I am reminded of the story of 2nd Lieutenant just-graduated-from-West-Point John Eisenhower.
For his post graduation leave, instead of time off, Lt. Eisenhower got to go visit the headquarters of the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force.
The Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force happened to be Lt. Eisenhower’s father, General (4 Stars) Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The story is told that the General, wanting to involve his son in operations, sent him to deliver a message to a nearby unit.
The story goes that Lt. Eisenhower got a jeep and went over to the unit and approached the commanding officer saying, “My Dad says to attack on the right.”
“Oh?” replied the office, “and what does your Mom want me to do?”
Another story from the same time has the young Lieutenant worrying about Military Protocol and asking his Dad for his thoughts.
According to Protocol, a lower ranking officer salutes a higher ranking office.
The just-out-of-West-Point 2nd Lieutenant with all of about 2 weeks seniority asked his Dad what he should do in the event that they are together and meet another officer who outranks the son but is out ranked by the father.
Should the son salute first or should he wait for the other officer to salute his Dad and then return the salute with his Dad or should he …
The General, according to the story, interrupted the son with no little temper and said, “THERE ISN’T AN OFFICER IN THIS THEATER THAT I DON’T OUTRANK and DOESN’T OUTRANK YOU!“
Anyway, I liked that Phil’s Mom is still looking out for him.
stunts brash marketing found crucial ingredient treat customers well
The baseball great, Ted Williams, once said, “If you don’t think so great, don’t think so much.”
“Most people are usually pressing to play well, thinking about their performance a lot,” Savannah pitcher, Kyle Luigs says. “But if you can get out of your comfort zone and do something to get your mind completely off baseball … you’ll play better.”
And with all the bananas stuff going on its this bottom line of “For all the stunts and brash marketing, the franchise has found a crucial ingredient that traces to Barnum’s dictum about treating customers well.“
Saving baseball from itself.
Did you know that all tickets are somewhere around $35?
Did you know once you get in, most concession food is free and all you can eat?
work to ensure that players fully understand the fundamentals
I was wondering if anyone had ever posted a Head Coaching job online.
I was wondering if anyone had ever posted a Head Coaching job online, what would it say.
While I did not find a posting for a specific team, one online job site, in its career section listed this job description:
Head football coaches coordinate and oversee any assistant coaches as they work to ensure that players fully understand the fundamentals of the game. They run practices and drills to prepare their players for their next opponents. Head football coaches may also scout other teams and watch film to prepare plays and game plans. They make all of the decisions during a game. Depending on the level they are coaching at, they may also be involved in recruiting new players. Head football coaching duties include managing and instructing team members in an effort to win games, motivating football players before and during competitive events, and analyzing team strengths and weaknesses, while instituting game strategies based on such information. Head football coaches are also responsible for maintaining records regarding team performances.
I was wondering this due to a recent story about the head coach of the Detroit Lions, Dan Campbell, and his reaction to the 2022 Lions schedule.
I focused on the line, fully understand the fundamentals of the game.
I would classify team history as a fundamental.
I would rate something a team has done for 80 years or so as fundamental.
Now I like Coach Campbell.
I feel sorry for him.
Head Coach of the Detroit Lions is like being promoted to Captain of the Titanic except that you already saw the movie and you know what is going to happen and there is nothing you can do about it.
Anyway, Coach Campbell was asked for his reaction to a schedule that showed that the Lions had no Prime Time Games.
In other words, the NFL felt no need to inflict the Lions on the rest of the Country.
But Coach was upbeat.
“Just from a glance, I mean it’s, I have no arguments. I think it looks great‘, said Coach.
Then he was informed that the Lions would, of course, have that traditional Thanksgiving Day game.
The NFL tradition of football game on Thanksgiving Day that was invented by the Lions and maybe the 2nd thing anyone knows about La Ville de Tway or Detroit in the common usage.
“Who are we playing on Thanksgiving?” he asked?
Then he asked, “Are we home or are we away?”
In a way, it was the perfect question.
Tells me all I need to know about what to expect this season.
balls strikes baseball strikes outs out at the plate lock out cant go home again
I loved baseball.
It took me a long to time to get there.
My family was a big baseball family.
