Baseball

[donovan]

I am not sure, but I will, confess that I have been watching more baseball than football. I do note some similarities of issues however.

Baseball season is too long. Playing in this weather is not baseball, it is stupidity. Cold, wet rainy....baseball should be done by Mid September..

Mr. Billybud makes a simple statement that in the football National Championship you should have the two best teams. Hard to argue with that. This year baseball has the four best teams playing and I think the two best will be in the series. As a guy that has liked and listened to baseball since the late 40's until now, I think a World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees would have the possibility of being a great contest. Great Coaches, excellent teams, super starts and a history that is full of emotion.

[Dossenator]

I have been watching baseball as well. I live in Anaheim, CA....so everyone is talking about the Angels and Dodgers around these parts. A Dodgers vs Yankees series would be great.

[Spence]

I've been a baseball fan my whole life. I ate, lived, breathed baseball as a kid. I haven't been to a game since the strike in the early nineties. I still watch box scores, we still have four season tickets to the Cincinnati Reds and I have never been to the new park. Baseball was something me and my Dad did and since he died, it just didn't seem right to go without him. My kids don't care about baseball so it isn't something I can share with them so I don't go anymore.

[WoVeU]

I've been a baseball fan my whole life. I ate, lived, breathed baseball as a kid. I haven't been to a game since the strike in the early nineties. I still watch box scores, we still have four season tickets to the Cincinnati Reds and I have never been to the new park. Baseball was something me and my Dad did and since he died, it just didn't seem right to go without him. My kids don't care about baseball so it isn't something I can share with them so I don't go anymore.

If you can't share Sports...it is like everything else...mostly blah!

My oldest likes Football and Basketball. (I haven't watched an entire baseball game all year.) You know, thinking about it, my oldest is 16. Football won't be the same when he is gone. I really miss watching all Sports with my brothers and my dad. They are all good screamers!

[Spence]

I have three girls, none really like football or baseball. I do have the middle kid playing golf or at least taking lessons. The younger two like to go to the golf course with me so I take them most of the time. The middle kid has also found my baseball trophies and pictures at my mom's house and she wants me to teach her to play. Maybe that will start something. I'm getting her a bat she can swing and a glove for Christmas. We will see where that goes. She is athletic and has very good eye hand co-ordination so I'm pretty sure she will be able to play if she wants, I just don't know if she will hold interest. She really likes soccer and that is something I know nothing about. I go to games and encourage her, I can't really help her with it at all. She is picking up golf fast. She is seven and she can hit her driver about 50 yards.

[donovan]

...50 yards now...and soon......they beat you....they want to walk...I am OK with the cart...they have more ways to keep score than Arkansas supporters have to relive the games.....but we always play when we get together and sometimes...they worry just a little.

[Spence]

...50 yards now...and soon......they beat you....they want to walk...I am OK with the cart...they have more ways to keep score than Arkansas supporters have to relive the games.....but we always play when we get together and sometimes...they worry just a little.

It wouldn't hurt me if they beat me. That is actually the goal. I don't let the kids beat me at anything. I make them earn it.....but I hope they do beat me. They just don't know that.

[donovan]

...50 yards now...and soon......they beat you....they want to walk...I am OK with the cart...they have more ways to keep score than Arkansas supporters have to relive the games.....but we always play when we get together and sometimes...they worry just a little.

It wouldn't hurt me if they beat me. That is actually the goal. I don't let the kids beat me at anything. I make them earn it.....but I hope they do beat me. They just don't know that.

I don't let them beat me either...the difference now...unlike in past years...I am not willing to strain myself to win...I strain way to easy in parts I didn't know I had. I definitely will not try out drive them.

[Spence]

I can still play golf. I am pretty flexible. I can't run anymore, though. They say you can help that doing lunges and I have loosened up a little. I still don't run free any more. I'm thinking I probably never will again. I still can play about any sport with them because they are young, but it won't be long until I will have to pick and choose what we play. That is the price I have to pay for having kids so late in life. I was 36 when the first one came along, 44 when the last one arrived.

[WoVeU]

I can still play golf. I am pretty flexible. I can't run anymore, though. They say you can help that doing lunges and I have loosened up a little. I still don't run free any more. I'm thinking I probably never will again. I still can play about any sport with them because they are young, but it won't be long until I will have to pick and choose what we play. That is the price I have to pay for having kids so late in life. I was 36 when the first one came along, 44 when the last one arrived.

I thought I was pretty smart having kids so young. I'm 38, with a 16 and near 15 year old. I guess in some ways maybe...but, I guarantee you have been a better dad than me. I didn't have the patience for it back then. We crossed some nexus a few years ago, I calmed down and they got tougher (well a little bit.) I can still take them at anything they can dig-up...not counting video games! (Where did they get so many dang buttons? I mean seriously, it is almost like learning guitar again, with more cursing!)

