Playing with Fire Podcast

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“Baseball is the only sport where being a failure seven out of ten times is considered to be outstanding - only about a dozen players in each major league bat .300 annually. ”

“Hitting a baseball has been described as the single most difficult feat in sports. And for good reason. Imagine the quality of hand-eye coordination required to make contact with a little white sphere traveling at over 95 miles per hour, using a 2 ¾ inch wide piece of wood being swung at over sixty miles per hour. Consider the intense concentration. A batter standing just 56 feet from the pitcher’s hand has only about 45/100’s of a second to decide if he’ll swing, predict where the ball will be, instruct his muscles to move, and bring the bat to a point of impact. If all goes well, the bat and ball rendezvous a few inches in front of the plate. The ball is crushed to half its diameter, springs back, and is launched on its return flight at speeds close to a hundred miles per hour. Timing is essential. The difference between a hit over second base and a foul near first or third is a swing mistimed by 0.01 second. Baseball is the only sport where being a failure seven out of ten times is considered to be outstanding - only about a dozen players in each major league bat .300 annually. A basketball center who sank only 30 percent of his baskets or a quarterback who hit his receivers only 30 percent of the time would be selling insurance instead.”

Given the challenge of just making contact with a ball, stories about players making promises to hit a home run in a major league game and then actually doing it, seems the stuff of urban legends. For young Matt Herndon fantasy became reality courtesy of Mike Sweeney, DH for the Kansas City Royals.

“Matt Herndon is an 11-year-old kid from Overland Park, Kansas, who was in the hospital on Wednesday night with a brain aneurysm when he got a call from his favorite baseball player, Mike Sweeney. As Sweeney is his favorite player and the time seemed right, Matt asked Mike to hit him a home run in that night’s game. Sweeney, being the nice guy he is, goes out and does just that!

After Sweeney’s first-inning 2-run blast off Sidney Ponson — just his second of the year — you can see the excitement adding some juice to his trot. ‘I never ran so fast around the bases after hitting a homer,’ he says. Then, as Pat Borzi of MLB.com reports:
Thursday morning, Sweeney almost teared up when describing the postgame phone message he got from Herndon. The boy had called many of his friends in Overland Park to tell them of Sweeney’s call.
‘He said they couldn’t get the game at the hospital, but when I homered, all his friends from Overland Park started calling,’ Sweeney said. ‘He said, `You did it, Mike!’ ‘David said that Matt told him this was the greatest day of his life. That boy’s got some courage. He’s a hero now.’”

It is amazing what can happen when sport meets grace and players become doers of the Word (Mt 25:31-46). Be like Mike!

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Show Notes

:50 This Week’s Show
1:10 Freestyle - “The 4.4 forty may be history!”
3:15 Listen Up - Interview with David Marsh
10:50 What’s Hot - Heart of the Game - not so hot
13:40 Prayng Twice - Vitor Cunha - “Day by Day” from the forthcoming Last Train To Wonderland album http://www.vitor-cunha.com/
18:50 It Your Call - “How do I train when injured?” 206-203-1301 or feedback[at]reclaimthegame[dot]com
22:15 Skills and Drills - Improving throwing, kicking, or hitting. A good example of the kinetic awareness.
25:45 Iron will - Visualization
30:00 Soul Food - Magnanimity
32:55 Close 206-203-1301 or feedback[at]reclaimthegame[dot]com

“I look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and abominable public conduct” (The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, dated 1837).

After passing the puck to a teammate and with his back to the opposing players, Tomas Holstrom of the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings was violently checked into the glass. He lay on the ice with blood dripping from the two cuts on his forehead that required thirteen stitches. Clearly, this was a purposeful, “cheap” shot by two players from the Anaheim Ducks, Rod Niedermayer and Chris Pronger. They both skated in fast and hit high.

“I was very surprised about the call,” said Niedermayer. “All I did was take a few strides, finish my check and hit him with my shoulder.” You don’t want to see anybody hurt out there, that’s for sure. I’m glad he was back playing.” A couple of months ago, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said fighting is part of hockey and believes some people have been “running off a little too fast on the topic.”

Wikipedia has an extensive section on fighting in hockey that includes this excerpt, “There are many reasons for fights during a hockey game. Some reasons are related to game play, such as retaliation, momentum-building, intimidation, deterrence, attempting to draw “reaction penalties,” and protecting star players. There are also some personal reasons such as retribution for past incidents, bad blood between players, and simple job security for enforcers. The incredibly detailed description of rules and codes for fighting is ridiculous.

European, Olympic and collegiate hockey forbid fighting and it is punished by immediate ejection. The list of rules and “etiquette” for fighting in the NHL shows what can happen when dysfunction is the rule of the day. Fighting would not be necessary if players agreed to be men of honor and referees actually controlled excessive violence. Somehow, officials are able to do this in other sports. The argument for fighting is wrong and built on a false premise that fighting is the only way to control excessive fighting!

