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Pirates Morning Report

FINAL SCORE: PIRATES 2 CARDINALS 6

WHY THE PIRATES LOST: AGAIN, THE PIRATES HAD MEDIOCRE STARTING PITCHING WITH MITCH KELLER GOING JUST 4 INNINGS AND GIVING UP 4 RUNS. HE HAD NO COMAND OF HIS SECONDARY PITCHES AND EVEN HIS FAST BALL WOULD GET AWAY FROM HIM AT TIMES. THE PIRATES WERE ALSO AT A MAJOR DISADVANTAGE BECAUSE FOR SOME REASON THE NATIONAL LEAGUE MADE THE PIRATES PLAY THE GAME WITHOUT A RIGHT FIELDER. THE PIRATES ALLOWED MILES MIKOLAS OFF THE HOOK IN THE FIRST INNING WHEN THEY LOADED THE BASES WITH NO ONE OUT AND COULD ONLY MUSTER 1 RUN. THEY MAY HAVE SCORED 2 RUNS, IF THEY DIDN’T HAVE A TURTLE LEADING OFF THE GAME. IT WAS ODD THAT THE PIRATES HAD 2 DH’S AS COLE TUCKER MADE THE LAST OUT WITH THE BASES LOADED, AND I NEVER SAW TUCKER ON THE FIELD FOR THE ENTIRE GAME, AT LEAST HE MADE NO PLAYS. THE PIRATE DEFENSE DID MAKE SOME GOOD PLAYS BUT THEY COULD NOT MAKE UP FOR SOME AREAS THAT WERE VACANT ON THE FIELD.

KEY PLAY OF THE GAME: THE PAUL DEJONG 2-RUN HOME RUN WITH 2 OUT IN THE THIRD, ON A GROOVED FASTBALL, WHICH CAPPED A 3 RUN INNING WHERE THE CARDINALS WENT FROM A 2-1 DEFICIT TO TAKE A 4-2 LEAD.

NEXT GAME: SUNDAY IN ST. LOUIS. THE PIRATES WENT FROM LOSING BY 9 TO LOSING BY 4. MAYBE THE ST. LOUIS BULLPEN WILL BE ABLE TO GET A SAVE.

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Pirates Morning Report

FINAL SCORE: PIRATES 0 CARDINALS 9

WHY THE PIRATES LOSS: MANY OF THE PLAYERS DID NOT REALIZE THIS WAS OPENING DAY OR A REAL GAME. KEVIN NEWMAN WATCHED MOST OF THE GAME FROM SHORTSTOP. DID NOT GO AFTER THE POP UP IN THE FIRST INNING, DID NOT REALLY CHARGE THE BALL IN THE SECOND INNING, AND THEN BOOTED A ROUTINE GROUND BALL IN THE THIRD. COLE TUCKER DIDN’T REALIZE THERE WAS A RUNNER ON THIRD IN THE EIGHTH AND ST. LOUIS SCORED ON A SHORT POP UP TO RIGHT FIELD. THERE WERE OTHER BONEHEAD PLAYS AND WHILE SOME OF THEM DID NOT LEAD TO RUNS BEING SCORED, IT SHOWED THAT THE PIRATES WERE NOT READY TO PLAY. THE SHORT SPRING TRAINING REALLY AFFECTED THE PIRATES. NEXT YEAR THEY SHOULD REPORT TO BRADENTON ON JANUARY 2. THE PIRATE PITCHERS WALKED 7 BATTERS. THE PIRATE BATTERS PRODUCED 0 RUNS AND STRUCK OUT 9 TIMES. IT WAS A TOTAL TEAM EFFORT OR LACK OF.

KEY PLAY OF THE GAME: THE CARDINALS TOOK THE FIELD.

NEXT GAME: SATURDAY IN ST. LOUIS. PRAY FOR RAIN.

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Opening Day 2022 and Another Pirate Season is Underway

Opening day is tomorrow and without a doubt it is my favorite day of the year. The start of baseball season is the official start of spring and summer is on the way. The 162-game grind is about to begin. Every team in baseball is going to have its ups and downs, with exception of the Pirates who will be down all year. The idea of starting to watch baseball, even pathetic Pirate baseball, for the next 7 months, just makes me smile and feel really good. It is the American pastime. Baseball will be going through some changes that will hopefully get the game moving along a little better and provide more action. With the exception of the Pirates, the other 31 teams in the league, all have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs, even the Baltimore Orioles. There is probably more balance in the league than ever before. You do have the one super team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, but they did not win the pennant last year, let alone the World Series. The young talent in the league is at an all-time high. The left side of the infield in MLB, has the best players on that side of the field, in the history of the game. I am in Western Pennsylvania and the team I will be watching every day is the Pittsburgh Pirates. This year could be the worse year in their franchise history.