[Spence]

My oldest is eleven. I'm heading hard towards my fifth decade. I used to coach baseball. I coached a ton of kids who have kids know. My patience wasn't bad then. It is probably worse now - or its harder with your own kids. So far I have one athlete, the oldest takes after my wife and she isn't the most coordinated kid. I'm not sure about the youngest yet. The middle kid, the athlete, has a stubborn streak a mile long and hates to lose at anything. She is like me. I'm trying to teach her now that it isn't bad to hate to lose, but she can still be civil about it. Learning to lose, IMO, is more important then learning how to win. You learn to be intense during the contest, but when it is over you have to learn to let it go. Took me most of my life to learn to let it go.

[WoVeU]

My kids get much from my wife, late physical bloom. Not much desire for structured athletics...to date, not much desire for big challenges in most things. I wasn't much better with scholastic striving...but I was full of fight, the love of learning came later.

Learning to lose and learning to win teach so much. If you don't hate to lose, can you ever really hate showing up late to work. Hate doing a job that came out wrong, bad, sub-par or just notably short of your best. I don't see how? Many people made up these things around sports as a cop-out for not trying or not being naturally talented at it. We are rearing a generation short on gumption, fight, and true tenacity...and you kill many forms of creativity and new thought with that. No new thought just ran itself to the top of the heap, you have to fight for it..and if you were wrong, take the "loss' with a sense of humility and thanks for the lesson in the short fall. We now raise kids with 2 arms full of quit, two fists full of excuses, and one hand open for a hand out. Huh, reminds me of a great line I heard somewhere, "that kids got a lot of quit in him!" LOL, Haaa! I love that.

[Spence]

I think the quitting comes from trying to save face. Not wanting to admit that someone might be better then you- at least for the day. Once you get past that it isn't too tough. You don't have to ever like it though.

Baseball was always my favorite game to play. I made my own ball field when I was eleven. I mowed the base lines. I built the homerun fence - with a short right field wall (I am a southpaw). We played every day. I played there, little league, knothole, high school, legion, and college. Then played after college for about ten years. My knees have the wear to prove it.

[WoVeU]

That is cool Spence. I wished I would have stuck with football and not have been such a rebel often times. I quit young and showed back up at times to in pick-up form to show the "jocks" how it was done. Got me nothing!

Beginning I think in the late 70's or early 80's you really started finding kids who had a lot of quit in them, and hand-fulls of excuses. (And I mean on-field quit! I had !@%$#^ you quit, I do it my way quit! A different form...at least that can be re-channeled with wisdom and experience! I quit because that is exactly what I felt like they were telling me to do.)

That reminds me. My oldest kid, who has shown plenty o' quit, tells me some kid punched him in the face in school (I didn't see a mark, figures). He kept telling me it is stupid that he can not hit a kid back without getting in trouble, major trouble. I can't remember what I said to him as I tried to squirm around what I wanted to say. But I got to be honest, I'll be very proud of him if he punches the clown in the mouth next time! I don't care if I have to pay fines and home school him. I'd just hope the punk's dad would like to tell me a thing or two following the matter! I still don't have any quit in me. (Most punks are raised by punks!)

[donovan]

Like you all, some of our kids were more athletic than others, some more competitive, some not so much. I certainly understand the difficulty in winning and losing graciously. I never believe that had anything to do with nor certainly needed to detract from trying hard to win. The lesson I always tried to teach them, my Dad believed this and taught me...was there is a time to keep score and a time not to keep score. It is very hard to take traditional games and not keep score. One of my favorite saying is attributed to Ted Williams, "If you are not playing to win, why are you keeping score?" The key to that saying is....Are you playing to win? If so..keep score...but there are many times in life kids need to learn, you do not need to have a winner and loser...that may not be the purpose we are playing. Why family has not played a game, monopoly, aggravation..my least favorite...Old Maids..with small kids...was that always to win....or did it have another purpose? I play golf with my boys now....we do and do not keep score. I use to play with guys and as you know..some are not accurate in their reporting.....I would just say...I am not keeping score today...it drove them nuts...but I had to find a different purpose to play that day..or I would go insane and maybe disliked the guy I played with.

During High School, the kids would run track. Track and Field is one of the greatest activities for high schools kids. It is social, they like being their together and everyone can participate if they work at it. In track, you know before the meet who is going to win, to some extent. Best times are always known and barring something happening, the guy with the best time going in is going to win. So Personal Bests is always the standard. Did you do better today than yesterday...and if you did...you get the accolades of everyone. Sometimes the kids were sick, didn't feel so good and before the race, I would ask them. What goal do you have for this race? Just finishing...OK..then go finish. What is wrong with that?