This poem is short, but I think sports fans can all identify with it. It’s unfortunate that money has become such a pervasive force in professional sports, but then, I suppose it is the money that makes them professional and not amateur.
*
Money to the left of them and money to the right,
Money everywhere they turn from morning to the night,
Only two things count at all from mountain to the sea,
Part of it’s percentage, and the rest is guarantee.
I work with a lady who recently was telling me about how relieved she felt the day her oldest son made the decision to quit playing football. I think sports are important in terms of developing character, leadership, and teamwork, as well as maintaining a healthy populace. But I certainly can understand a parent’s concern about injuries. The numbers in this infographic are from 2012, but I imagine the numbers today are still relatively close.
Here is a fascinating panel discussion from last year that I watched late last night (too late — my poor sleep schedule). Hosted by the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, this discussion encompasses all sports and the culture that surrounds athletic competition in general. From children’s organized sports on up through the pros, these folks explore the problems of the idea of winning at all costs.
Clearly, we see, there are some issues when it comes to ethics in the world of sports. When the majority of athletes self-report that they would be willing to take a pill to become Olympic-caliber athletes (with the caveat that they’d die in five years), we realize that our priorities are wholly out of whack. When cheating does take place, nobody in sports wants to be a snitch, and the idea that “if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying” permeates the atmosphere. How do the higher ups of an organization combat this attitude?
This discussion is long, but if you have the time to watch even a little bit of it, it is certainly worthwhile.
Icepocalypse 2017 is underway in the Midwest, and what better time to talk about the game of baseball being played on ice skates? Believe it or not, for a brief period of time, baseball on ice was actually a thing.
The first known instance of baseball being played on ice took place on January 1, 1861 in Rochester, New York, when two local teams took up a game on skates before a crowd of about two thousand spectators. Later that year, the Brooklyn Atlantics defeated the Charter Oaks, 36-27, in their own slippery competition. I have to tip my hat to these guys — I can barely handle ice skating sans bat and ball. Can you imagine trying to pitch effectively without falling down?
Sadly, the ice baseball fad didn’t last long. Four years later, in 1865, the Brooklyn Eagle wrote, “We shall have no more ball games on ice. … If any of the ball clubs want to make fools of themselves, let them go down to Coney Island and play a game on stilts.” (By the way, if anyone is aware of an actual instance of a baseball game on stilts, please let me know!) There doesn’t seem to be any definitive explanation as to why the game on ice lost popularity. There is speculation that it was due to a poor quality of play, or perhaps the owners of the various skating rinks didn’t appreciate their ice getting so torn up.
There was an attempt at a comeback about twenty years later. Baseball, still being a new game with a lot of eager fans and players, was practically a year-round form of recreation. In January 1884, when the winter weather prevented a conventional game from being played, the diamond at Washington Park was converted into an ice rink so that games could continue and fans’ demand for some baseball entertainment could be met.
On January 12th of that year, Henry Chadwick assembled a team of amateurs to take on Brooklyn, managing to out-skate the pro team on their way to a 41-12 victory. A few days later, the two teams faced off again, and this time Brooklyn managed to save face with a 16-8 win. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be record (that I can find) of an ice baseball game being played after this time.
The concept of baseball on ice isn’t completely forgotten today, as an NHL ice crew demonstrated a couple years ago. In December 2014, in order to test the ice prior to the NHL Winter Classic, tossed around a baseball while skating on the rink. If I was any good on skates, I would love to try this myself.
This infographic isn’t quite baseball-specific, but I do find it interesting to see how baseball ranks among other sports in terms of the “danger factor.” Honestly, it surprises me to see hockey rank so low on these scales, but I guess they do wear quite a bit of protective gear. Fatality rates did not make it onto the graphic, but given the focus on safety in all sports, this should barely be an issue. But it still piques my interest.
