One Strike Away from History

Today's blog post was written by J.C. Obringer, an intern with Play Like a Champion and a rising junior at Ball State University majoring in digital sports production and sports administration, and a lead producer on Ball State's SportsLink program.  

In baseball, an elite group of pitchers have thrown perfect games; indeed, the achievement has eluded some of the game's greats. In over 135 years of major league baseball, there have only been 23 official perfect games. A perfect game is when a pitcher pitches a victory with a minimum of nine innings, with no opposing player reaching base, and the pitcher has not allowed any hits or walks, and has not hit any batsmen. The pitcher faces 27 batters and only 27 batters.  But it only takes one pitch to ruin a perfect game.

  

In baseball, no one talks about a perfect game during a perfect game. And as the game goes on, tension mounts for all involved.  Recently, the Washington Nationals' Max Scherzer found himself one out (and one strike) away from a perfect game. Scherzer has been a dominant pitcher for years, and made headlines last year when he was traded from the Detroit Tigers to the Nationals for a record breaking salary. The Nationals were up 6-0, and Scherzer was just a throw away from the perfect game club.  The Pittsburgh Pirates' Jose Tabata was at the plate, with two strikes on him. Scherzer's next pitch was a slider inside painting the outside of the strike zone, but the ball dropped hitting Tabata’s left elbow.  

One pitch and there goes the perfect game.  As Tabata took his base, the record books recorded the Hit-by-Pitch and Scherzer's perfect game disappeared. This is a tough way to lose a perfect game. What makes it even tougher is to watch the replay of the pitch, and watch Tabata lean into the pitch. In my opinion, he didn’t make any attempt to get out of the way just leaned a little in and took the hit.

Tabata has said he didn’t lean into the pitch, but it’s pretty obvious that he didn’t even try and get out of the way.  He also stated that as the batter, his job is to get on base any way he can (implying even if he has to get hit to do it.)

Whether Tabata leaned into the pitch or not, the umpire did not make the call and call him out. Even though I can say Tabata made no attempt to get out of the way, I'm just a fan, but the umpire is entitled to make that call and call him out.

Rule5.05
He is touched by a pitched ball, which he is not attempting to hit unless (a) The ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter or (b) The batter makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball (MLB.com) 

Even though this is a rule, it very rarely gets called. I'd like to see the MLB re-evaluate the rule, because it is a crazy end to what could have been a perfect game. However, that’s what makes achieving a perfect game so hard, everything has to match up and fall into place.  Sometimes, even though it stinks, that's just what happens in baseball. 

Max Scherzer ended up having the next batter pop out, and he finished with a no-hitter, which is still an impressive achievement. He finished the game with class, and exemplified what it means to Play Like a Champion. 

Youth Sports: Work vs. Play and the Impact of Club Sports

Today's blog was written by Allison Griffith, a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame.  Allison is an English and Pre-professional studies major and a student in the Social Foundations of Coaching course taught by Play Like a Champion Founder Professor Clark Power and Kristin Sheehan.  Allison is also the manager on the Notre Dame Women's Basketball Team.  

Johnny is an eleven-year-old boy who has grown up playing basketball, soccer, and football for his grade school. Johnny’s sport experience thus far equates to playing with his classmates, who are now some of his best buds. He has always been talented at all three sports and enjoys playing them all, but he has recently grown to be a definite stand out on the soccer field. Together with his teammates, Johnny has even led the Perry Panthers to a few championships.

Seeing that Johnny could be a special player, Johnny’s parents learn of Elite, a club soccer program an hour from their home, which works with the most talented soccer players in the area and exposes them to other competitive clubs across the state at weekend tournaments. Johnny makes the team, and thus begins Johnny’s transition from “school athlete” to “club athlete.” Elite holds two practices a week, in addition to speed and agility training on Fridays and foot skills on Mondays. Weekends are spent at tournaments across the state filled with back-to-back games, usually 4-6 per weekend. The huge time commitment forces Johnny to quit football and basketball, his other two sports.

Johnny’s situation is all too familiar in the world of youth sports, and demonstrates the conflict of work versus play, and how this is both amplified and complicated by the popular trend of quitting school-sponsored sports and joining AAU or Club teams. At increasingly younger ages, kids are being convinced to move from playing for their school teams to playing for elite clubs that consist of rigorous, demanding schedules for both the athlete and his or her family.

