Category Archives: Uncategorized
Forgiving Josh Hamilton
Josh Hamilton is an alcoholic. That is neither an insult, nor a joke. It’s just an unfortunate fact.
According to a Dallas Morning News report, Hamilton was publicly seen drinking alcohol on Monday night at Sherlock’s in Dallas. This was his second reported relapse in three years since joining the Rangers.
After hearing the news, I could only manage a fleeting concern for the Rangers before the sadness of the situation set in. I personally don’t believe there is such a thing as a “recovering” alcoholic, and I don’t blame Hamilton for losing a battle or two in his lifelong war. I think alcoholism is a disease from which nobody ever fully recovers.
If this was, in fact, just Hamilton’s second relapse in three years, he’s doing a great job. I just worry that there have been many more setbacks that have gone unreported.
I know a little something about this. Just under five years ago, my mother unexpectedly died of alcoholism. While it took the medical examiner a few weeks to technically conclude that her cause of death was a “fatty metamorphosis of the liver”, I knew what happened as soon as I got the call.
She had previously tried to get help. She didn’t want a life plagued by alcoholism. She saw the effect it had and the hardship that it brought about. Unlike the unaffected, she didn’t view alcohol as fun and games, and she would have traded every future sip for an absence of thirst, had it been possible. The weight of alcohol’s burden on her life, combined with the collateral damage it had caused, only made her existence harder and more depressing. In the end, she just couldn’t beat it.
Josh has a wife, kids, teammates, and millions of fans to whom he feels responsible, and possibly guilty. It’s possible that the scorn of the latter will only make things harder on Hamilton and those close to him. Tough-love works for some people. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work for everyone. Sometimes, it only makes things tougher.
I truly hope that both fans and the media can be supportive and understanding. While my mother had to live with the monumental guilt of letting her family down, she never had to live with ESPN headlines, pictures shared through social media, and the disappointment of millions. The best medicine we can give Hamilton and his family is support and forgiveness, and we should resist any temptation to contribute anything else.
Going to Camp
Kids have been watching cartoons for a long time. There was a time, though, that cartoons were only a supplement to actually going outside and participating in sports and activities. In this politically incorrect Foghorn Leghorn classic, the cartoon encourages boys to play baseball by questioning their masculinity. Pretty funny.
Anyway, baseball season is coming soon. Spring Training is just a little over a month away, and pitchers and catchers will begin to report to camp in only two weeks. High school baseball tryouts typically also begin in February. In the spirit of the Play 60 movement, I’ll publish a few posts over the next few weeks that focus more on the practice of playing the game than watching and observing.
In the meantime, I’ve put together a state-by-state list of baseball camps and instructors.
If you run a camp or batting cage, and would like to be included, just let me know and I’ll add you to the list. Email your info to chickenfriedbb@gmail.com.
The National Pastime
Sorry NBC, but I won’t be watching your new sports network for at least a couple of months. After the Cowboys were eliminated on the eve of the network’s debut, my Netflix heavy, sports-hibernation-hiatus officially began. See you in March.
At halftime of last night’s game, my wife asked me if the pending Cowboys loss would cripple me in the same way the Rangers collapse haunted my November. I quickly and confidently said, “no”. I can also safely say that a parade featuring Tony Romo and the Lombardi Trophy wouldn’t satisfy me in the same way that a Rangers championship would fulfill me.
The NFL is by all accounts the most popular sports league in America. Millions of Americans watch out of town games on Sunday and Monday nights, play fantasy football, and talk about rushing yardage at water coolers. The breakneck growth in the popularity of the sport in recent years has led many people consider football to be the “New National Pastime”.
I disagree. Maybe it’s a combination of jealousy and bitterness – after all, baseball is my favorite sport. I just think that my contrasting reactions to the recent failures of my favorite teams, the Rangers and Cowboys, aren’t unique to me. I think the varying intensities of my feelings are common among true fans of both sports.
Make no mistake, I love football. I played varsity in high school and faithfully watch every Sunday. The Giants have overtaken the Eagles as my least favorite team and I hate to see them win anything. I just can’t envision my NFL fandom ever matching the emotional peaks and troughs I experience during the course of a baseball season. I guess it makes sense. Sixteen is less than 162, and I’ve probably spent more hours watching the Rangers in the last two years than I have ever spent watching the Cowboys. And I watch all of their games. I’ve simply invested a substantially greater amount of time and emotion in baseball over the years.
What is a Fan?
Walk down the street and ask ten people to name their favorite sport. Most will probably say football. Does that make it more popular than baseball? Maybe. But if you ask the same group to name the sport they’ve spent the most time watching, and sum the totals, you might get a totally different answer. For instance, my mother-in-law would tell you that her favorite sport is football, and yet I think she would have been pleased if the lockout had cancelled the season.
Measuring the comparative popularity of sports is as difficult as naming the respective best player. There are a number of stats to consider, some better than others, but debates are never-ending as there is no perfect tool to find the answer. In the end, you often have to go with your gut instinct. Mine tells me that baseball is still the National Pastime.
The good news is that I was able to get out of bed at a reasonable hour this morning, and that I’m only mildly depressed by the outcome of last night’s game. The bad news is that a Cowboys victory wouldn’t have left me as ecstatic as I was following game five of the World Series or any of the Rangers recent playoff victories. And that will probably never change.
