January 30, 2021 Posted in  Amateur Sports, Baseball

One more month until the start of spring training. Less than that until pitchers, catchers, and injured players report. Baseball, even without fans in the stands to start, is back. To fully get what baseball should be, one must study the game, present and past.

The smell of the grass. The smell of the wood and pine tar. What about the leather? In wintertime, tropical countries become the focal point of on-field action while in temperate countries off-field activities commence, like scouting, signing, cutting, and trading players.

Baseball is unlike any other sport. There are games every day/night for several months, with limited exceptions. So a team starting 2-15 won’t be out of postseason contention at that point whereas a team that starts 15-2 won’t be a shoe-in for the playoffs.

December 9, 2017 Posted in  Amateur Sports, NFL News, PSAs

On Monday, December 4, 2017, a football game was held in Cincinnati between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals. It featured multiple personal fouls, injuries, suspendable offenses, but, most damning, a player who may never walk again.

For the Shazier hit that paralyzed him from the waist down, he committed the cardinal sin of tackling/hitting: He had his head down on impact. Key thing to consider.

As for the nature, being masculine is OK. Being too much of that is a problem. Football is and embodies masculinity. The overmasculinity of teams like the Steelers and Bengals is toxic masculinity, while being smarter in hitting/tackling is acceptable masculinity.

Course of action: Implement a rule that if a player lowers his head to hit someone, that player is to be ejected...

June 20, 2017 Posted in  Amateur Sports, Baseball, PSAs

Ahh. Baseball, America’s pastime, is currently a topic rarely shown at the top of sports analysis or sports news shows, so what can be done to rectify the situation? I have three steps.

1. Install a game clock to run continuously for three hours with exceptions for extra-curricular activity like slowing the game down in any way. Nine innings have to be completed at a minimum. If, after nine innings, regardless of score, there is still time on the clock, the teams should continue playing until time expires.

2. While the NFL and NHL have a frequent issue with caving in each other’s brains, baseball is like a field full of crops waiting to be harvested...

March 24, 2016 Posted in  Amateur Sports

College basketball is a joke. I know the NBA has the rule a player can’t go pro until he is one year removed from high school, but this rule is causing college athletic programs to inadvertently commit myriad NCAA violations. An example is O.J. Mayo, formerly of the University of Southern California. He didn’t want to be in school and him being there caused USC to commit a violation. If Mayo had been permitted to go pro out of high school, it would’ve saved both him and USC a ton of issues.

I think players should have at least an Associate’s Degree to be in the NBA. It gives them options. What if a player suffers a catastrophic injury a month or so into his career and can no longer play at all? An educated person has a safety net to fall in...

January 20, 2016 Posted in  Amateur Sports

In markets that don’t have a professional sports team, a good percentage of athletes train through blood, sweat, and tears to reach the pros. In high school, (or before) athletes are taught teamwork and sacrifice to improve their character, while also developing their in-game skills.

In college, if they choose to go there, an athlete is expected to polish their talents, mentally and physically, and to begin being role models for younger athletes. They aren’t being paid now, but when they go pro, they will reap the benefits of what they sowed.

I would encourage every fan of a sport to attend amateur events in their community to see the future of pro sports. A lot of athletes you’d see in the amateur events could be at the next pro event you attend...