What are the implications of this transition? What will happen to Johnny as he leaves his school teams to compete for Elite? It is a common situation that young athletes, particularly at the 4^th or 5^th grade level, are forced to choose between multiple sports due to the demanding schedules of one club team. Johnny was forced to quit playing football and basketball, sports that he also loved. He plays soccer 6 days of the week, sometimes all 7, and his parents spend the majority of their evenings (and practically all of their weekends) shuttling him to practices, conditioning, and games. How does this end?

Well for a few of the young club athletes, and some would even argue many, they will end up becoming solid high school athletes and maybe even be offered college scholarships. Even at the youth level, there are exposure tournaments that college scouts attend. I would argue that an athlete is definitely able to have a great high school career or even receive a scholarship without having played a club sport, but there is definitely something to be said for the higher level of competition and level of play of youth club sports that may increase the chances.

However, realistically, most of these young club athletes will not even go on to have great high-school careers. In fact, many, having had five or more years of playing a club sport, begin to grow sick of it and even end up hating the sport. Many quit playing the sport entirely before they even begin their freshman year.

The point I am trying to make, however, is not that club sports should be eliminated entirely. Done correctly, as I believe my experience was, you could maintain a healthy relationship with a sport on a club team. And it is true that an athlete can be just as apt to quit a sport having only played on school-sponsored teams. Instead, I am interested in answering, what is the point of youth sports at the grade school/middle school level? What is the meaning of sports at this age?

I believe a large part of this answer comes in discussing the difference between work and play.

Kids need to play. Besides psychological/developmental benefits, some of the best childhood memories are formed around play. Play, as Giamatti describes it, is “leisure, that is so important…because it is a form of freedom and is about making free choices” (22).  It is a space that kids can create to assert their agency, not because they are told, but because they want to. In contrast, Giamatti describes work as such: “Work is partner to duty, and brother to obligation. Work is the burden we assume, not the one we choose” (19). For kids who eventually quit his or her sport after years of rigorous club seasons, did the sport become a “burden” he or she “assumed”?

At the youth level, I would argue that many AAU and club teams promote the idea of sports as work. Think how scheduled Johnny’s life has become: he wakes up, goes to school, goes to practice, sleeps. And repeat. Add in games, conditioning, early morning foot skills, and he barely has time for anything else. Physically, Johnny often feels burnt out, and the amount he is playing puts him at a larger risk for injury. His coach seems to be more focused on results then fostering life lessons and camaraderie. He begins to miss his school buddies and winning school championships.

On the flip side, though there are exceptions to every case, I think that school-sponsored teams do a better job at keeping the importance of play in youth sports. There is something special about being able to wear your school jersey. There is something special about playing in your own school gym, changing in your own school locker-room, seeing friends and classmates at your games. With coaching, I have found that in my own experience, my youth coaches tended to integrate our practices with fun drills and positive life lessons. While winning is important, it was more about creating memories with your best friends. School-sponsored teams at the youth level ideally keep the player’s relationship with the sport a healthy one by maintaining that you are a student-athlete, and school priorities come first. Thus, the sport becomes an outlet for physical escape and a privilege, not a duty or an obligation. 

And here is where I would like to thank my parents for encouraging me to play for my school all the way through. The memories I have playing in my school gym and goofing off with my teammates and classmates are unmatched. Although I did play AAU basketball and club soccer here and there, it was kept at a healthy amount that never once made me dislike my sport. I think this is a very large part of why I played 3 Varsity sports all 4 years of high school, whereas I found most of my club friends quitting early in their high-school years.

Why should parents want their children to play sports? Hopefully it is with the intention of allowing them to do something they love, to learn lessons of discipline and hard work, to foster strategies to overcome adversity, to create lifelong memories with friends, and then to ideally win a few games while they’re at it.

Parents of kids- take notice and make sure you are not over-scheduling your children. Make sure their relationship with sports, at the youth level, is a healthy one. One that promotes play, not work. Coaches of kids- winning is fun, but having fun is also fun. Mold your mindset around the idea that these kids are kids, and they are playing. While talent and X’s and O’s are important, it is not and should not be the emphasis at this level.  

