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“Just Thinking”
Its fall kids are back in school, football is in full swing and its playoff time for major league Baseball. After 162 games the top 6 teams from each league fight it out for the chance to compete in the fall classic. The World Series, the best of seven game series to determine baseball’s champion for this year. It’s historic, it has happened every fall since 1903, the tradition, the pageantry, the history.
The brightest stars shine in the World Series, so many epic events are forged in our memories forever. Rudy Giuliani throwing out the 1st pitch after 9/11, Bill Mazeroski’s Walk-Off Home Run in 1960, Kirk Gibson’s Limping Home Run in 1988, The Shot Heard 'Round the World, Bobby Thomson's walk-off home run to put New York Giants into the 1951 World Series, the Boston Red Sox breaking the "Curse of the Bambino" and winning in 2004 after an 86 year drought, Joe Carter’s Walk-Off Home Run for the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993, David Freese’s Heroics for the Cardinals in 2011, Don Larsen’s Perfect Game for the Yankees 1956, The Miracle Mets in 1969, Reggie Jackson’s (Mr. October) Three Home Runs in 1977, The Chicago Cubs break 108-year famine in 2016 and my favorite the Giants winning 3 world Series in 5 years.
The traditions of baseball are what has sustained it over the years, a pitcher vs a hitter, victory vs defeat, just a game, sure, but the life lessons are abundant throughout.
I read a story several years ago about a retired coach named John Scolinos who gave a presentation at a large baseball coaching conference. He went onto the stage with a string around his neck with a home plate attached to it. After he spoke for a bit, he asked do you know why I have a home plate hung around my neck, to which nobody answered. Then he asked, do we have any little league coaches in the house, several hands went up and he asked if any of them knew how wide home plate was and someone said 17 inches, he said that’s right. He asked the High School coaches, the college coaches and minor league coaches the same question to which they all answered 17 inches. Then he said what do they do with a Big-League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over this seventeen-inch home plate, they send him to Pocatello. What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen inches or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches, so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches. Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him?
Coach went on to talk about accountability and consequences, on our teams, in our schools at our workplace in our churches and how it is affecting our society, baseball has rules for everyone, if you want to play, if you want to succeed, you must play by the rules, life lessons.
I was going to talk more about the changes in the game, like a pitch timer, a runner starting on 2nd base in extra innings, pitch counts, showing up pitchers, pitching inside, but thought that Coach Scolinos message was a good share.
Honorable mentions: The Oakland A’s play their last game in Oakland, Buster Posey is now the President of Baseball Operations for the SF Giants and an RIP Pete Rose, the greatest hitter in baseball history who should have been inducted into the Hall of Fame before he passed.
Let me know what you think.
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