Thursday, June 09, 2016

Another Thing JJ Watt and I Have in Common

I've been coaching Chase's youth baseball team this season and one day the other team decided not to show up. So we improvised and played parents versus kids. I planned to run have speed station-to-station, but I got up and ripped one to center, as I rounded first, the ball was rolling down a hill in the outfield so I decided to turn on the jets and try for a home run.

And boom! I felt something pull in the back of my right leg. I did get the home run, but a few days later I was left with this nasty bruise on the back of my leg.



It didn't hurt to the touch, but it felt tight for about two weeks afterwards.

When it finally healed, I decided to teach the kids a lesson about base running and not throwing the ball all over the field once a runner had already reached base. I took off running to first and felt that same feeling again, only this time in the other leg.



This incident reminded me of an old post from when JJ Watt suffered a similar injury.



It's still not clear what happened to him, whether he suffered a pulled muscle or it's just a horrible bruise, the type you could possibly sustain if a large man falls on top of you in the wrong way. But I am sure he handled it with the same toughness and I exhibited with mine.

Wednesday, June 08, 2016

Song of the Week

"Walkin' in the Rain With the One I Love" - Love Unlimited

Monday, June 06, 2016

Baseball Been Berry Berry Good to Me

When Roberto Clemente first came up with the Pittsburgh Pirates reporters coined him "Bobby" and frequently tried to embarrass him by spelling phonetically the things he said. Sentences like "I heet the boll..." actually appeared in newspapers.
But that was 50 years ago. That would never happen in our more sensitive culture now.
Astros outfielder Carlos Gomez (whose phantom injury sent the Mets to the World Series last year) did an interview with Houston Chronicle columnist Brian T. Smith in English, even though Gomez doesn't speak the language very well.
Here's what Smith wrote in the newspaper:

"For the last year and this year, I not really do much for this team. The fans be angry. They be disappointed."

Gomez thinks his exact quote was used that way to embarrass him.

You don't need to be an English major to figure that out.