Friday, July 23, 2010

The Madman fixes the world of sports (part 1)

I have followed sports ever since I was old enough to understand them and after almost four decades, I have seen a lot of things that could be better and have ideas to remedy them. No doubt many of them would not be instituted since it would cost money or prevent people from making more money. However, if I had the ability to make changes in most every sport (and some things I don't call sport) this is what I would do.

With so many things to change, I will be starting a seperate blog since some of my regular readers really don't care. However, the first one will be posted here:

Topic: Soccer

Orginally I thought this is the one sport which was fine. However, the recent World Cup showed very significant flaws that need to be corrected.

First of all, I am among the few who didn't mind the zuzuvelas. Background noise is part of the event and having the local music played made it seem special.

There are two things that definitely were at the forefront of the event. First of all was the ball. It was determined in wind tunnels that the new corporate designed ball for the event was unstable when struck at high speeds since the stiches were on the inside and the ball was perfectly round. Many people stated, "Both teams have to play with the ball so why does it matter?"

This is why. Imagine the NFL having a different ball for the playoffs which becomes unstable when thrown at high speeds or long distances. Wouldn't it hurt passing ball clubs more than running teams the same way a windy day can effect a game? The same thing happened at the World Cup. People complained about less scoring. Why? Long passes and shots were unpredictable. Spain was one of the few countries who did not depend on long passes and that allowed them to capture their first title. I believe all new future ball designs will be tested at game speeds. Duh.

The other issue is officating. From missed calls to bad calls, it dominated the event. I know FIFA wants controversy but not this way. The soccer referee has to cover an area that is bigger than a football field and it is common for the ball to travel from one end to the other in a few seconds.

He also has two linesman who can advise on fouls from the sidelines and can rule on offsides. That is not enough! The ref has a general path from one end of the field to the other which is way too much ground to cover. I propose having a second ref. It works with hockey and with each one covering to each goal line needing a goal camera would be unnecessary. The paths are listed here:



One more thing. People who speak English in the United States really don't care about professional soccer exccept for the World Cup. I am begging FIFA, ESPN and every other network to stop trying to get Americans interested. Americans prefer football played with laces and always will. It is embarassing. The networks made such a big deal over Landon Donovan's winning goal over Algeria even though it only made them advance into the round of 16 where the United States was beaten by a country that has fewer people than Texas.

The networks made a big deal when the women's team won the World Cup in the United States in 1999. A home country winning the title is not uncommon. They also compared that team to the one that won the Olympic gold medal in hockey in 1980. No, No, NO!

The 1980 US olympic hockey was assembled in the fall before the olympics and was made up of individuals from different college teams most of whom afterward went into the NHL. The 1980 USSR team played as a unit for only their home country. Those players went to special schools where with studies learned their sport from the best instructors and the best of them played for the country.

Over half of the 1999 US women's team went to the University of North Carolina and the national team at that time was the only one the women on it played for. Anyone else see which team in the miracle on ice game mostly resembled Mia Hamm and her teammates?

Thursday, July 22, 2010

redefined

While driving to the south suburbs on July 4th to see relatives on my mom's side of the family many for the first time in almost three years, I asked my daugther which subject I don't want to discuss will someone talk to me about first? Scrabble, golf or Weird Al concerts. To my surprise bowling was the one that came up.

At work on the day I finished 15 years at my company I had four different people ask me a question about all four subjects and I had to nicely explain why I don't play Scrabble or golf, that I have no idea what new bowling balls exist and why I am not going to see Weird Al again this summer explaining the internal gut ache I now get driving home from his shows marking to the date the time since I took a picture with him that did not develop.

In a December post, I explained why I don't play Scrabble and in a post earlier this month, why I won't see Weird Al in four states this summer. The reason I can't bowl or golf anymore is the same so I will try to explain:

In January 1994, I got real good at bowling. Over a 5 week span consisting of 45 games I averaged 215 at four different bowling centers. Four of my five highest three game series I ever bowled were in that span. After bowling three practice games one evening after work with my boss trying to help his game out, my fiancee wanted to practice herself. After work and three games, I wanted to rest but listened to her and went. The second ball I threw I felt a pop on the outside of my left leg. I thought nothing of it until I started to feel pain in my leg ranging from my knee to my hip.

The pain got to the point where I had to stop bowling and see a doctor. I went through a month of therapy and was ok the rest of the year though I did not bowl anywhere near as well as I did before I got hurt. That summer bowling in a league against the best in the city, my left leg not only popped but collapsed and I ended up 15 feet from the foul line. Though I tried to figure out a way to bowl after that, I could never bowl in a league again as the pain would always return no matter what I tried to do. It also got to the point where I could not look at my fiancee without being upset at her so I had to break up with her.

Eventually as I got older and heavier, my leg started to affect my ability to play golf as it would start to fail and prevent me from shifting my weight onto my left side. I finally decided to see a doctor again in 2008. He said I had bursitis in my left hip.



The gluteus medius muscle (muscle shown in the chart) is what stabilizes the leg when all the body's weight is on it. When the bursa is irritated it presses against the gluteus medius muscle and that causes the muscle to overwork, spasm and eventually fail. Bowling and golf causes weight to be transfered completely to the left leg for a right handed person. When the leg fails to support the body's weight, it makes bowling or golf difficult if not impossible to do let alone done well.

