Anthony Alford Quits Football

-MetA4- · Post #1 » by **-MetA4-** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 7:54 pm

Would have liked to see this a year ago, but still great news.

http://olemiss.247sports.com/Article/Ol ... r-31620776

Gibby · Post #2 » by **Gibby** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 8:05 pm

Lateral Quicks · Post #3 » by **Lateral Quicks** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 8:38 pm

Well that gamble paid off. Hopefully it pays off even more and he makes the bigs. He's got a long way to go from low-A ball, but he's still young and he's displayed some nice tools in very limited plate appearance.

satyr9 · Post #4 » by **satyr9** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 9:32 pm

I'm glad, but it's completely bizarre it took him this long to make the decision. He couldn't even win the starting punt return job as a junior on his second school, how good were his career chances in the NFL at this point?

SharoneWright · Post #5 » by **SharoneWright** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 11:22 pm

satyr9 wrote:I'm glad, but it's completely bizarre it took him this long to make the decision. He couldn't even win the starting punt return job as a junior on his second school, how good were his career chances in the NFL at this point?

Moved out west several years ago, and I got to tell ya,, the football-bug is strong in certain regions. Hardly a blip in my Ontario high school years, but in some places these kids are just die hard.

soulchild_07 · Post #6 » by **soulchild_07** » Wed Oct 1, 2014 12:07 am

He also got married recently. The prospects of starting a family may have crept to mind, fear of being a vegetable later by continually playing football may have finally hit him or more likely the odds of him being financially secure if he were to play baseball full time finally sunk in. Either way awesome news for the Jays. Another giant lottery ticket to add to our stash.

Randle McMurphy · Post #7 » by **Randle McMurphy** » Wed Oct 1, 2014 12:51 am

Took a while, but he finally got some sense.

tecumseh18 · Post #8 » by **tecumseh18** » Wed Oct 1, 2014 2:09 am

Gibby wrote:

Just turned 20 two months ago. Is it too late?

Michael Bradley · Post #9 » by **Michael Bradley** » Wed Oct 1, 2014 12:19 pm

tecumseh18 wrote:Just turned 20 two months ago. Is it too late?

He lost some valuable development time due to playing football so if he doesn't hit the ground running in the lower levels then it will be difficult for him to make up that time, but 20 in low-A is not bad.

dagger · Post #10 » by **dagger** » Wed Oct 1, 2014 1:35 pm

AA says they could fast track Alford if the results are there. They were pretty excited by his short stint in Lansing, so a start in Lansing seems like the minimum, with the possibility of a quick promotion to Dunedin (my speculation).

http://sports.nationalpost.com/2014/10/ ... -baseball/

Now, if only they could jumpstart DJ Davis' bat, we could have a Davis/Alford/Pompey outfield in a few years.

turtle_15 · Post #11 » by **turtle_15** » Sun Oct 12, 2014 4:11 am

Could the Jays push him to play say winter ball somewhere get him some more competitive at bats which he has been missing out on??

dagger · Post #12 » by **dagger** » Sun Oct 12, 2014 2:15 pm

turtle_15 wrote:Could the Jays push him to play say winter ball somewhere get him some more competitive at bats which he has been missing out on??

The link in the post above says they may send him to Australia. Right now, he's working out as part of the winter program at Dunedin.