Showing posts with label baseball and urban America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baseball and urban America. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 05, 2016
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Wyatt, another season on the diamond
Baseball is a blast! Watching kids play, especially when one of them is your grandson, can be off the charts fun! Here's a couple of glimpses into the beginning of this new season:
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Friday, May 06, 2011
"Say Hey Kid" celebrates 80th today!
Baseball great, Willie Mays celebrates his 80th birthday today!
Happy Birthday, Mr. Mays! You've brought joy and thrill to lots of folks. Just had to remember "the catch" before the day got away.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Mays! You've brought joy and thrill to lots of folks. Just had to remember "the catch" before the day got away.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
George Will's opening day baseball quiz
Check it out here.
Opening Day. . .at Last!
In recognition of "Opening Day 2011," enjoy the following reflection on the importance and transcendence of the national passtime!
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Spring is here, and Americans' thoughts turn — once again — to baseball
By Roger Rosenblatt
Parade Magazine, Sunday, March 27, 2011
When the game was over, I stood with a bunch of kids outside Yankee Stadium, waiting to get autographs. The Indians’ Bob Feller burst through the door, a losing-pitcher’s scowl on his face, and plowed through us, muttering his irritation. Offended, I reported it to my dad, who suggested I write a letter of complaint to the New York Times. I was 10, and it was 1951. I can’t recall if the Times ran my letter, or even if I mailed it. But the incident suggests what an innocent time that was, long before big money divided fans from the stars, when players were expected to sign baseballs and chat with kids in the street.
Yet even now, when a so-so reliever costs $5 million and the stadium serves quiche, baseball retains most of its innocence. Here we are, older and jaded, and still giddy as the season begins. Nothing in American life excites us this way. Of course, my “we” and “us” assume everyone loves the game, but why not? Baseball is America. It’s competitive. It’s green. And it’s such a well-made invention.
Read more here.
Spring is here, and Americans' thoughts turn — once again — to baseball
By Roger Rosenblatt
Parade Magazine, Sunday, March 27, 2011
When the game was over, I stood with a bunch of kids outside Yankee Stadium, waiting to get autographs. The Indians’ Bob Feller burst through the door, a losing-pitcher’s scowl on his face, and plowed through us, muttering his irritation. Offended, I reported it to my dad, who suggested I write a letter of complaint to the New York Times. I was 10, and it was 1951. I can’t recall if the Times ran my letter, or even if I mailed it. But the incident suggests what an innocent time that was, long before big money divided fans from the stars, when players were expected to sign baseballs and chat with kids in the street.
Yet even now, when a so-so reliever costs $5 million and the stadium serves quiche, baseball retains most of its innocence. Here we are, older and jaded, and still giddy as the season begins. Nothing in American life excites us this way. Of course, my “we” and “us” assume everyone loves the game, but why not? Baseball is America. It’s competitive. It’s green. And it’s such a well-made invention.
Read more here.
Monday, April 05, 2010
Saturday, October 24, 2009
RBI
Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) has been at it for twenty years. My experience in coaching inner city youth a few years back taught me that baseball serves as a great tool for building community and cooperation across a number of traditional and useless barriers.
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Just for fun and to remember. . .
I'm a confessed and incurable New York Yankee fan.
Grew up on the team in the 1950s and 60s when they aired every weekend on CBS-TV here in Dallas, back before we had a team of our own.
Mantle was my favorite.
Nothing much better than a Yankees-Dodgers World Series.
Just remembering those good days for baseball and for a kid growing up dreaming of swinging for the fence!
Grew up on the team in the 1950s and 60s when they aired every weekend on CBS-TV here in Dallas, back before we had a team of our own.
Mantle was my favorite.
Nothing much better than a Yankees-Dodgers World Series.
Just remembering those good days for baseball and for a kid growing up dreaming of swinging for the fence!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Baseball and community
Jim Wallis leads off the latest issue of Soj0urners magazine with a little commentary, "The Real Meaning of Sports," on the value of baseball to the process of community development.
What he shares is worthwhile and right on!
This issue of Sojourners focuses on sports, faith, and human rights. But I am going to write in a little more personal way, as a Little League Baseball coach.
I’ve coached my son Luke in baseball since he was 5 years old, and now he is 10. I just started coaching my other son, Jack, last season when he was 5. Coaching my kids and their friends has been one of the great experiences of my life. The community that gets created around sports and school becomes what my wife, Joy, calls “the village,” where everybody is looking out for each other. If I am “the coach,” Joy has become the “village priest” when necessary.
It’s that relationship with the kids and their families that has been so rich and sustaining. When I am coaching, I am in “the zone,” and nothing from the rest of my life interferes. I actually schedule my spring and fall travel now around baseball. This has become sacred, even contemplative, space for me, when I get totally focused on the kids and their game. Of course, this is Washington, D.C.—I’ve actually had reporters come up to me on the sidelines and say something like, “Aren’t you Jim Wallis? I’m the new White House correspondent for a national newspaper. Do you have a reaction to what happened yesterday?” I just stare back incredulously, “I’m coaching! Call me at the office tomorrow!”
I’ve coached my son Luke in baseball since he was 5 years old, and now he is 10. I just started coaching my other son, Jack, last season when he was 5. Coaching my kids and their friends has been one of the great experiences of my life. The community that gets created around sports and school becomes what my wife, Joy, calls “the village,” where everybody is looking out for each other. If I am “the coach,” Joy has become the “village priest” when necessary.
