Dodger Lessons
August 6, 2013
The first baseball team I played on was the Dodgers. I’ve been a Dodger fan ever since, checking their place in the National League standings almost every day of the season, year after year. It would have been difficult to learn more about sports and life from any professional sports franchise than one could learn from the Dodgers as I was growing up.
It was the Dodgers who returned integration to the Major Leagues in 1951, which from my home in central Wisconsin seemed unremarkable; and when I became old enough to think about baseball, Jackie Robinson was my most favorite player for a long while.
It was the Dodgers who led the Major League’s migration from the northeast to the west, which my young mind could not grasp. From historic Brooklyn to Los Angeles? To play in the Coliseum?
I could not know then that this leading edge of professional sports franchise mobility would become an early adopter of a new toy called “television,” and that this would solidify baseball’s place as the national pastime for two more generations.
I coped with tragedy as catcher Roy Campanella suffered a paralyzing injury. I considered religion’s place in life as Sandy Koufax declined to pitch on Jewish holy days.
The Dodgers of my youth already knew that life is not fair. How could it be after Oct. 3, 1951, when the hated Giants’ Bobby Thompson hit a ninth-inning homerun to steal the National League pennant from my Dodgers?
Sadly, the Dodgers of more recent years have been beset by the kind of ownership dramas now common among professional sports as the insipid idle rich ruin even the most stable and storied franchises.
And speaking of rich, had it not been for my dear mother’s insatiable desire to clean out every closet she found, I might be rich too. For I had collected, and kept in mint condition, the baseball card of every Dodger player of the 1950s. They were thrown out while I was away at college.
The Specialty of School Sports
July 24, 2018
(This blog first appeared on MHSAA.com on November 18, 2016.)
There is much finger pointing when it comes to sports injuries, and I’d like to point in a direction that is often missed.
Some people blame equipment – it’s either inadequate, or it’s so good that it encourages athletes to use their bodies in unsafe ways.
Some people say the rules are inadequate, or inadequately enforced by contest officials.
Some people say the pool of coaches is inadequate, or they are inadequately trained.
But let’s not miss the fact that risk of injury is inherent in athletic activities, and at least part of the reason injuries occur is because the participants are developmentally deficient. In fact, this may be the fastest growing contributing cause to injuries in youth sports. It’s not the sport; it’s the lack of development, the lack of physical preparation.
When rushed into early and intense specialization in a single sport, youth may not be ready for the rigors of that sport. Lindsay J. DiStefano, PhD, ATC, of the University of Connecticut, has researched the topic among youth basketball and soccer players and linked higher injury rates to lower sports sampling, and vice versa. Exposure to multiple sports during early childhood positively influences neuromuscular control and reduces injuries.
Do we encourage youth to sample several sports and help them learn basic athletic movements and skills? Do we offer opportunities to train and condition and focus special attention on strengthening knees and necks? Do we provide more time and attention on practice than on competition and assure safe technique is taught and learned?
Early and intense specialization, with excessive attention to competition, invites injury. There is a much healthier way for most youth – and that’s balanced, multi-sport participation – the specialty of junior high/middle school and high school sports.