John Wall works at baseball for 5 years straight, he might not go pro, but he damn sure won't be throwing like that. Baseball is a sport where age is not as much of a factor compared to, football, basketball, and soccer. Your basing your whole argument, off athletes who aren't even attempting to play the sport

So your family has exceptional athletes and baseball players in it.  Cool dude.  Thats awesome.  But just because your family in particular is extremely athletic and is a baseball family, does not mean that this is the norm.  Baseball is a very difficult sport to play.  Just because it came fairly easy to people in your family doesnt mean it would come easy to anyone who is athletic.  I know a ton of people who are crazy athletic that couldnt play slow pitch softball let alone baseball.

 

[wade187]

Originally Posted by dland24

Originally Posted by Wade187

Yes I have actually. It's laughable how difficult baseball fans make it seem. Although no one has made it to the majors (lazy dudes) I come from a baseball family, uncles and cousins have played minor league, and they aren't even hard workers when it comes to the game. Everyone I know who's made it somewhere in baseball, aside from pitchers, was able to play damn near every position in high school, and every single one of them was simply a beast as a athlete. As I said you dudes are making it seem like these dudes cannot train and must just walk straight up to a new sport. John Wall works at baseball for 5 years straight, he might not go pro, but he damn sure won't be throwing like that. Baseball is a sport where age is not as much of a factor compared to, football, basketball, and soccer. Your basing your whole argument, off athletes who aren't even attempting to play the sport

So your family has exceptional athletes and baseball players in it.  Cool dude.  Thats awesome.  But just because your family in particular is extremely athletic and is a baseball family, does not mean that this is the norm.  Baseball is a very difficult sport to play.  Just because it came fairly easy to people in your family doesnt mean it would come easy to anyone who is athletic.  I know a ton of people who are crazy athletic that couldnt play slow pitch softball let alone baseball.

And how many of those people are taking the sport serious enough that they wanna go pro? How many of them are putting their time and effort into the sport? Other than the fact you find the sport to be something which is very difficult to play what would stop someone who is 25 and well equipped from making it in their life time? Your basing everything off the assumption, that the game is simply too difficult, yet there's plenty of people on this earth who it comes fairly easy too. 

 

[flyerthandelta]

Basketball or baseball

 

[rocky437]

Originally Posted by maddog345

Boxing

 wth

 

[jwill jr]

Originally Posted by HAM CITY

Originally Posted by Weather

Originally Posted by SCuse7

People saying golf just don't know....no chance your going to pro if you pick it up late.
But I guess Poker, racing cars, pool

Y.E. Yang picked up golf at 19 I believe, worked for him.
25+ = no chance though

How is there no chance? If Yang started at 25, what would have stopped him from making it as a pro six years after he did?

People aren't saying golf because they don't respect the skill, they're saying golf because you can continue to master your game and be competitive well past your physical prime which you simply can't do in most sports.

This.. spot on.. Im 31, started golfing for fun in 2006, started taking it seriously 2 years ago, but had to take last year off due to injury.  And I went from an 19 handicap to a 10.2 curretly.  If I practiced 3-4 hours a day, I know I could get to scratch, but still to make it to the pro ranks is soooo freaking hard. 
  

 

[PrisonerofDoom83]

if this was an easy tasks there would be alot more athletes switching sports . theres only a handfull that have done and actually have been sucessfull

 

[joegolfdad]

As someone who plays golf, I feel like most people can reach a 4 or 5 handicap if they put in the time. But i've seen many guys unable to get from a 5 handicap to a scratch, and then it's a whole nother animal getting from scratch to someone who can compete on a professional tour. There are rare cases of guys who pick golf up late and become pros because they have loads of untapped talent and golf doesn't require you to be at your physical prime. My best guess is if you start playing golf as an adult and put in serious time you can get good, but you will probably get no better than the 3-8 handicap range

 

[jhova718]

Sergio martinez started boxing in his 20s

 

[chino905]

you guys are really underestimating how difficult Baseball is. My roommate in college was an exceptional athlete, had a cannon for an arm, super strong and fast, and he actually walked on the the college team with no scholarship. After college, he got a few calls to try out for the minors, but things just didn't pan out as scouts were looking for those 17 year old prospects to build on instead.

And I do agree that MMA might be the sport you can pick up later and go pro in, especially if you did some sort of martial art as a kid as a foundation (wrestling, karate, boxing etc). I started training MMA right after college three years ago at age 22, and i honestly feel that if you dedicate all your time to train like a beast, you can go pro. Granted, you probably wouldn't be successful at it, but you can go pro. You would need to fight a few ameteur fights, and then you can get a pro fight at a really low end MMA promotion.

 

[lyonbc1]

Lol at people saying baseball. The fact is hitting a baseball (curveball, 92+ mph fastball w/ movement, changeups, picking up pitcher's arm slots) is probably one of the hardest things to do consistently in all of sports. And this is coming from someone who played ice hockey all my life. There's a reason that if you fail only 7/10 times, you're considered very good in that sport. Just look at the draft and the flameout rate of "can't miss" prospects who have all the tools and potential in the world, its absurd how few people actually make it through the minors, and let alone make it to the majors, its damn near impossible. You don't even need elite athleticism to play baseball, there's not really one freakish trait that would make someone be able to cross over from another sport and become great at it.

Football kicker aside, I'd say MMA would probably be the easiest though, that or basketball. Not saying either one wouldn't take ridiculous amounts of work, but if you do Martial Arts and become a blackbelt and work out very frequently and do the proper training regimen for several yrs you'd be able to compete and potentially become professional on a minor circuit or something. I say basketball w/ an asterisk tho, like everyone has played ball at least a little and most can dribble. You don't have to be able to dunk, but if you work hard at it and shoot all day long for a few yrs and hone your skills ( it'll help if you have really above avg. height), you could maybe become a 14-15th man on a bench in the D-League possibly. You could be a defensive specialist in the pros as your ceiling tops, but that's something. That being said, it'd still be damn near impossible to do either one of these. I just can't see it with any other major sports to any degree (Hockey, Soccer, Football, Golf). But there's a reason athletics are like a pyramid and as you get higher in level of competition, fewer and fewer people remain capable.

 

[thorrocksjs]

Mma really but your grappling would be terrible.

 

[JJ Goon]

Who is believing you can pick Soccer up at 25+ ?? Craziness

 

[blazinbama]

http://thedanplan.com/
I was originally kind of seeing who would say golf.  Check the link above, this dude is trying to go pro in about 6 years after 10,000 hours of practice after having never played before.  And no, no one is saying it would be easy in ANY sport, this is a hypothetical people...