Last year at this time I gave a fairly optimistic view of the upcoming 2021 season, based on the fact that the Pirates had some quality Major League players on the roster. The pitching seemed a little thin, but I thought there was some potential for the staff to put a good season together. I thought that the Pirates would have a chance to surprise people with a little luck and things breaking the right way. Luck went out the window on opening day when Ke’Bryan Hayes injured his wrist on opening day, wound up only playing 96 games and became a below average hitter with a lot of soft contact. Speaking of soft contact, Kevin Newman struck out very few times last year but unfortunately probably set some kind of record for soft contact, becoming the worst hitter in all of baseball last season. He now has a new stance. Big whoop. Last year Cole Tucker did not make the team that lost 100 games last year. This year is on the opening day roster. That in a nutshell says how bad this team is going to be. The pitching staff has a few new faces but certainly not enough to make much difference for one of the worst pitching staffs of 2021. They were in the bottom 5 of every significant pitching stat. in 2021. They were 7th from the bottom in total strikeouts. The thing that was scary about this staff is that they seemed to digress as the season wore on. The Pirates fired their hitting coach last year, but I think they should have considered firing the pitching coach also. The Pirates have one Major League outfielder in Bryan Reynolds. One thing that will make the season interesting is how much ground he can cover in left center and right field, since he will be the only one out there capable of catching a ball. I think over 120 losses can be a possibility.

Is there anything that could happen that might keep the 2021 season from becoming a total disaster? Yes, there are always things that can happen, that might make this team play close to .500 ball. Ke’Bryan Hayes could come back and be the hitter he was in 2020 or come close. To say that Hayes’s drop off in offensive production was immense is an understatement. The wrist injury was devastating. If he can get close to the numbers of 2020, the Pirates will win a few more games. Mitch Keller had a very good spring training until his last outing. I have always maintained that spring training performance is meaningless, but it does get the media people excited. He touched 100 MPH with his fast ball and pitched 8 scoreless innings in spring training until he got roughed up the last time. There are some who are touting him to make the All-Star team this year. WOW! If he can develop into a mid-rotation starter, I would be thrilled and surprised. Kevin Newman could become an average Major League hitter, but I doubt it. Then there is Diego Castillo the spring training home run machine, who fought his way onto the team. One thing the Pirates need is the long ball, as again, they were the worst in baseball on knocking the ball out of the park and trailed the 29th place Arizona Diamondbacks by 20 home runs. The final factor will be how good and how much the Pirate prospects will see Major League action. There are at least a handful of them that are better than what is on this team right now. The excuse that is used by management for holding a prospect back from the big leagues is that they are afraid it may affect his confidence if gets off to a bad start, and he seems overmatched. Here are some slash lines Bat Ave./ On Base%/ Slugging. 243/290/428, 255/284/389, 267/317/351, 256/352/333, 223/330/416. Who put these numbers up. Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Dick Groat, Bobby Bonilla, and Barry Bonds their first year in the majors. Those slow starts or less that stellar performances, did not seem to affect their careers negatively. The only way to really learn your trade is to play with the best as soon as possible. The only reason these younger Pirates are not on the opening day roster is simply greed and thinking that the Pirate fan base is just plain stupid. Tomorrow will begin the new season and I can hardly wait. I always enjoy a good laugh. If I am wrong and believe me I hope that I am, the crow will go down as smooth as can be.

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Golf: Why Is It So Hard?

It looks like the surge in golf play due to the Covid pandemic may be coming to an end. It’s too early in the year to evaluate how many people will be playing golf. However, I base my opinion on a visit to a local golf repair shop. This shop takes used clubs on consignment and sells them to the public. The last two springs have been pretty slim pickings because of many people either taking up golf for the first time or playing again after not playing for many years. During the height of the pandemic, golf was about the only thing you could do. The last two summers have seen more play than normal. There were what I called Covid foursomes. These were beginning players that had no idea how to play or what the game was all about. I visited the shop last week to get a couple of grips put on my clubs and the used club racks were filled to the brim. There were more clubs there than I have ever seen and I have been going there a long time. The fact remains that many people take up the game of golf, and after a year or two of playing, will quit the game. There are other stories of people who have played the game for years, and then after being so frustrated with their games, finally just throw in the towel and quit for good. What makes this game so difficult? I have always been hard on golf instruction, for not being very good at teaching the game and this is, indeed, a factor. There are, however, several things about golf that has nothing to do about trying to hit the golf ball, which makes the game unique, but also very difficult. Winston Churchill may have summed up golf best when he said, “Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an ever-smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose”.

