No More Excuses

When I played baseball in high school, one of my teammates was a pretty talented player. He had good speed and a descent arm. He was one of those small town heroes. Like, because we have more cows than people, this kid is special.

Unfortunately, no matter how much his father hyped him and his fat brother tried to convince us that the Atlanta Braves scouts were looking at him (which was a complete lie by the way) he had way too many downsides to ever be a big leaguer. He had a slow release at in the field that lead to infield hits, he got bad jumps trying to steal and an uneven swing lead him to pop up hittable pitches.

But the biggest downside to this player was that he always made excuses. Once he was pitching a perfect game and threw a low 3-1 pitch to walk the batter, of course it was the umpires fault. He then threw a wild pitch to allow the runner to second, which was the catchers fault, then allowed a single to score the runner, which of course was the fielders fault for not diving far enough.

Every 0-4 was because of the angle of the sun in his eyes, every error was the fault of the groundskeeper and every pitch he didnt swing at, was outside. If he hit a ball 5 feet short of a home run, he'd blame sir Issac Newton for there being too much gravity.

There are a few points I'd like to make about excuses. First, in sports, we teach our kids from a young age that they are very important, very special and deserve privlege because of their talent. We teach them that the umpire or referee is always wrong if the call goes against them and we continue to teach them that they can get away with being disrespectful to the zebras and the game, if they are good.

One of my fellow umpires told me that after a game, a mother approached him and said, "what is your problem with my son?" Standing shocked he said, "which one is your kid?"

The idea that some junior varsity first baseman could be so important that it would matter to an umpire whether he got the call or not is just laughable. But the parents give this kid the idea that the only reason those plays were out not safe was because the umpire has a problem with them, not because they were out or safe.

When i was coaching, one of my players stared down an ump on strike 3. I sat him down and explained that he isnt that good. That when you hit .167 on junior high and make 20 errors at short, your major league potential isnt high. I took him out of the game, the next day his father called the superintendent and claimed that we made his son, "Feel bad." awwwww I'm sorry Mr. xxxxxx your son should feel bad that he's AWFUL at baseball and that his dad is a MORON, neither of which had to do with the umpire.

anyway......

moving farther into our excuse train.....we look to major league baseball....we have this team called the Yankees, whos tag line should be, "The greatest excuse franchise in history."

Need proof? Just watch YES aka the Yankee Excuse Network

Why arent the yankees hitting, lets ask Michael Kay, "not that you want to use excuses but not having alex rodriguez and jorge posada is a good excuse." to which al leiter replied, "but yes Mike, it is a good excuse." Because no other team whos won games has had injuries, no no the '88 dodgers didnt exist.

Joba Chamberlin's blatent disrespect for Indians hitter David Dellucci was excused by, "He's just showing his emotion," and, "He's just a young player." And the issue was swept away, why?

Chamberlin thinks that every thing he does is so important because he's always been told that. Those assanine Joba Rules t-shirts are making this guy believe that a strike out on may 8th in the 8th inning of a 6-3 game....matters. But just like middle relief pitchers with less than 40 career appearances, they dont matter.

The point is, if you are a high school athlete, you arent important. If your a rookie middle reliever, you arent important. That we need to stop hyping up athletes and making excuses like, "It was the bugs," for them. If we want our athletes to grow up into descent human beings, we have to raise them like they are not the center of the solar system.

On a side note, Sal Fasano never made an excuse his his life, he broke both his arms and still played back up catcher for (insert your AAA team)