I love baseball and am thrilled that the season has begun.
But, modern pros are coddled to a max compared with other athletes.
Consider that major league teams seldom even play doubleheaders anymore.
Meanwhile, the Castlegar Rebels will play four meaningful games in less than four days next week in their efforts to win the province and advance to the equally gruelling Western Canadian Championships (Keystone Cup).
Big league ball players do play almost every day and have a 162 game season before playoffs even start, although during the post season they are allowed days off. Even at that, ball players play half an inning consistently, then play offence on average every second inning, being required to run bases only once on every three or four of those offensive situations.
Pitchers, “work,” every five or six days, other than the inning or so required of closers more often. Only catchers need to work physically hard each and every day of the season.
One should be able to think that those kind of conditions should attract every kid who dreams of a career in sport. That isn’t true even here in one of the best baseball towns in North America, and one wonders why.
Perhaps it is because, for all its richness as a game, its combination of athleticism, team play, and individualism, kids just don’t know the possibilities involved - both long and short term.
Registration and practice for ball at all levels is upon us. Here’s hoping the above will serve to attract at least the smarter kids (and parents) to the greatest game ever invented.
I love baseball, have always loved being at the ball park.
Perhaps this bit of understanding and information about the game’s potential will help others feel that, too.
• Whatever the Scots feel, curling is Canada’s quintissential activity.
It’s a cold weather sport popularized by Canadians, who are the best at it, by far, in the world. And yet, Canadians do not always rule the world at the sports championships.
Don’t fret, we are far and away the best at it. Other countries mount all-star teams - we send one of hundreds of legitimate world championship calibre to compete.
Curling, of all sports, is truly a game of millimeters and sometimes the millimeters fall on the wrong side.
Watching Rachel Homan recently and Brad Jacobs now and Kevin Koe not that long ago, I need to remind myself they got to the championship tournament only by defeating long lists of long-standing powerhouse rinks just to arrive at a bonspiel most of the other teams were basically gifted entry to by weak competition.
However the Victoria event turns out, fear not. Curling is the sport Canadians dominate like no other.