There is a difference between tough appropriate physical contact as part of the game and a bare-knuckle fistfight or worse yet, a mugging. All of the rationalizations for fighting in the NHL could easily be applied to the NFL, which is more physical but does not “accept” as part of the game individual fistfights.

Isn’t it time to promote honor, talent, and skill as the true enforcers of the game?

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Show Notes
:50 What’s in the Show
1:10 Freestyle - It’s a busy time and the need for balance
2:40 Listen Up - Interview with Mike Sweeney (also see here)
7:10 What’s Hot - The Lost Battalion
10:30 Praying Twice - Day after Day - Witherspoon http://ravenstree.net/witherspoon.htm
13:30 It’s Your Call - How do you balance everything - Training, competing, and school?
16:10: Skills and Drills - KR: Knowledge of Results
19:10: Iron Will - Bio-Feedback
24:05: Soul Food - Parable of the talents
27:45: Closing

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Show Notes:

:50 In this episode
1:10 Freestyle - How to “turn it around”
1:55 What’s Hot - The movie ‘Goal, The Dream Begins‘
5:00 Listen Up - Interview with Dr. Patrick Connor
9:45 It’s Your Call - Questions from listeners - feedback [at] reclaimthegame [dot] com or the listener comment line 206-203-1301
13:20 Praying Twice - 55 - by the Billy Bauer Band
17:15 Skills ‘n Drills - What to do if you are ‘just off’
20:30 Iron Will - Dealing with pressure and anxiety
27:00 Soul Food - What motivates you? Love and Sacrifice
29:50 Close

If I represented Adam “Pacman” Jones, I would immediately call a huge press conference in response to NFL Commissioner Goodell’s severe one-year suspension.

I would begin by saying, “I am here today with my client, Adam Jones, because we believe that the Commissioner needs to consider that there are 283 other NFL players who broke the law this year and did not receive anything close to a one year suspension. You may think that we are asking the Commissioner to dismiss or reduce Adam’s penalty but nothing could be further from the truth.

Adam and I have spoken at length, and we both agree that the penalty was fair and just. He realizes that there are consequences to his actions and that he is responsible for his behavior. Although he is not perfect and has a lot to learn, Adam wants to restore honor, character, morality, and virtue to the game of professional football and he plans to dedicate his one-year suspension and the rest of his life to living that ideal.

Adam hopes that the Commissioner will strictly enforce the rules and sanctions necessary to teach all members of our NFL family how to live a “good” life and be models of virtue for the rest of society, especially for our youngest fans and supporters.

Regrettably, Adam’s past actions cannot be erased but beginning now, you will see the manifestation of his sincerity and commitment. Thank you for coming today and helping us to reclaim the game by making sport a means for developing virtue. If there are any questions, Adam and I would be happy to answer them to the best of our abilities.”

Yep, that is what I would say.

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Show Notes

:50 In the episode
1:10 Freestyle - The movement called Reclaim the Game
2:30 Listen Up - Interview with Andy Panko part 2
9:00 What’s Hot - The Lord’s Day and Chariots of Fire
13:00 Praying Twice - Set Me Free by Christine Havrilla
16:55 It’s Your Call - Questions on switching sports, playing badly, and sources:

National Strength and Conditioning Association
American College of Sports Medicine
Association for the Advancement of Applied Sports Psychology

19:55 Skills and Drills - Improving shuttle drills
23:45 Iron Will - Preparing for the unexpected
27:15 Soul Food - 3 clues about life
34:00 Closing

Steve Stockerman wrote, ‘Manuel Riacuteos, a 31 year old father of two, stepped in harm’s way on the street outside the stadium after a game of his Deportivo de La Coruna team. Three members of his team’s radical fan club, Ultras as they are called in Spain, were beating a 13-year-old boy who dared wear the jersey of the rival team. Riacuteos intervened and was thanked by a powerful flying karate kick in the chest that collapsed his lung and liver. He died on the way to the hospital.’

Last month, ‘the Greek soccer league was preparing nervously for another weekend of play as the authorities wrestled with the seemingly intractable problem of violent fans. The country’s stadiums reopened last Sunday following a two-week ban on team sports imposed after the death of a 25-year-old fan in a brawl between rival soccer hooligans last month. (Niki Kitsantonis April 19, 2007)

These are not isolated incidents.The extreme violence displayed by fans at sporting events around the world indicates that there is a serious problem affecting all of society. Sport as a means for developing vice or virtue is not the exclusive domain of athletes as we can see by the martyrdom of Manuel Riacuteos. ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friend’ (Jn 15:13). This good man lost his life because too many people in our society have been poorly formed and therefore lack the ethics, values, and morals necessary to live a good life. Although these irrational sports fans are a symptom of the broader societal issues of narcissism, relativism, and materialism, we must work to change the current culture of sport from vice to virtue. Isn’t it time to reclaim the game before one more good person is killed?