I still remember the motto of my school’s soccer team growing up which we cheered before every game and wore on the back of our warm ups:

“Play hard. Have fun. Win.”

In that order.

Deflategate

The controversy surrounding the AFC Championship Game between the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts is now entering the second week--and has achieved cult status with a skit on Saturday Night Live this past weekend.  Much has been made of the air pressure used in the Patriots' footballs, and for good reason.  Reports coming out of the NFL now seem to confirm that the footballs were below regulation pressure, making them easier to handle.  What remains unclear is who was responsible for the deflated balls, or what the punishment will be for the individual and/or the team. 

At this point, I should admit that the I come from a family of Patriots fans, but a teenage desire to differentiate myself from my family drove me away from the Patriots (and served to annoy my family in the process--a double win for any teenager.)  However, I watched the game this week and have been following the ensuing story with an interest in sportsmanship, and only a minor bias against my family's team.  I freely admit, as have many Colts, that the Patriots were the better team on the field last weekend, regardless of the air pressure in the footballs. 

Whether any of the Patriots players or coaches ordered their (and only their) game balls to be deflated so that they would be easier to handle or whether it was done accidentally or by a ball boy trying to help the team, the Patriots benefited from the deflated balls, and there should be some ramifications for this.  The system currently in place calls for, as I understand it, a $25,000 fine and the potential loss of a few draft picks. The fine in place is 0.5% the cost of ONE 30-second Super Bowl commercial. 

The biggest problem with the #Deflategate controversy rests with the inherent fairness of the game of football, and of other games.  Kids across the country (or at least across New England) look up to Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski and the rest of the team.  In my opinion, the Patriots played the Colts with an unfair advantage. They didn't need to, but they did anyway.  Play Like a Champion research shows that children play games because they are fun.  Adults watch games because they are fun.  A big part of the fun for kids and adults of all ages is knowing that the game is fair and governed by mutually agreed upon rules.  When the game stops being fun, children stop playing, and adults eventually stop watching. While the popularity of football won't suffer due to the current controversy (in fact, this controversy has kept the NFL in the news during what is normally a slow week,) for the game to endure, and for games to continue to be enjoyable at every level (youth, high school, college, co-rec, and professional) fair play must reign supreme.

The views in the blog are those of the author, and do not represent the views of the Play Like a Champion Today organization.  And for the record, the author still hasn't decided who to route for in the upcoming Superbowl. 

Fair Play All Around

Today's blog post was written by Tony Kim.  Tony is an intern with Play Like a Champion Today, and a senior Psychology Major at Purdue North Central.  In his spare time, Tony loyally supports Manchester United.

In a game riddled with heels being clipped, shirts being tugged, pushing, pulling, diving for penalties in the box, and discretely doing any and everything to gain an advantage for your team—honesty is rarely seen in soccer today.  That is why the actions of Werder Bremen’s midfielder Aaron Hunt and Nuremberg FC’s Hiroshi Kiyotake in their team’s match against one another this past weekend was refreshing, to say the least.

With a 2-0 lead, Hunt received the ball from the left-winger, took a touch that had him charging into the box, and before anyone knew otherwise, he was on the ground with the official blowing the whistle and pointing to the penalty spot. With the Nuremberg players protesting the official's call, Hunt sought the referee’s attention, and told him that it was not a penalty and that he had fallen on his own.  The referee, then, reversed his decision and dropped the ball at the goalkeeper’s feet for a drop ball to be put back into play as Nuremberg players gave gestures of approval and thanks to Hunt.

Hunt’s act of honesty and fair play was not the only one of the game. On the other end of the field as Bremen’s defender Prödl slid in to tackle Hiroshi Kiyotake, a corner kick was initially awarded to Nuremberg. That decision was also reversed as Kiyotake volunteered that it should not be a corner and that he was the last to touch the ball. With gestures of approval for his behavior by both the official and Bremen’s players, the game went on with a goal kick for Bremen.  (Bremen ended up winning the match.)

As both of these players have shown, acts of good character can still be seen in the game of soccer today. Even with displays of dishonesty with players diving for fouls (yes, I’m talking about you Luis Suarez), the game is still one of beauty and honor.  Even with the threat of relegation into lower leagues, these two teams and their players truly Played Like Champions, showing that character always comes first.