My Dad, because they were available on the radio from Chicago in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where grew up, was a Cubs fan.
Back then, teams like the Detroit Tigers argued about the wisdom of having every game on the radio.
My brothers and sisters grew up Tiger fans.
I was 8 when the Tigers won the World Series in 1968.
Back when all the games were played at 3pm on the afternoon so kids at my school, Crestview Elementary were sneaking small, transistor AM radios into class.
At that point I was not a fan.
Baseball and sports, any sport just took too much time and I had so many things to do with all that time in childhood.
There were Gilligan’s Island reruns and Bugs Bunny cartoons to watch and books to read.
Sometime in the summer of I think around1975, I was out with my Dad on a late night drive and he had the Cubs on the radio from Chicago.
My Dad always had the Cubs on.
Not only could we sing the song the started Cubs broadcasts,
Let’s go – batter up – we’re takin’ the afternoon off
it’s a beautiful day for a ballgame for a ballgame today
the fans are out to get a ticket or two from Wala Wala Washington to Kalamazoo
it’s a beautiful day for a homerun but even a triple’s ok
we’re gonna cheer and boo and raise a hullabaloo at the ballgame today
The Chicago Cubs are on the Air!
But we could sing most of the commercials as well.
“You can take Salem out the country BUT ...”
Vince Lloyd and Lou Boudreau
Don’t know who they were playing but they had a new first baseman named Bill Buckner.
Buckner was a good player with a decent bat but he had a bad leg and was still recovering from the original injury that would later come back to haunt him BIG TIME.
It seems he was on first and tried to stretch make to third on a hit.
Vince Lloyd and Lou Boudreau were the radio team and they about fell out of the booth describing the action.
“Outfielder bobbles the ball.”
“Buckner makes the turn at 2nd, going to try for third.”
“Here’s the throw …
Boudreau starts yelling “RUN BUCK RUN BUCK – – DIVE“
Heres the play
He is …..
HE MADE IT HE MADE IT!!!
BUCKNER SAFE AT THIRD.”
I don’t know why.
It was one of those warm, humid nights you get in West Michigan.
The car windows were open.
It was dark with the car lights showing up as big beams in the steamy air.
In the words of Bob Seger, “It was sweet summertime summertime.“
And I got bit by baseball.
I started watching and listening a lot more often.
And I discovered baseball writing as well.
Some of the best writing in America has been about baseball, both fiction and non fiction.
Bill Bryson’s father was an award sports editor of the Newspaper in Des Moines, Iowa.
A city without any major league sports.
Yet Bill Bryson, Sr. got into an anthology of his account of the famous Bill Mazeroski’s 9th inning World Series Winning Game 7 Home Run writing, “Pittsburgh’s steel mills couldn’t have made more noise than the crowd in this ancient park did when Mazeroski smashed Yankee Ralph Terry’s second pitch of the 9th inning. By the time the ball sailed over the ivy-covered brick wall, the rush from the stands had begun and these sudden madmen threatened to keep Maz from touching the plate with the run that beat the lordly Yankees, 10-9 for the title.“
I joined the Socitey for American Baseball Research long before SABRMETRICS came along to mess up the game.
Out of college I had an opportunity to interview for a research position with the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and I drove home on cloud nine when the Director told me he couldn’t offer the job but was penciling me into the lineup.
I still bear in mind the name of guy on the letter than came a few weeks later announcing who got the job.
The came the strikes.
The first one I really remember in the mid 80’s I was thrilled when it was settled.
Then came the strike in the 90s
To this day baseball folks talk about how many fans were lost in the 1994–95 strike.
I was one of them.
It wasn’t so much that when they returned to work, the two things they went out on strike over were left unsettled.
But that the 1994 season was left unfinished.
It just ended.
And still …
That fall when the season would have been over, for some reason I never been able to find or have explained, the season ending awards, MVP, Cy Young, Gold Gloves, were all made for the part the season that had played.
And that, to this day, for me, broke off my relationship with baseball.
I have not been to a major league game since.
I went often to a local minor league team in West Michigan and enjoyed watch kids playing for a chance as much as playing the game.
And the game itself, the putting the ball over the plate and taking the round bat and a round ball and try to hit it square.
