A Pitcher’s Prescription
August 3, 2015
One of our community’s local heroes who has really lived up to his hype is John Smoltz, a three-sport standout in high school who was recently inducted into Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Michigan’s climate and Smoltz’s passion for other sports than baseball kept him from throwing so much, so early and so often that he was able to bring a lively arm into the major leagues. Nevertheless, he needed “Tommy John” surgery to repair damage to his arm, like an increasing number of baseball pitchers today.
Smoltz, who had his surgery in 2000, told USA Today recently: “We’ve asked kids to do too much, too early, and at a high velocity at a young age, and you’re just not able to handle that over time. It’s like RPM-ing your car. If you redline it enough, you’re going to blow your engine.”
The new Hall of Famer is using this high-profile platform to ask parents to stop their kids from playing year-round baseball. Like famed orthopedist James Andrews, Smoltz is recommending players take a vacation from baseball for two to four months every year.
So, those non-school fall baseball leagues we’re now seeing crop up for high school age players? After a spring and summer of ball, most high school players probably need a rest from baseball and would benefit much more from playing a school-sponsored sport in the autumn: cross country, football, soccer, tennis.
Developing skills in other sports and camaraderie with other students is a healthier prescription than year-round baseball.
Rush to Ridicule
February 5, 2016
Last month the statewide high school athletic association of a neighboring state sent to its member schools a reminder of its sportsmanship standards. From almost all media reports you would have thought the association did a terrible thing.
In fact, the athletic association did nothing wrong – nothing that it and similar organizations have not done many times before to point people away from declining standards of sportsmanship prevalent in other programs and point people toward behavior that is more appropriate for an educational setting – i.e., in programs sponsored and conducted by educational institutions.
Then one of that athletic association’s schools did an unsurprising thing – and what dozens of schools, perhaps hundreds of schools, have done many times before. It distributed the athletic association’s message to its students and coaches.
Where this good work went bad was an isolated incident where one student-athlete at one school posted a profane reaction on social media, criticizing the message; and the student’s school suspended the student from a few contests.
That’s the story. But it’s been mangled by most professional and social media which have rushed mindlessly to ridicule the athletic association.
The association was not wrong to promote positive cheering sections and mutual respect during athletic events. And the association is taking an amazingly high (sportsmanlike?) road to say that it will use this media fiasco as an opportunity to review its sportsmanship guidelines.
We have proven in this state through our Battle of the Fans, a contest conceived by our Student Advisory Council, that cheering sections can be larger and louder by encouraging positive behavior; fun that is also respectful. We prohibit no specific cheers, but we promote positive cheers and the schools where that is the norm.
In a society where standards of all kinds appear to be slipping, this is praiseworthy work.