Well, Logan's baseball season this year was a bust. He was having the best season, performance-wise, of his life. After just a couple of weeks, he had two HR, a handful of doubles, a few triples. His performance was absolutely phenomenal.
Then, he developed heel pain, which turned out to be a case of Sever's disease. We'll have to be mindful of it from here on out.
He's already doing basketball workouts (for the tryouts... in NOVEMBER.) It's workout out pretty much like I remember it from my days of youth. Basketball was the first teams that were hard to even make the cut on. It was the first sport you saw where kids focused solely on it.
Baseball is sort of that way but in a strange sense. It was hard to make the team, but you knew who the team was going to be. By the time the kids hit middle school, you pretty much know who the ballplayers are and who they aren't. Lots of sociological reasons for this, many of them bad, in my opinion, but that's just the way it is.
Logan has a straight shot to his Freshman team. That won't be a problem. After that, it will just depend on his physical development and how much work he wants to put into it. That's 3 more years away, though and it mostly depends on his attitude towards baseball.
Football will start soon and I'm actually glad that he's doing basketball workouts because there's no doubt he'll hit the football season in shape. Of course, I'm worried as hell that he could get a head injury, but that's every football parent's nightmare. I wish to heck he'd do something else, but I doubt he will.
I try never to miss an opportunity to emphasize to my son that sports is about having fun. I don't ever want to think he's playing a sport because I'm forcing him to.
That being said, it wouldn't surprise me if he ended up playing rec baseball next year. I actually think he'd find it a lot more fun than his baseball experience in travel. His skills are solid. Yeah, he'll take a little hit in terms of development but he's gotten the early development he needs. He'll be fine.
At this point, I think I might enjoy rec baseball more, too.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
The Last Thing I'm Going To Say About Lebron (this year)
I've heard more than a few casual sports fans from other cities say that Cleveland fans should let the whole Lebron thing go. That it's been 3 years now, and it's time for us to move on. The reason I say, with certainty, that it's only "casual" sports fans is that anybody who is an actual sports fan understands what's going on, here.
Now, let's keep this all in perspective. I don't personally dislike LeBron. He seems like a genuinely good guy to me. Jordan was a complete a-hole as a person, especially at game time. Lebron really isn't. He's a nice guy, even in the heat of competition.
If he were broken down on the side of the road, I'd help him change the tire on his Rolls Royce Silver Shadow if nobody from his entourage were available at the moment. He seems to be decent to his family, his kids, his friends. Every once in a while, he gives away 0.0007% of his net worth to a local charity and everybody is all excited that a classroom in Akron has some new computers. He just spent 7 figures to renovate the gym at his alma mater, St. Vincent/St. Mary.
But every day he plays and he's not wearing a Cleveland uniform, I hope he loses. Is that so bad? This is sports. They want us to be emotionally engaged with these teams. They want us to cheer like heck and to watch the games with interest. That's how they get the TV money, the ad revenue, the ticket sales and all the other things that make it possible for a man to make $100 million a year by throwing a ball through a metal ring.
Now, let's be frank, here: everybody knows why Cleveland sports fans detest Lebron. "The Decision" was stupid. Everybody agrees that the TV show was stupid. Beyond that, I think the decision itself was stupid.
Lebron needed championships to secure his legacy. So, he took what appeared to be the easy way out and hooked up with Wade and Bosh. Their first season together, nobody was happier than I was when the Mavs beat them.
The next year, though, things worked pretty much like they were supposed to. The Heat dispatched the young OKC team and Lebron got his ring.
This last year, though, was notable to me not because Lebron got his ring the easy way, but because he got it the hard way. Yes, there were key plays by other players, but you have to go back to his days in Cleveland to remember a time when the formula was this simple: if Lebron has a great game, his team wins. If he doesn't, they lose.
I'm going to say Lebron earned his ring this year the hard way. He took his whole team on his back and carried them there.