The first thing that makes golf so difficult is you are trying to hit a target with an object, and you are not able to look at the target. This is not lost on all of instruction. Some advocate that you look at the target and as soon as you look back at the ball you start your swing right away without delay. This sounds all well and good, but you still really have the same problem, you are not looking at the target when you are in the act of trying to hit the target. I feel this is even worse than trying to hit a target with your eyes closed. Think of any other situation where you are trying hit a target. Every time, you are looking at the target. I am a little surprised that putting while looking at the hole is not more popular. Tennis is similar, but the target is in the same place and distance every time. There are 18 times in golf, that you hit the ball off the tee ground. On a golf course that has 4 par 3’s, 4 par 5’s and 10 par 4’s, that means that the other 18 full swings will most likely be totally unique shots. Not only will they have different distances to the green, but the lie of ball, the lay of the land, and the environmental conditions will all be different for all of those 18 shots. Let that one sink in for a while. In fact, I am thinking about it, and I think I will quit the game. What kind of swing are you going to groove for those kind of shots? Let me clue you in, you are not. You are going to have to make 18 adjustments for 18 shots during a round of golf. If you do not make those adjustments, you will hit the ball thin, fat, left, right, short or long of your target, depending on what adjustment you failed to make. Some shots, you may have to make 2 or 3 adjustments from your normal swing. The more slopes and hills a golf course has, the tougher all this becomes. Even if you have played some relatively good to great shots, you then have to deal with the nightmare called putting. Putting has nothing to do with the golf swing. Putting is to golf like a bowel movement is to eating. You have to do it but it is not near as enjoyable as the first part. Putting can save a hole or ruin a hole with no in between. Other than a club face coming in contact with a ball, putting has absolutely nothing in common with the process of hitting a golf ball. There are entire books just dedicated to putting. The worse part, it looks maddingly simple. Finally, there is the way that golf can just play havoc with your mind. It can get to the point where your body just simply does not function. It would be like putting a fork in your eye when you are trying to eat, or pouring something into a glass and missing the glass completely. In a nutshell, golf completely controls your being. It can be the scariest thing about golf and would make anybody quit the game.

If you continue to play the game after reading this, is there anything you can do to try and make such a powerful game more enjoyable. The short answer is no. Resignation may be a better word to use and cultivate when trying to play golf. What makes golf a great game is that everyone wants to help each other, even a competitor. Golfers seem to root for their fellow golfers. The game is the definition of good intentions. However, there is that little devil inside of all of us that does find some pleasure when the greatest players in the world hit some of the worst shots ever known to man. When those same players miss that 2-foot putt with a twitch of the putter that they could not possibly duplicate on the practice putting green, you shake your head and think it happens to them, too. Even though these players are millionaires, golf still makes their bodies do things that they just can’t believe and did not think was possible. This game is hard, and technique has nothing to do with it.

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Golf: You Cannot Overswing.

If you look up the definition of overswing, it says trying to swing a bat or club too hard. By that definition, you can overswing in golf. However, overswinging in golf is defined as trying to take the club too far back on the backswing. Anytime the club head goes below the horizontal level at the top of the swing most instructors will call this overswinging. They use all kinds of excuses, like great hand eye co-ordination or lots of practice, to explain why some top players seem to overswing and still have had a lot of success in playing golf. The list will include John Daly, Phil Mickelson, Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus, Nancy Lopez, Brooke Henderson, Tom Watson, and Gary Player to just name a few. Golfers of the 1920’s 30’s and 40’s had a tendency to have very long backswings. Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Lawson Little, Ted Ray, and Tommy Armour all had swings that went well below horizontal on the backswing. Because of calling overswinging a fault, it has caused many a golfer to have way too short of a backswing. Golfers have developed many ways to restrict the backswing because of this belief that you can overswing. This simply is not true. There is a much more of a tendency to not complete the backswing, due to being anxious about trying to hit the ball. In my view a nice long backswing aids in making the transition from backswing to downswing. Before we get into the benefits of realizing that you cannot overswing, let’s look at what “causes” overswinging, and how you can “correct” it. Unfortunately, I am going to have to be rather redundant in order to prove a point.

