It's Draft Day

The NFL draft is by far the best draft for any of the four sports.  The reasons are pretty simple to understand.

-College Football is insanely popular and potential draftees must spend a minimum amount of years at college before they can be drafted.  That gives the average sports fan more time to learn about the upcoming draft class.

-The draftees audition at a combine that is nationally televised which gives (again) the average sports fan more of a window and rooting interest for those that can be drafted.

-The draft itself is an event filled with block parties, live music, celebrity cameos, and fan interaction.

-With each pick there is suspense that the potential pick could pick traded to another team.  All other sports allow this with the,exception of baseball.

-Once drafted the players have a strong chance to be immediately impacting that upcoming season's games.

I know MLB is trying to make the draft more entertaining to fans, but until the top talent has the opportunity to play in front of it's fans sooner, the fans have opportunity to see the players get drafted, and the scouting of future players is more approachable to fans (more College baseball on television) I just don't see the MLB draft progressing to the levels of the NFL or even NBA.

I began rooting for the Pirates and baseball in general back in 2005 in large part because of Jason Bay, Ryan Doumit, and wanting to see what this high school kid from Florida, Andrew McCutchen, could do.

Above are All my 2005 Topps Update Draft cards of Cutch.  As you can tell I have 15 base and 4 gold.  I would love to add more, but am in no rush as the price has to be right.

By Cutch's debut, Jason Bay was traded.
Ryan Doumit was nearing the end of his club control and many of the other players I rooted for over the past four years were already gone.

The signed 8x10 photo you see above is from Cutch just after he signed with the Pirates.  He was only 18 in the photo.