Indianapolis Colts QB Peyton Manning has his bursa sac removed a couple of years ago. However, he is younger and in much better shape than I am and the doctor said I would have to be close to 200 lb for him to even consider that surgery for me.

After therapy for that specific problem in 2008, my leg got better and I was able to hit golf balls again well. That fall, I felt a pop in my left knee three different times and exactly one year before this post, had surgery to repair damaged material. In the surgery, the outside of my left leg was braced against a steel support and the doctor's assistant pulled my lower left leg to the outside to allow access to repair the damage. I has spasms in my left leg for a couple of months after from the strain of the muscle being stretched.

Though I am functional as far as work, the idea of bowling or golfing is not plausible especially after my left leg failed on the driving range three weeks ago.

What do I do now? I still do my radio show every Thursday. Also, I have finally come to terms with the fact that my daughter's existance means my family name dies with me. Yes, it took me ten years to complete the five stages of grief. I do still attend conventions but my body won't let me do what I used to be able to do. I just exist and write in this blog and soon will start a blog where I produce ideas to fix what I see wrong in the world of sports.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

oops

I decided to keep stats for every player on my daughter's team and had game discs made for all of them on one image until I accidentally changed the size to one and erased all of them. I was able to reproduce five of them and here they are: (the other five hopefully by the weekend)

Note: It was for a game called All Star baseball where players are represented by a disc that is put inside a spinner. The number cooresponds to the result of the at bat. Also, outfielders, infielders, and pitchers and catchers had a different color pattern.



Numbers refer to:

* 1 Home Run
* 2 Ground out, double play with runner on first base
* 3 Runner reaches base on error
* 4 Fly out, all runners advance
* 5 Triple
* 6 Ground out, all runners advance
* 7 Single, runners advance one base
* 8 Fly out, runner on third base scores, others hold
* 9 Walk (Base on balls)
* 10 Strikeout
* 11 Double
* 12 Ground out, or lead runner is out (I modified it)
* 13 Single, runners advance two bases
* 14 Fly out, runners hold their bases
* 15 Hit by pitch (I added it)

Saturday, July 10, 2010

I see dead people

In spite of my post from last month, I decided to put my daughter's desire over my internal conflict and got two tickets to see Weird Al Yankovic on July 9 in Merilville, IN.

During the fourth song, Smells Like Nirvana, my daughter turned to my ear and stated, "He is playing the guitar left handed." Having never realized that before, I agreed and then told her, "Kurt Cobain, the lead singer from Nirvana, is left handed and since he is dressed like him, that is why."

That got me thinking ... How many famous dead people are referenced in this show? There is a lot of video footage shown between and during songs along with costumes based on people who have passed on.

As suggested by one of the regular readers, I put this chart together:



Tv: Irene Ryan (died 1970), Buddy Ebsen (d 2003) (shown on video before song Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies)
Bob Denver (d 2005), Alan Hale (d 1990) (on video during unreleased song I'm in Love with the Skipper) Note: Other dead actors from Gilligan's Island were not in the concert video
Johnny Carson (d 2005): Shown twice mentioning Weird AL while doing the Tonight Show
Charles Nelson Reilly (d 2007), Gene Rayburn (d 1999) : (in song CNR talking about the legendary feats of Charles Nelson Reiley and in video shown during that song)

Music: Michael Jackson (d 2009) (Dressed like him while performing Eat it)
Kurt Cobain (d 1994) (Dressed like him while performing Smells Like Nirvana)
Jim Morrison (d 1971) (Dressed like him while performing Craigslist which is a Doors style parody)
Jimi Hendrix (d 1970) (during an in between song video where AL burns an accordion on stage in the same manner that Hendrix once burned a guitar)

He also performs part of his song Another One Rides the Bus (parody of the Queen song) during the medley where he does 1-2 minute parts of multiple songs.

In past tours he showed a scene from his 1989 movie UHF called Raul's Wild Kingdon featuring actor Trinidad Silva who died during the movie production.

Note: When a person has been performing material based on pop culture for over 30 years, it would almost be expected for some of the subjects of the material to be dead. I could not imagine a Weird AL show that does not involve him dressed as either Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain.

Monday, July 5, 2010

The next level

My daughter's 10U softball team had a far more successful season than last year finishing 10-4 in 4th place out of 11 teams. However, bad fielding combined with untimely hitting caused them to lose their playoff game vs the 5th place team who they easily beat earlier in the year.

My daughter who was noticeably taller than she was last year compared to her teammates also played better batting third in the lineup for much of the season finishing with 57 total plate appearances. Just like last year, I took all her plate appearances (except for the one game I could not attend) and make a game disc out of them:



Numbers refer to:

* 1 Home Run
* 2 Ground out, double play with runner on first base
* 3 Runner reaches base on error
* 4 Fly out, all runners advance
* 5 Triple
* 6 Ground out, all runners advance
* 7 Single, runners advance one base
* 8 Fly out, runner on third base scores, others hold
* 9 Walk (Base on balls)
* 10 Strikeout
* 11 Double
* 12 Ground out, or lead runner is out (I modified it)
* 13 Single, runners advance two bases
* 14 Fly out, runners hold their bases
* 15 Hit by pitch (I added it)

I decided to not consider errors since they are very common in 10U softball. Once she gets to 12U, I will start counting them.