The breaking down of the left arm is not overswinging, it is the breaking down of the left arm. Over cocking the wrists is not even a fault but it certainly is not overswinging. Picking the club up with the arms is not overswinging, it is picking up the club with the arms. Loosening of the grip at the top of the swing is not overswinging, it is loosening of the grip at the top of the swing. Overturning of the hips I do not consider a fault, but it does not lead to overswinging. The collapsing of the left knee toward the ball is not overswinging but is collapsing of the left knee toward the ball. Not making a nice turn and coil on the backswing is not overswinging but is not making a turn on the backswing. If you overswing, your clubhead at the top of the swing will point to the right of the target and this will make you have a tendency to come over the top on the downswing. Watch the videos of Jack Nicklaus in, Golf My Way, and you will see his club cross the line, and points to the right of the target. I don’t think Jack came over the top on too many shots. All the things, and there are more, that I have just listed are things that “cause” overswinging. All of these things are significant faults, but they do not lead to overswinging, because overswinging does not exist, therefore is not a fault. You could correct every one of the above faults and by definition you could still easily overswing. In fact, all the pros that we mentioned had none of these faults. You could demonstrate every one of those faults and still not overswing. I think it is much more detrimental to your game by even thinking of trying to restrict your backswing in anyway. It causes the downswing to be rushed, and in order to make a shorter swing work, you must swing with a faster tempo, which is never a good thing for the average golfer. Now let’s look at the things that I do not consider faults, that really contribute to a nice long backswing that winds up being easy on the body and allows you to hit the ball powerfully and yet smoothly.

There is always going to be limitations on how far back a particular individual can take the club back on the backswing. The other thing that dictates the length of the backswing is the length of the club. The shorter the club the shorter the backswing. Swinging with different clubs is a subject for another blog. Fully cocking the wrists will help you make a much longer backswing. Sometimes this full cocking of the wrists is called the collapsing of the wrists, when trying to correct overswinging. The more you can cock your wrists the more of a snap you will get at the bottom of the swing, and this will increase you clubhead speed. To know how far you can comfortably cock your wrists, from your address position, simply pick the club straight up, using only your wrists. Get the feel for that and then simply turn your body as you would for your backswing, and you should be able to get the correct feel at the top of the swing. In order to have a nice long leisurely backswing you need to turn your hips as much as you can on the backswing. Golf instruction will say that you can overturn your hips. This is simply not true. You can turn your hips as much as you want as long as your weight stays on the right side at the top of the swing. Keep your grip nice and firm at the top and there should be no problem with a long backswing. Having a long backswing is the best way to have a nice easy tempo. It is the shorter backswing that requires a much quicker tempo. The quicker your tempo the more well time your swing must be. That is what requires more practice than anything, timing your swing. Don’t do anything that you think is going to restrict or inhibit your backswing. Just wind it up as much as you can in a nice easy fashion and then just start the backswing nice a slow with the hands coming straight down from the top. Your ball striking should improve, and your body should be able to swing the club much easier with less stress on those joints, tendons and muscles. See you on the links.

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Meditation: How

How to meditate? It should be simple enough but if you google such a question, there are over 13 million results. I think even better are the related searches. These include meditation technique for beginners, meditating spiritually, ways to meditate at home, meditation how to start, and guided meditation. Then looking at images associated with meditation, they are almost all of people in various cross-legged positions with their arms in front of them and their eyes closed. Of 200 images, there were 2 lying down, 2 standing and 2 sitting in chairs, with all the rest in the cross-leg position. The videos for meditation will even go so far as to say that you can meditate wrong, which can-do damage to your mental health and wellbeing. In the videos, there is one that is called The No Bullshit Guide to Meditation. I find that amusing because many people feel that meditation is bullshit, so I don’t think it is a good idea to use the word if you are trying to get people to start. If you look under news, you will find articles and news reports on meditation, that are very recent. There is one written about 2 weeks ago for people who cannot sit still. Meditating while moving, perfect. They call this visualization meditation. Well, let’s just try and keep visualization and meditation apart, shall we. Despite what seems like an endless supply of videos, articles and books on meditating, there does seem to be some things missing and lots of PARTICULAR ways to meditate. Even for beginning meditation, there seems to be a very specific way to do it. Is there a way to meditate?

