After another scary roller coaster ride on Wall Street last week, we at least have the weekend and sports to bring back some sanity to our life. Unless of course your motto is "Go Blue" and you hail from the great state of Northern Ohio or as most of you know it, Michigan. Who says there's no such thing as karma?
Into a weekend full of baseball and football, can life get any better. Friday nigth we started off with week 2 of the MLL season in San Andreas, Calaveras vs Amador. Calaveras rolled to an easy victory. The dissappointing aspect of the game was not the game itself, but the seeming decreasing participation in football. Amador fielded a squad of less then 25, Calaveras a power house team in the league for years, doesn't have a much bigger squad. The quality of play in the MLL seems to be a lot lower this year, which is probably a result of less participation by all of the capable athletes in the schools.
The Mother Lode League is a small league comprised of schools in the 500 to 1100 student body size. But it just seems that in both football and baseball the quality of play has decreased in the last few years. Rosters seem to be smaller and more and more of the athletes are not playing. This is, in part, due to the "Soccerfication of America". Which is make it fair, make it easy and don't hold people accountable. We are seeing it in all phases of American Society. If it's too difficult or hard to do it the right way, let's make it easier.
Baseball could possibly be one of the most difficult skills to master, hitting a round moving ball with a round bat is difficult. At some point in your baseball career, you will be on the stage solo with your whole world watching. If you can't hit, you can't hide it. And no matter how hard you try, you can't make this easier. What we have been seeing is more and more kids, including the athletes, leaving the sport at an earlier age. There are other factors, parents selfishness for their own time, cost and time.
Football is a physical game. You have to work hard to get yourself in physical shape to handle the game. It's ok for the coaches to yell adn get on the kids, part of the football culture. Again these are things that American society is moving away from and in the smaller communities, we are seeing a drop in participation as kids move up the ladder.
Can it be solved? I don't know if any one area or group of coaches can turn the tide of a country, but if you get an energetic coach who is willing to put in the time with all level of players, you may be able to retain some kids in the sport. It takes a lot of time and it is hard to find people with the time and ability to energize the kids and their families.
Calaveras will determine their playoff fate in the next two weeks when they take on Argonaut and Summerville in successive weeks.
On Saturday, I ended up in Sacramento at the American River and Mendocino College game. It was a decent enough game and refreshing from a game a few years ago at Delta College that I saw. A few years back, Delta and Fresno City played to a disgusting display of out of control sportsmanship. I don't think I ever saw that many flags for unsportsmanlike conduct in a game before. And most of them for guys just flapping their jaws. The disappointing thing of that game, was it was accepted that this is how they play and the coaches couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it. The emotions were held in check on saturday and we got to watch a football game. American River won easily, although they had to suffer through an early second half surge by Mendocino.
While American River was playing, the Fresno State Bulldogs took on Utah State. It was probably best that I was watching this game, because the 'Dogs won the game late after inflicting the Central Valley with a strong dose of heartburn again. Penn State and USC slid by their opponents. And Big Blue is feeling pretty blue after the Spartans won the battle of Michigan.
We discussed earlier the drop in participation of baseball, how much does it help when we have a World Series game start at 10 pm on the East Coast. Nice job Bud, way to cut out half of America's kids from watching another nail bitter of a game. The Phillies took a 2-1 lead in the series with a ninth inning run. The rain is gone from the East Coast and they should be able to get tonights game started by 8:30 on the East Coast, just in time for most of America's kids to be tucked in snuggly to their beds on a school night.
Today we looked forward to the first chapter in the Mike Singletary story. Singletary is up against great odds and hopefully he can pull that team together and salvage something from another lost season in the City by the Bay. And the Raiders, the Greatness that is the Raiders moves somewhere again this week. We'll see.
