Baseball is Life

[DOUGHBOYS]

You've seen 'em.
T-shirts with BASEBALL IS LIFE scrawled across the front.
Baseball is life on one front.
As we go through life, we spend most of our time sitting down or standing up.
Same as baseball.
And like baseball, the standing up or sitting down is interrupted by bursts of physical energy.
Baseball is life.
And no other sport imitates life like baseball.

Baseball has always been a business. But, it REALLY turned into a business with free agency.
It was only then that players started having a say.
When players had a say, they made more money.
Players did things that people do when they have a lot of money.
They hired more people to make their lives 'better'.
Agents, lawyers, trainers, nutritionists, chefs, maids, chauffeurs.

It's ok to have these things in your life.
In the end, I don't think that it really makes their lives better.
Sometimes we dream of having maids, chefs, and enough cars to need a chaffeur, but we do nicely without them, thank you.
Worse, baseball players start listening to agents, lawyers, and trainers.
Since agents, lawyers, and trainers have entered the baseball picture, baseball has become less about life.
There is less loyalty.
The game is more about money than ever before.
And more players get hurt.

Look at this blurb.....

'The Cardinals have not yet set a date for Matt Carpenter's (back) Grapefruit League debut.

Carpenter has dealt with some back tightness since the beginning of camp. He's been going through drills and on Saturday pulled around 200 pounds on a sled. The infielder remains unconcerned about the injury. "It’s a good burn," Carpenter said of Saturday's workout. "It’s all the progression of getting back on the field. You’ve got to cross some things off the checklist, and we crossed that one off. Everything is falling into place. If this was the middle of the season, I’d be playing through it. But we’re just playing it real smart. As you can see, I’m not immobilized." '

I'm left thinking that this guy has a chronic back problem...can pull 200 pounds on a sled....but can't play baseball.
Baseball is Life.
Carpenter is sold on his 'training' and almost bragging that he's 'not immobilized'.
Woo hoo! Not immobilized, but he can't play baseball..
Great Matt, if I need a 200 pound sled puller on my fantasy team, I'll know who to draft.
Even then, Rudolph the Red Nosed reindeer goes as a higher choice.
Note to self- Do not draft Matt Carpenter.

Most of you have only heard about Warren Spahn.
Spahn was a great pitcher in the 40's, 50's, and 60's.
He didn't throw exceptionally hard and he didn't pull 200 sleds.
What he did do was pitch well.
His 'regimen' was to pitch March through September, rest October through February.
In this way, Dr, James Andrews says pitchers in baseball had things correct.
Now, trainers, parents, and coaches are having players play or work out all year.
It's insane.
By the way, Warren Spahn won 20 games seven years....AFTER HE WAS 35!

We live in age where we think we know everything.
And if we don't, we think we do.
We have 100 pitch counts.
Why?
Nobody really knows.
Nobody knows if it helps prevent injury.
My opinion is that it causes more injuries, but that's not really important.
What is important is that EVERY team has adopted pitch counts not really knowing if it's the right thing to do.
It's almost become a politically correct cause.

Smoltz, Glavine, and Maddux say that throwing every day kept them healthy.
Nobody listens to them.
Trainers and agents say throw less.
Seriously, what do they know?
And yet, they are the one's being listened to.
Warren Spahn just raised a middle finger in his coffin.
Sometimes, bureaucracy makes decisions in our lives, we think to be wrong.
We may even think we KNOW it's wrong.
Yet, we conform and don't know why.

Baseball is Life.