The answer to that question is simply no. Despite the list of the many benefits of meditation, there is only 3 things that meditation is designed to do. Meditation will relax the body, relax the mind, and to explore your inner self. When you begin meditation, one should concentrate on the first two, then worry about finding your inner self, once you have established a good solid routine. A meditation should last at least 20 minutes. That does not mean that when you start meditating you have to go for 20 minutes. This is what many of the beginning guides seem to leave out. They are so much into a so-called technique, that they seem to say that you have to start out doing it for 20 minutes. When you start out, meditating for 30 seconds to a minute is acceptable. This should be fine for people who cannot sit still. They should be able to handle 30 seconds and eventually work their way up to the 20-minute minimum. If you are just starting out and meditating for just 1 minute, you can do it 2 to 10 times per day. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. Then just gradually stretch it, 30 to 60 seconds at a time. As far as a certain technique goes, there is none. Certainly, you can do the cross-legged style, sit on a chair or couch, or you can simply lay down on a bed or mat. The only thing about laying down is that you cannot fall asleep. I have meditated for almost 30 years sitting on a couch with my back supported by the couch in the crossed-leg position. You are just trying to relax the brain and the body, nothing else. Remember that sleep does neither. You can put your hands in front of you, to the sides, or in a prayer position, whatever is the most comfortable and logical for your meditation. There is only one other rule for meditation. You must do belly breathing. Belly breathing is simply your belly expanding on inspiration and contracting expiration. This is considered relaxation breathing, get it relax. The opposite of tension breathing, where your belly contracts on inspiration and expands on expiration. This is where laying on you back to meditate can be especially helpful, because when you are on your back you can really feel the difference between the two.

Believe or not that is it, my friends. It might seem like I have left out a few things, like the room being very quiet or dark, the time of day to do it, and using things like fragrances and music. All of these things may help, but they are not essential. Even the room being quiet is not essential when it comes to meditating. All you are trying to do is to relax, not figure out a calculus equation. You can meditate any time at all. Morning meditations are nice, but when you get the chance, meditate, especially if you are just beginning. Meditation can be a scary endeavor, but how to do it is not.

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Sports: Officiating, Part II

In the last blog, I wrote about the way officials are paid, trained and reviewed. This whole system needs to be improved if officiating is ever going to get better. Instant replay, which was supposed to correct bad calls has been nothing short of a disaster and needs to be revamped and re-defined. All the leagues need to do something, and then each league needs to do something more specific. All professional leagues need to do more performance reviews. The purpose of performance reviews is to improve the employee’s performance. Every corporation does this. A performance review is meant to give constructive criticism and praise to each employee, which should help each employee to do a better job. With all the video technology today, this should be a snap for professional sports to do. Apparently, the NBA is starting such a program and the other sport leagues should quickly follow. This should lead to weeding out the bad officials. If an official is not making any progress, then he should be demoted to a lower league if possible or dismissed from his job. No one should have the job security of professional officials. All officials should continue some kind of training for their craft a least a couple times of month. They need to be schooled on some of the tougher and more judgmental calls in their respective leagues. There is plenty of time to do this during the season in all the sports. Now let’s look at each individual sport.

Hockey needs to get rid of the philosophy of the so called make up call. The idea that penalties need to be pretty much equal during a game is just ridiculous. That mentality makes the game seem so weird. I know it has been going on forever but if the game ever wants to be taken seriously, it needs to end that, along with fighting. Pro football needs to get full time officials. If this means paying them even more, so be it. During the week the officials can review film, see where they made mistakes, and do practice scrimmages or attend other team’s practices to see plays and call penalties. There are more officials on the field in football, because it is difficult to see what is going on when there are 22 players running around trying to do mayhem on each other. They just need to be involved in the game full time. Baseball needs to set up a better review process, much like the NBA is starting to do. I think one of the excuses for Major League Umpires, about reviewing them, is that they have the longer schedule and season. They do get a day off, just like players. The review process can take place during the afternoon of a night game. These processes do not take lot of time if they are done frequently, around 2 times per month. I was going to mention the same thing concerning the NBA but that seems to be taking place as I am typing.

