Mind Games

Clare went to see her hitting coach yesterday, only this time he played guru.  As a way to get Clare to relax at the plate and not overthink, Coach said to think of a random number.  How this would help is beyond me, but, then again, I’m not a coach.  Maybe it’s best to chant “Om” and think of one hand swinging.

No, wait.  That was Sox guru Walt Hriniak.

Conditioning

With spring training finally here, players show what they’ve been up to in the offseason.  In the case of the Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig, that includes putting on 26 pounds since last October.  Nothing says “fleet outfielder” like 251 pounds on a 6’ 3” frame.  Not to pick on Puig because every team has one.  I can still remember Greg Luzinski, who looked fat even for an offensive lineman.

Clare is already tired of practice in the gym; she wants to be outside, playing.  Subconsciously or not, she takes out her frustrations by conditioning, weights and yoga in particular.  You might say my daughter has limber “guns.”  She also has wisdom, gained from training last spring with the football conditioning coach.  Oh, those bloody boxes.

The coach had her jumping on boxes, six inches or six feet high I don’t know, for coordination.  At some point, she couldn’t go any higher.  So, Clare tried again, and again, until there were eight-inch gashes on both her shins.  That’s how she started last season, looking like she’d been gored by a midget bull.  Last night, Clare Tweeted 2013/2014 pictures of her shins.  The ugly mess has healed completely, I’m happy to say.  And Robocop has steered clear of those boxes.

But she still conditions.  I wonder what’s going to happen come season’s end.  What’s the motivation to keep lifting after softball?  If the Marines were smart, they’d recruit female college athletes to form an elite attack group, the New Amazons.  I’m serious.  American women are strong.  Some are probably strong enough and fit enough to spell Yasiel Puig come Opening Day.  Or Adam Dunn.

Flashback

          

With Clare home, we ran over to Stella’s for some bp.  The second I stepped in, it was eleven years ago—boys everywhere, hibernation over, sweat mixed with determination and fear.  A scene like that stays with you.

Clare was in sixth grade that first time; she had to be the only girl in the building and definitely the only swinging a bat.  This was part of our spring training.  Someone had asked me to take over the Bronco baseball team, and my daughter was intent on sending a message to teammates.   When her turn came at 70 mph, Clare hit 12 out of 14 balls hard and fair.  “She’s got to play in high school,” said another father standing next to me.

I’ve always wondered if he meant softball or baseball.

Out of the Mouths of Babes....

       

       The schedule worked out so that Clare could spend a weekend home before the madness starts; that’s what put her on the couch last night.  Then she got an update from MLB Network she had to share—the Giants hired Barry Bonds as a spring training instructor.  “What’s he going to do,” my daughter asked, “give injection instructions?”

Look for the Union Label

Google “Northwestern University athletics” and it’s hard to miss the words “partner of CBSSports.com” that come up.  And we’re supposed to think college athletics isn’t a job?

Right now, the National Labor Relations Board is collecting testimony on the question of whether or not Northwestern football players are bona fide employees of the university.  Yesterday, a school official raised the possibility that any negotiated package between the school and a football players’ union would place the university in violation of Title IX because what boys get girls are supposed to get.  And that would be a bad thing how?

As of today, the Northwestern softball team is in the middle of five straight weekends spent playing out-of-state: Tempe; Baton Rouge; Cathedral City, CA; Fullerton; and Clearwater.  So, basically, Friday through Sunday is spent playing softball with Thursday as a travel day.  You just want to ask how the studies are going.

Money to play a college sport?  I don’t know.  But fairness demands expanded health care and educational benefits.  Play four years of football, and the school will be there down the road if and when arthritis and/or dementia sets in.  Play x years of anything, and you get those number of years in free tuition to finish your degree or attend graduate school/med school/law school.  That works to me.

This Time Next Year

Graduate school #4 requires a personal statement, something about what makes the applicant unique.  “Can I say I have a dog and a boyfriend?” Clare asked her mother.  That, and you hit long homeruns, I might add.

The High Cost of a Kids' Game

 Yesterday, the baseball/youth/softball spring catalogue arrived from that store with a name no adolescent boy can repeat without giggling (and me too, apparently).  Talk about sticker shock.

Bats topped out at $450; gloves at $500 (a literal a golden glove?); and shoes at $120.  For youth, as in Little League, it was $280; $130; and $50.  Softball bats went as high as $300; gloves $230; and shoes $60 (what, no heel?).  And to think I bought everything I needed from Ace Hardware, Sears and Sam Santo Sports.  Times, as they say, are a changin’.

Of course, there’s cheaper equipment available, but that’s the problem.  What kid wants cheaper, and what parent wants to give less than the best?  We barely got by with just Clare.  Heaven help those people with two or more athletes in the family.  I doubt if anyone wants to share a bat.

Note to Commissioner Selig: You can’t grow a game, as in the inner city, that costs too much to play.