I think it's that he's not very good and you can picture yourself being him if you just would have tried harder. Sort of like Craig Counsell. I mean guys like Braun or Prince are just so obviously talented it's hard to identify with them. Sure they had to work hard to get where they are, but the God given talent is hard for a schmuck like me to comprehend. With Eckstein or Counsell, or some guy like that, you can at least delude yourself that if you'd worked harder in Little League and played Legion Ball and didn't go drinking so much in college, well, maybe, with a little luck you could have made it to the majors too. I guess it's part of what Joe Pepsi stated. I'm 5'8"..so I have always rooted for the smaller guys. Part of it is also that everyone seems to hate him. With guys like Carlos Lee and Manny Ramirez who show very little hustle at all...how can you hate a guy because he "hustles too much". Really? Not trying to start a tangent here...already had a discussion about this Eckstein a year or two ago and I know I'm not going to convince anyone to like Eckstein. I will just never understand all the hate. If I want to show my son an example of the right way to play baseball I'm going to point to guys like Eckstein, Counsell, Weeks, or Fielder (I have always like the way Weeks and Fielder run out every ground ball as hard as they can) over a guys like Ramirez or Lee. Yeah, these are two of my favorites also...but I might be biased, since they are on my fantasy team.