I might watch a World Series game for a few minutes.
But a fan?
Baseball is still important for many, but inessential for most.
Today I read in the Guardian, “In a country where the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, the optics are tricky when a representative such as the pitcher Max Scherzer, who agreed a three-year, $130m contract with the New York Mets last November, is one of the faces of a union complaining that an annual salary of $570,500 is stingy.”
So much money.
So much greed.
I guess Mark Twain was right.
He said this in a speech at Delmonico’s, April 8, 1889.
“The very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive, and push, and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century!”
If I think about America today, Major League Baseball is indeed the very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive, and push, and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming all summed up in one allegoric greedy one for me and all for me business.
Back when I was in college with Jimmie and he would go practice football and I would go and try to get lost in the grad library, it sure seemed a lot more simple.
A lot more fun.
But someone had to come along and fix it.
Play to crown a real national champion and more fans from more schools will be involved in the process and the game.
Yep that worked out.
I remember how at the end of college football season, as many as 10 or 12 teams would be looking at how their team might be voted the champion depending on how all the bowl games were played.
Now we got a system and just two teams, two teams with extensive fan bases that included the entire state of Alabama and the north east corner of South Carolina, seem to have controlled that discussion.
Boy Howdy and oh boy.
So we can fix the fix this and put more teams into the mix.
Now 4 more games and this seems to be getting the game off the field and into the schools medical and injury support so maybe my old college might benefit.
Just label anything fun and take it out, just like my old job.
Somehow they were able to take college football and turn it into the only national sport were FEWER people are interested in the playoffs.
That’s a pretty neat trick but not one that you would think would want on your resume.
Anyway, reading that article I got to this line.
No coach goes into a job assuming they’re going to fail.They think they’re going to succeed.
How about that!
I am sure I knew this.
I am sure everyone knows this.
Still, it has to be said.
I remember years and years ago watch some game and the poor little reporter on the field has to interview the coach of the visiting team as the half came to an end.
I know that everyone is aware this is a RULE.
I don’t mean that it is a rule for ‘How to Cover College Sports – A TV Broadcaster Rule Book’ but then again maybe it is.
What I mean is that in the great board meetings that take place where major things are decided that impact all our live, it was agreed upon by all the powers that have the power to be at these meetings that any and all college football and basketball coaches MUST – HAVE TO – GONNA GET IN TROUBLE IN YOU DON’T – take part in these running off the field interviews.
It is in the contracts between the TV Networks and the conferences, the conferences and the schools and the schools and the coaches.
It is a RULE.
It is IN THE BOOK.
So when the young sideline reporter is told at the production meeting to GET THAT INTERVIEW, if the reporter asks ‘HOW?’ as in “HOW DO I GET JUWAN HOWARD TO talk to me?” the producer can yell back, “Don’t worry about that – THEY GOTTA DO IT.”
For the fan I guess.
Some where is the person who thought this up.
That at this moment, we needed someone to yell some questions at a coach.
Either at the half and at the end of game.
Some of the world’s best sports questions and answers have come out of this idea.
One of my favorites was when a reporter as a very fast walking Bobby Knight how his team was able to win the game.
Coach Knight, without breaking stride replied that while he was an not expert like most sports broadcaster he did recommend that if you looked at the scoreboard you would see that his team scored more points than the other team.
He was pretty much jerk in real life too.
Another time, a breathless young reporter (they always seem to get this assignment) run up to Bear Bryant and asked why he ran a certain play.
As I remember it, Coach Bryant stopped and stared at the reporter and said, ‘Everything I do is part of trying to WIN this game.’
The reporter didn’t like that or something so repeated the question.
Coach Bryant repeated the answer.
The reporter again started to repeat with a ‘But ….”
Coach Bryant stared for a second or 2 into the camera, shook his head and walked off.
They more I thought about it the more I thought he was right.
Would a Coach do something that he thought might NOT help win a game?
There is a plan here.
There is a plan when each coach is hired.
The plan is to win.
Even in the NFL were as the writer of today’s article stated:
Parity is legislated in the NFL; it’s equality by design.
Some how this writer has not experienced the phenomena know as the Detroit Lions.