Then there is instant replay. An entire blog could be devoted to instant replay the way this has been botched by professional sports. It seemed like such a simple concept. Make sure we got the calls right. This should not have been a big deal. The first problem is the basic concept of replay got lost in the shuffle. It was meant to reverse obvious botched calls. It was not meant to change things that could not be seen with the naked eye. It was not meant to call a runner out at second because for .1 of a sec. he was 1 inch off the bag. It was not meant to re-spot a ball 3 inches one way or the other. It was not meant to change a fumble call when a runner lost the ball while is knee was 1 inch from the ground. You get the picture. There are a lot of ego trips going on here. We need to get back to the simple reason replay was introduced to the game. There would be two things that can help this. One, end the process that coaches and managers can challenge a call. First of all, in football the coaches are wrong about 60% of the time and on the baseball side about 50% of the time. That means the game is stopped unnecessarily over 50% of the time. All replay calls should be initiated by the replay official. If a call is wrong, it is wrong. Here is a big tip for all replay officials about what makes a call wrong. If you have to look at the replay more than twice, then the call is not wrong. The NFL is already doing this for a lot of plays. All turnovers, touchdowns, and plays with less than 2 minutes to go in the half or game can only be reviewed and initiated by the replay official. Baseball is particularly bad when it comes to managers initiating plays to review. It takes forever and slows down an already slow game. Secondly you need to have better communication between the replay official and the on field official. One solution for football, would be to have the replay official in a booth, right on the field. If he thought a play should be reviewed, then a light could go on that would be seen on top of the roof. Between electronic communication and the light, the ref should know right away if the play needs a review. The other thing in football is why does the on-field official have to look at the replay. Just another thing that slows down the game. Let the replay official make the call, tell the ref and let the game continue. One final thing about replay. The practice of the putting the replay up on the video screen at the stadium or arena should stop. Those screens are not that clear. All it does is to incite the fans and add an unneeded stressor on the replay official’s call. Replay should be part of the game, but it needs to get back to basics and be run much more smoothly, so the monster it has become can be vanquished.

Now see, that wasn’t hard was it. If these changes are made to way officials are handled and the way instant replay is done, then there will be less bad calls and the game will move along at the pace that it should. What sports needs to do, is to make sure that the official’s incompetence does not determine who wins a big game and a championship. It would be nice to see that just luck and team incompetence are the true keys to winning a championship. I do not expect to see this in my lifetime.

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Sports: Officiating, Part I

The football season ended the way a lot of seasons end with people talking about the officiating. A couple of calls and non-calls at the end of the game provided a sure-fire way for the Rams to win the game. Officiating across all the professional sports just seems to be pretty bad and no one really seems to do much about it. Nobody wants to talk about how much the officials determine the outcome of a game. Often times they are the main reason that a team wins the game. As in a previous blog, I stated that no pregame analysis ever includes, how the officials are going to do. What really determines who wins the game is the official’s competency, luck, and team ineptitude. Everyone on the outside of sports looking in, mainly the fans and media, knows that officiating is at it’s all time worst. Before we can look at ways to improve officiating, we need to look at the current state of officiating in each league.

What are the officials getting paid? They seem to be getting paid pretty well. In fact, officiating is not a bad gig to do, if you can be one of the lucky few who make it to the top. Most of this has just happened over the last twenty years but everybody is doing pretty well. The average salary of refs and officials in the various sports is around $200,000 a year. The highest paid are in the NBA, and the lowest in the NHL, but veteran officials are making well into 6 figures. Only the NFL refs do not receive a benefit package, since they are considered part time employees. We all know that the NFL refs hold down a full-time job during the week. This seems perfectly all right to the NFL, and even have shills in the press, to endorse that this is fine to have officials decide outcomes of games, with lots of other pressing issues on their minds during the week. The salaries are not all the same. The more experience and responsibility you have on the job, you will be paid more, sometimes considerably more, around twice the average league salary. The so-called better refs that do playoff games, get quite a bonus. The Super Bowl refs got a $30,000 to 50,000 bonus, and all the other leagues give $10,000 to $20,000 bonuses to work each playoff and championship series. They get travel expenses and obviously there is lots of travel. All and all, you can say that the referees and officials in pro sports are compensated quite nicely, for all the abuse that they sometimes have to take.

Then there are three factors that are all related and entwined with each other. Are professional officials, trained, do they regular go through performance reviews, and is anybody fired or demoted for incompetence or poor performance. There is very little or no training for officials in each league. What there is, is usually in the beginning of the season, and is more related to being in shape, than trying to hone judgement and refereeing skills. Obviously, none of the professional leagues thinks that practice makes perfect should apply to officials. Performance reviews are something else that is not high on the list of priorities in the various leagues. The NBA has none, and the other leagues only have periodic reviews, with baseball having most, which includes umpires going over their balls and strikes call. That leads to the not so surprising finding that hardly anyone ever gets fired or demoted for making bad calls that determine the outcomes of games. Not only do officials get paid well, but they also have job security second to none. Most of the firings, demotions and suspensions have had to with situations off the field, unrelated to job performance. There was one instance of an NFL official getting fired for missing an offside call, but that has been it. For whatever reason, the NFL just seemed to want to make an example of him. Nothing happened to ref who blew the pass interference call that most likely cost New Orleans a trip to the Super Bowl. As a general rule, leagues think that not allowing a ref or official to do post season games in the future is punishment enough.

