FanHouse Craig Breslow

Saturday Spotlight is a weekly look inside the backgrounds and personalities of major leaguers.

Don't tell me you haven't heard of A's left-hander Craig Breslow? He is, of course, The Smartest Man in Baseball, as determined by the Wall Street Journal. Breslow went to Yale and graduated with a degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. So, yeah, he's not your typical major leaguer. In this interview he talks about how such a brainiac got to be a ballplayer, and what he plans to do with all that gray matter when he's done pitching.

Click after the jump to listen to the interview...

You probably couldn't get through nine innings of any baseball game without hearing one player or another described as being smart. That description only applies between the lines, though. Book smarts are a different category, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal scoured media guides from all 30 teams in the major leagues and found that only 26 current players and managers received a college degree. They also ranked each ballclub by its level of education, i.e. players and managers who had spent any time in college, to see if there was any correlation between success in the classroom and success on the diamond.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
The Mariners have plummeted back to reality.

Seattle lost Thursday when closer Brandon Morrow allowed three runs in the ninth inning on a pair of Texas homers. The night before, the Mariners scored a run in the top of the 11th before Morrow gave up two in the bottom of the inning.

"I don't know about shell-shocked, but those are two games we definitely could have used," reliever David Aardsma said. "To have two wins pulled away from us like that is tough, no matter who you're playing, but especially against a team in your division."

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