Actually, I could - they have the brute grunt for football, the explosive speed for running bases *well*, and their hand-eye coordination and aerobic stamina are second to few in sports in general. Okay, so maybe they wouldn't be effective point guards.
Also, I think you misunderstood my complaint about baseball-the-sport requiring less athleticism vs some-positions requiring quite a bit. Yes, hurling a ball for nine innings as pitcher is a huge drain, but that's just one position. That would be like using, oh, the horse to measure the jockey's athleticism.
*Overall*, I think that baseball requires less raw athleticism than most sports. Skill? You bet. It's not easy to nail a ball coming at you at 100mph+.
I think I'm beginning to see the problem I'm having with 'stamina' as one of aerobic vs. structural. A pitcher needs high structural stamina on that one shoulder, but relatively low aerobic stamina compared to say a soccer center. We're all choosing to interpret it to mean whatever we want for our bias.
Cool to see another rower here. I did it at the UofW (intramural only), and my grandfather rowed there competitively in the early 30s. I agree with you on the skill of the proper rowing motion - it takes a hell of a lot of core stability to do effectively, and you have to have enough strength to counteract hitting a rogue wavetip and catching a crab. It doesn't require the sort of fast reflex hand-eye coordination that other sports do, but it does require a lot of properly trained muscle memory, strength and stamina - both kinds.