That is the work environment of professional officiating. There are some basics that need to be changed, that could help improve officiating, which will be in part II of this blog. There is no question that officiating and umpiring games is a thankless task, where one must suffer a lot of abuse, while performing one’s duties. Instant replay was supposed to right the bad calls and it seemed like such a simple concept. Again, professional sports have screwed that up so bad, that it has become more of a pain in the ass, than what it has been worth. I am an advocate of replay and there is an easy and simple way to use replay, that does not cause the game to come to a grinding halt. Even though I think the solutions to improve officiating are quite simple, there won’t be any improvement until each league admits that it is terrible and then cares enough to do something about. That day has not arrived yet.

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Sports: Things We Will Never See Again

I have been watching and observing sports for over 60 years. Over those years many things have change in each of the major team sports. Most of these changes have been for the better. Better training, better equipment, and better playing fields have helped all the sports be more entertaining. There are some things in each sport, that will never be seen again, that made each sport unique and were outstanding athletic accomplishments. I feel sad that the younger generation of sport fans will never see these things, that were almost common, from the late 50’s, to the late 70’s. It was a different way the sport was played, that made the sport a little more fun and inspiring. Today each sport is pretty much thriving, so I don’t think any of these things will ever be seen again, even though they would help their respective sport to be better. Some will never be seen again, because the players just cannot perform the tasks anymore, and probably never will. Let’s take a look at each sport.

Baseball will never see these pitching performances ever again. Going back to 1960, on opening Don Drysdale pitched an opening day 11 inning complete game beating the Chicago Cubs 3 to 2. In the greatest pitching duel of all time Warren Spahn, 42 years old at the time, battled Juan Marichal for 16 innings, 0-0 until fittingly Willie Mays hit a home run in the bottom of the 16th, to end one of the greatest games in Major League history. Each pitcher threw well over 200 pitches. Mickey Lolich of the Detroit Tigers, in 1971 threw 376 innings and completed 29 games. Today pitchers don’t complete 29 games in their career. The last time any pitcher threw 300 innings was Steve Carlton of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980. This year in the American League nobody threw 200 innings. We will never see a base stealing, superior defensive and great pitching team win a World Series ever again. The Los Angeles Dodgers played in 4 World Series, won 3, from 1959 to 1966 with this type of team. This type of team will never exist in baseball again, even though that formula could still win.

Football will never see the Wishbone offense, one of the most exciting and explosive offenses in the history of college football. It had its peak in the late 60’s up until the early 80’s. The company line has been that defenses devised ways of stopping the Wishbone. In reality the NFL put the clamps on the Wishbone. The Wishbone required a quarterback who was athletic, quick and deceptive with the ball for the attack to be formidable. He had to have some throwing ability but did not have to be tall. He needed to be able to read the line of scrimmage for the Wishbone to work. This was not the prototype QB the NFL was looking for. Being the minor leagues of pro football, colleges had to start producing what the NFL wanted. Then when the pro spread offense became popular in the NFL in the 80’s, the college game just followed suit to keep the NFL happy. We will never see an NFL quarterback call all his own plays. It wasn’t by accident that in the 50’s, 60’s, and most of the 70’s the quarterback was called the field general. Every quarterback in the NFL, with exception of the Cleveland Browns, called his own plays. Rarely was a play sent in from the bench. On rare occasions, when a play would be sent in, many times it would be ignored. We will never see the two-back offense in the NFL,again. There were some historic tandems in the 60’s and 70’s. Cleveland had Jim Brown and Bobby Mitchell. The list of great running tandems can just roll off the tongue: Taylor and Hornung, Kiick and Csonka, Harris and Blier. Everybody knows who they played for. This all ended in the 80’s thanks to Bill Walsh. You could call it, the end of deception in pro football. It is the main reason you see so many 3rd, 4th and 1 yd. to go failures.

In basketball you will never really see fast break offense again. This was the most exciting basketball ever. The 60’s 70’s and 80’s was the fast break era in basketball, led by the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. Today the fast break is only run when the opportunity presents itself. The 3-point shot may have something to do with this, but most of all, I think it is just an easier way to play the game, having some sort of half court set offense. Then there is hockey, God love them. You will never see players in hockey play without helmets or goalies without facemasks. In the sixties and seventies your manhood was challenged, if you thought about wearing some kind of face and head protection. Many players were either embarrassed or afraid to ask for a helmet or mask. It was not until 1979, that helmets were mandated in hockey and that was only for the new players coming in. If you did not wear a helmet up to that point, you could continue to play and get your head bashed in by another player or the puck. Hockey’s version of keeping players safe.

