The quote that interests me, especially coming from a Hall of Fame pitcher is: "that baseball's not a year‑round sport, that you have an opportunity to be athletic and play other sports." Is this true? Do you really have that opportunity? How many coaches today would agree that baseball should not be a year-round sport,in practice not theory, or do most travel coaches and then HS coaches demand full participation (spring season, summer ball, camps, showcases, fall team, winter workouts, pitching coaches, hitting coaches, etc)? Does anyone here actually have a kid who was a multi-sport athlete in HS, or is that a thing of the past?
In a conversation this past winter with an AD of a nearby private school known for its athletics, he told me that they have a specific award for three-sport athletes, and that they haven't given the award in a number of years because they don't have any three-sport athletes. He said that they still see a lot of fall-spring two-sport athletes (e.g., football-baseball, or football-track), but it's difficult to do back-to-back seasons (e.g., fall-winter, or winter-spring) because the seasons overlap so much.
To be clear, I'm talking about the big-school level (Division 1 in California; there are seven divisions). I know that it's different at smaller schools -- e.g., lots and lots of kids in Division 5 schools play multiple sports.