a dissapointed fan
This article written on ESPN.com by Greg Garber is the basis of ideas and thoughts for the following post:
and in the words of Colin Cowherd (an ESPNRadio host) "I'm going to say a lot of things, some of them may be offensive to people, but they are truly what I beleive."
I saw a batter admire a homerun the other night. If it were any other setting I would have shrugged it off and saw it as common place, but this one struck home a little harder. The batter who admired his homerun was a Little Leauge player. Hold on a moment. A Little Leauger doing what? He has no right to do that. If I had admired a home run I hit when I was his age I would have been taken out of the game and got my butt chewed out by my father when we got home. But no, he watched it alright. Just like he sees all the "Big Leaugers" do it. And I'm sure his dad was either a coach or so happy in the stands as he lived his sons life, most likely.
See this is where I start to seperate from many people when it comes to sports and athletes. Yes it's good to be confident, but there is a fine line between being confident and a arrogant son-of-a-bitch, and a lot of athletes ( and subsequently the kids that do what they do ) pole-vault this line and leave it in the dust. I'm a fairly humble person and could be looking at this a bit exaggerated, but it's the way I see it.
And the whole parents thing...don't get me started. If you're life revolves around you making your kid the best so you don't have to work another day in your life, well your fucking twisted. If you see your kid as a pay-check you shouldn't be allowed to have that kid. All you're going to do is burn them out and make them hate you, the game, or a bit of both. Hell you could hurt them physically so they may not be able to do things normally again.
And in the kids emulating all the things the pro's do, the basics and fundamentals are lost. The pro's can afford to skimp on the fundamentals because one) they are talented beyond belief and two) they've done it so many times it's second nature to them. What the kids don't see is when Scott Rolen goes through three coaches hitting him fungo's before a game working on fielding the ball or all the fly balls the outfields take to work on their routes and footwork. So what this translates to it kids thinking the fundamentals are worthless, they saw Big Papi swing like this so it must be the right way. Well I'm sorry little Billy, until you get paid for this what you think is jack-shit. Fundamentals are there for a reason, so you can do what's right. Talk to any D-1 recruiter or coach, hell any pro scout and what will they tell you, "We look for guys that do the fundamentals correctly so we don't have to waste time" Well shit?! If they're looking for that then why don't the kids do it? Because the kids don't want to.
And we wonder why we have to wipe the asses of the Europeans and Asians when we compete against them in most sports. It's because they pay attention to detail and doing the fundamentals right.
Unless we change the way we look at things I might just have to give up on sports all together, because the way things are progressing it's not a very pretty road that we are traveling.
and in the words of Colin Cowherd (an ESPNRadio host) "I'm going to say a lot of things, some of them may be offensive to people, but they are truly what I beleive."
I saw a batter admire a homerun the other night. If it were any other setting I would have shrugged it off and saw it as common place, but this one struck home a little harder. The batter who admired his homerun was a Little Leauge player. Hold on a moment. A Little Leauger doing what? He has no right to do that. If I had admired a home run I hit when I was his age I would have been taken out of the game and got my butt chewed out by my father when we got home. But no, he watched it alright. Just like he sees all the "Big Leaugers" do it. And I'm sure his dad was either a coach or so happy in the stands as he lived his sons life, most likely.
See this is where I start to seperate from many people when it comes to sports and athletes. Yes it's good to be confident, but there is a fine line between being confident and a arrogant son-of-a-bitch, and a lot of athletes ( and subsequently the kids that do what they do ) pole-vault this line and leave it in the dust. I'm a fairly humble person and could be looking at this a bit exaggerated, but it's the way I see it.
And the whole parents thing...don't get me started. If you're life revolves around you making your kid the best so you don't have to work another day in your life, well your fucking twisted. If you see your kid as a pay-check you shouldn't be allowed to have that kid. All you're going to do is burn them out and make them hate you, the game, or a bit of both. Hell you could hurt them physically so they may not be able to do things normally again.
And in the kids emulating all the things the pro's do, the basics and fundamentals are lost. The pro's can afford to skimp on the fundamentals because one) they are talented beyond belief and two) they've done it so many times it's second nature to them. What the kids don't see is when Scott Rolen goes through three coaches hitting him fungo's before a game working on fielding the ball or all the fly balls the outfields take to work on their routes and footwork. So what this translates to it kids thinking the fundamentals are worthless, they saw Big Papi swing like this so it must be the right way. Well I'm sorry little Billy, until you get paid for this what you think is jack-shit. Fundamentals are there for a reason, so you can do what's right. Talk to any D-1 recruiter or coach, hell any pro scout and what will they tell you, "We look for guys that do the fundamentals correctly so we don't have to waste time" Well shit?! If they're looking for that then why don't the kids do it? Because the kids don't want to.
And we wonder why we have to wipe the asses of the Europeans and Asians when we compete against them in most sports. It's because they pay attention to detail and doing the fundamentals right.
Unless we change the way we look at things I might just have to give up on sports all together, because the way things are progressing it's not a very pretty road that we are traveling.
posted by The Submariner at 9:35 PM
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