I feel quite fortunate that I did get to see all the things that I mentioned, that will never be seen again. The list is not complete, but it will do for now. I think that for the most part these sports have suffered, with the exception of hockey, for these things that will never be seen or done again. Yes, the athletes today, are bigger, faster, and quicker than their counterparts of times gone by. However, players in the past have done things that none of them will ever do. The athletes of today will never experience some of the tactics and strategies that had made their particular sport great.

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Meditation: Euthanasia

Euthanasia is defined as the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma. The practice is illegal in most countries. When I read this, I did not realize that there may be some countries that have legal euthanasia. While there are a lot of countries that have laws that allow assisted suicide, there are only 3 that have legalized euthanasia. They are Luxembourg, Norway, and Belgium, with Norway being the first to do so, in 2002. Euthanasia at first glance seems like a straightforward process. If someone is having extreme pain and suffering, and it is due to a terminal illness, then the kindest most humane thing to do would be to terminate their life. What about a person that has extreme senility due to Alzheimer disease or aging, how much pain and suffering is going on there? It doesn’t take much of one’s imagination, to see how this is a very controversial subject. Being a veterinarian, I had firsthand experience in being the administrator of drugs to euthanize dogs and cats. Over a 44-year veterinary career, I euthanized well over 5000 dogs and cats, for various reasons. Of course, it was the owners of these animals that made the final decision, sometimes with or without my guidance. Even though euthanasia in theory sounds like a kind and gentle thing to do, I would not support making human euthanasia legal. Let’s look more closely at my experience in veterinary medicine.

This is just one veterinarian’s opinion, when it came to the decision-making process of putting their beloved pet to sleep, I grouped people into three areas. I felt 50% of people euthanized their pet too soon, 25% waited too long, and 25% did it at the right time. This did not include people that put their pet to sleep for non-medical reasons. Some of these reasons I felt were legitimate, like financial restraints, the owner not being able to take care of the dog, and the owner’s death, where the owner wanted the pet euthanized, rather than go to another home or shelter. Sometimes, and fortunately, this did not happen often, but the reason would be rather ridiculous. I would have somebody want to put their pet to sleep because it had fleas, or they were moving, or the kids, who wanted the dog in the first place, had moved out, and would not take the dog. Naturally, I would refuse these requests, even knowing that another veterinarian might do it, or they would just take the pet to a shelter. I did not include people that because of the religious beliefs, would not euthanize a pet under any circumstances. Most people would come to the decision to euthanize their pet too soon. They came to this decision for various reasons. They overestimated how much the pet is suffering. If the dog or cat is eating and drinking and seemingly moving around ok, and still enjoys interactions with the owner, then the pet must not be doing too badly. I think that some people just got tired of taking care of the pet’s problem, or it may have become too costly. These people agonized over their decision but decided to euthanize, when the pet probably had at least a few good months left. I know some people waited too long for the simple fact they could not bring themselves to do it, until it became unbearable to see the condition that the pet was in. Here is the main reason I think that euthanasia can be sometimes, just too convenient. Over the years of practice, I saw many clients with their pets, that other veterinarians had recommended euthanasia. In well over 80% of those cases through a more thorough examination and tests, and relatively inexpensive treatments, those animals’ lives were prolonged at least 1 year or more. The quality of life for those pets were from good to excellent. In my view a year is very significant when you are talking about a dog or cat. There was no question in my mind that euthanasia was taking the easy way out for those veterinarians.

Now I know euthanasia for humans is different than what it is in veterinary medicine. The biggest is that a person is making the decision for his or herself. That does not mean however, that other people cannot be an influence on that decision. Relatives and close family members could put undue pressure on someone that they feel is having extreme pain and suffering. The opposite could be true where family members could influence a person to continue the pain and suffering, just because they do not want to lose them forever. There is no question that deciding to end one’s life can be extremely difficult but should be made with no outside influence whatsoever, other than the person’s physician. Each and every case is so unique, that it is impossible to make some general recommendation on when it is time euthanize an individual. I have watched many people agonize over that decision, when it comes to their pets, and that decision may have lifelong consequences. Those consequences may be even more so, when a loved one is involved. It does seem like a great way to alleviate much pain and suffering, and maybe someday, as a society we might progress where that decision will be allowed to be made solely by the individual involved. I do not think we have reached that point yet. We should allow the natural progression of disease take place, until that day comes.