SB Nation had a Marvel theme this week, with each site making a post connecting the Marvel Cinematic Universe to their team or sports in general. For the Oakland A’s, that task is easy, because they have their very own real-life superhero in Matt Chapman, aka Chaptain America.
The concept of Marvel’s Captain America is that he’s a super-soldier at the peak of human ability, though we’ll leave out the part where Steve Rogers got that way from an experimental serum (not the best sports analogy!). Chapman is the baseball version of that, standing out in every area from fielding to hitting to running to throwing to plate discipline to all the various intangibles, like leadership ability and quick instincts and baseball IQ.