So, you earned this one, Lebron. But if you were going to get a ring by doing it all yourself, you could have stayed home. Personally, I think this year's Heat were more talented than the Lebron-era Cavs, but frankly, they didn't play like it. It was a team that was clearly less than the sum of its parts.
At this point, folks in Cleveland are all hoping that Lebron will come back to us when his contract expires in Miami.
Honestly, I hope that happens. But equally honestly, I don't see any upside for Lebron to do it. He's already acknowledged as the best player in the game today. What he needs is rings to solidify his legacy. Cleveland teams have a history of doing the stupidest thing possible, all the time, every time. Dan Gilbert, instead of being a class act, made a total ass of himself when you left.
I don't think you get much upside by returning. And if the Cavs are a train-wreck, you may go a few more years without a ring.
So, hey, go where you think you need to go, Lebron. You're the best player in basketball, and you have more money than any one human being ever really needs. Be happy, get rings, do your thing.
And if you do decide to come back to Cleveland, I won't complain. We'll have two other #1 draft picks to join you.
Now, let's keep this all in perspective. I don't personally dislike LeBron. He seems like a genuinely good guy to me. Jordan was a complete a-hole as a person, especially at game time. Lebron really isn't. He's a nice guy, even in the heat of competition.
If he were broken down on the side of the road, I'd help him change the tire on his Rolls Royce Silver Shadow if nobody from his entourage were available at the moment. He seems to be decent to his family, his kids, his friends. Every once in a while, he gives away 0.0007% of his net worth to a local charity and everybody is all excited that a classroom in Akron has some new computers. He just spent 7 figures to renovate the gym at his alma mater, St. Vincent/St. Mary.
But every day he plays and he's not wearing a Cleveland uniform, I hope he loses. Is that so bad? This is sports. They want us to be emotionally engaged with these teams. They want us to cheer like heck and to watch the games with interest. That's how they get the TV money, the ad revenue, the ticket sales and all the other things that make it possible for a man to make $100 million a year by throwing a ball through a metal ring.
Now, let's be frank, here: everybody knows why Cleveland sports fans detest Lebron. "The Decision" was stupid. Everybody agrees that the TV show was stupid. Beyond that, I think the decision itself was stupid.
Lebron needed championships to secure his legacy. So, he took what appeared to be the easy way out and hooked up with Wade and Bosh. Their first season together, nobody was happier than I was when the Mavs beat them.
The next year, though, things worked pretty much like they were supposed to. The Heat dispatched the young OKC team and Lebron got his ring.
This last year, though, was notable to me not because Lebron got his ring the easy way, but because he got it the hard way. Yes, there were key plays by other players, but you have to go back to his days in Cleveland to remember a time when the formula was this simple: if Lebron has a great game, his team wins. If he doesn't, they lose.
I'm going to say Lebron earned his ring this year the hard way. He took his whole team on his back and carried them there.
So, you earned this one, Lebron. But if you were going to get a ring by doing it all yourself, you could have stayed home. Personally, I think this year's Heat were more talented than the Lebron-era Cavs, but frankly, they didn't play like it. It was a team that was clearly less than the sum of its parts.
At this point, folks in Cleveland are all hoping that Lebron will come back to us when his contract expires in Miami.
Honestly, I hope that happens. But equally honestly, I don't see any upside for Lebron to do it. He's already acknowledged as the best player in the game today. What he needs is rings to solidify his legacy. Cleveland teams have a history of doing the stupidest thing possible, all the time, every time. Dan Gilbert, instead of being a class act, made a total ass of himself when you left.
I don't think you get much upside by returning. And if the Cavs are a train-wreck, you may go a few more years without a ring.
So, hey, go where you think you need to go, Lebron. You're the best player in basketball, and you have more money than any one human being ever really needs. Be happy, get rings, do your thing.
And if you do decide to come back to Cleveland, I won't complain. We'll have two other #1 draft picks to join you.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)