It’s that relationship with the kids and their families that has been so rich and sustaining. When I am coaching, I am in “the zone,” and nothing from the rest of my life interferes. I actually schedule my spring and fall travel now around baseball. This has become sacred, even contemplative, space for me, when I get totally focused on the kids and their game. Of course, this is Washington, D.C.—I’ve actually had reporters come up to me on the sidelines and say something like, “Aren’t you Jim Wallis? I’m the new White House correspondent for a national newspaper. Do you have a reaction to what happened yesterday?” I just stare back incredulously, “I’m coaching! Call me at the office tomorrow!”
Read the entire essay here.
Any baseball or other sports stories out there about games and their importance or relevance to community development?
.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
a 90-feet-at-a-time game: baseball imitates life
Even with a home-run hitter like [Jose] Canseco in the middle of his order, [Oakland Athletics' manager Tony] La Russa says, "You've got your best chance to win when you've got good sharp line drives all over the park. Canseco stays in control, with discipline, trying to just hit the ball hard. He can hit .290, even in the .300s, he's got that good a stroke. And he's so strong that every once in a while, there goes one." Even in a year when there are 40 or more every-once-in-a-whiles from Canseco, he gets a lot more singles than home runs--more singles than extra-base hits. What is true of Canseco is true of baseball generally. In 1988 there were more than twice as many doubles (6,386) as home runs (3,180), but there were 25,838 singles. Baseball is still what it always has been and always will be, basically a 90-feet-at-a-time game.
George Will
Men at Work, page 40
.
George Will
Men at Work, page 40
.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
The wisdom of baseball: players who always care
Success in life has been described as the maintained ecstasy of burning with a hard, gemlike flame. the image recurs. In his famous essay on Ted Williams' final game, "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," John Updike wrote of Williams radiating "the hard blue glow of high purpose." Updike said, "For me, Williams is the classic ballplayer of the game on a hot August weekday before a small crowd, when the only thing at stake is the tissue-thin difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill." Baseball, played on a field thinly populated with men rhythmically shifting from languor to tension, is, to Upkide's eyes, an essentially lonely game. The cool mathematics of individual performances are the pigments coloring the long season of averaging out. Baseball heroism comes not from flashes of brilliance but rather, Updike says, from "the players who always care," about themselves and their craft.
George Will
Men at Work, page 5
George Will
Men at Work, page 5
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Indulge me. . .
Does anyone ever really know the answer to this question about any TeeBall game that's ever been played:
Who won?
Who won?
Oh, I know.
Lots of people know exactly who won!
My son-in-law reports that he's even observed parents with official scorebooks keeping score! Hard to believe, huh?
Lots of people know exactly who won!
My son-in-law reports that he's even observed parents with official scorebooks keeping score! Hard to believe, huh?
But, I mean, really. The point is not who wins.
The point is the little people playing their hearts out together, all the while not really understanding much, especially as they get started at it. It's about running, yelling, being together, having fun and getting snacks at the end of the deal! Community, pure and simple, including grandparents.
The point is the little people playing their hearts out together, all the while not really understanding much, especially as they get started at it. It's about running, yelling, being together, having fun and getting snacks at the end of the deal! Community, pure and simple, including grandparents.
I gotta tell you, I love it!
Take my grandson here, Wyatt. In my book, he is something to behold! Even has Mickey Mantle's number on his shirt!
Who cares who wins? Doesn't get any better than this, I can assure you!
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Biggio
Last Tuesday, after twenty years in the game, Houston Astros second baseman, Craig Biggio announced his retirement at the end of this season.
His speech was filled with uncharacteristic emotion, even tears. He thanked everyone on his long list, but the heart of his statement was all about his family and about getting to be more involved with them.
The articles that filled the Houston Chronicle last Wednesday morning are all worth reading (http://www.chron.com/), actually whether you love the game or not.
"B-G-O," as the Houston fans shout to him during home games, has been a special player--a cornerstone talent with a giant work ethic and a heart to more than match. In a day when the NBA is in turmoil thanks to a basketball official shaves points to cover bets, a professional football star gets caught up in a cruel dog fighting enterprise, and lots of other baseball stars "jack up" their game with the help of steroids, Biggio represents the best of professional sports--a very different sort of player. No wonder the fans love him.
Tuesday night was incredible--that's how it turned out--just incredible.
Coming to back in the bottom of the sixth inning, with two outs, the bases loaded and tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-3, Biggio ripped the first pitch from right-hander Rudy Seanez six rows up into the left field seats, known as Crawford Boxes.
Grand slam!
Talk about a magic moment.
From now on when people ask why I love baseball so much, I will tell them this story. It's what the game is all about--moments like last Tuesday evening. . .and the twenty years leading up to it.
His speech was filled with uncharacteristic emotion, even tears. He thanked everyone on his long list, but the heart of his statement was all about his family and about getting to be more involved with them.
The articles that filled the Houston Chronicle last Wednesday morning are all worth reading (http://www.chron.com/), actually whether you love the game or not.
"B-G-O," as the Houston fans shout to him during home games, has been a special player--a cornerstone talent with a giant work ethic and a heart to more than match. In a day when the NBA is in turmoil thanks to a basketball official shaves points to cover bets, a professional football star gets caught up in a cruel dog fighting enterprise, and lots of other baseball stars "jack up" their game with the help of steroids, Biggio represents the best of professional sports--a very different sort of player. No wonder the fans love him.
Tuesday night was incredible--that's how it turned out--just incredible.
Coming to back in the bottom of the sixth inning, with two outs, the bases loaded and tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-3, Biggio ripped the first pitch from right-hander Rudy Seanez six rows up into the left field seats, known as Crawford Boxes.
Grand slam!
Talk about a magic moment.
From now on when people ask why I love baseball so much, I will tell them this story. It's what the game is all about--moments like last Tuesday evening. . .and the twenty years leading up to it.
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