In sports and elsewhere, we all engage in battles.
Football is more analogous of war and battle than baseball, but even the more pastoral pastime of baseball displays many a battle. Pitcher versus batter.
The emotional collision at the plate.
The fielder versus the hop.
And occasionally it even gets violent.
Even among the spectators and fans.
Then there is the real specter of violence.
Crime and war.
There are thousands of police and soldiers marching the planet, trying to be on the right side of the weapons constantly discharging.
And the explosions.
And the murderous intents of the enemy.
How close do you live to the closest assassin?
Awful thought, but real.
Burglars are one thing, and drug sellers, too.
But armed gunmen? Intent on doing real harm?
There are ideologies in conflict and economic disparities pushing buttons of hate and fear.
Sometimes it may be selfish greed.
Or indifference.
Political battles, legal battles.
Family conflicts and struggles.
Power struggles, the two year old versus the older sibling, versus the parents...
And even grandparents do battle at times.
Like dogs, or cats, or other beasts of the field.
Battle of nature.
Bankers versus speculators, buyers against sellers.
Cities versus counties, parks versus visitors or harvesting exploiters.
Money, money, money.
Freedom from need or desperation, bosses versus workers.
John Steinneck wrote In Dubious Battle.
Laborers against the employers.
Who gets the profit?
It's a battle.
Like the Bowl Championship Series.
Bowls are battles, and sponsors battle to get advertsing and profits.
Consumers versus suppliers.
Bankers and loaners versus the guy getting ahead.
Groups versus loaners.
Are you a loaner?
Writers versus readers.
Writers against themselves.
Us workers making decisions everyday, all the time.
Race Relations: How they Matter and and how they Improve---Consistently
Sports is replete with inter-racial relations, and this is a good thing. One of the most positive aspects of competitive sports and physical exhibitions in general is how all of us from different socio-economic classes and ethnicities and cultures get together, and bleed and sweat together.
Like war and battle, but on a much healthier plane and in a more merciful atmosphere.
We love all our brothers and sisters on the mock field of battle, as well as the ones we trust and defend on the real level of war.
The United States has come a long way.
Whether Obama or McCain are elected this fall, we can all take solace in the fact that we as a people will make up our minds more on the content of character and political ideals more than the surface issues like skin tone or whatever other cultural issues and baggage go along with their individual characters.
Politics has the penchant to get ugly as far as rhetoric and accusations, which knows no color or creed.
This is democracy and natural phenomena displayed in a free world.
A current hot sports writer, or perhaps social commentator, if you will, is Jason Whitlock. He is a polarizer, it seems, perhaps like few other men or women of our history. He galvanizes our thinking, which is very healthy. Right or wrong, he is a powerful communicator, almost an inter-locutor of the masses.
I envy him in some ways, but overall I esteem him.
He speaks his mind and does not do it simply to sell copy.
At least that is my opinion.
I have enjoyed his columns of the past and I believe that he has valuable insight into the world of culture and race. And sports, of course.
And he is human and fallible as are we all. But he is a solid voice, and a refreshing one. From the middle of the country.
And that is a huge part of the beauty of sports and humanity; we are all represented through the microscope of sports; not just southern California, or Manhattan or Capitol Hill.
If his writing can somehow instigate change of defeatist mentality and backwardness that affects us all, the more power to him.
We need more morally strong writers and others who push us emotionally and aggresively to change. To write and right our many wrongs.
Against ignorance. Injustice. Prejudice. Apathy. Hate. Misogyny. Sexism. Racism. Classcism. All of that bad, deplorable stuff that has plagued us for centuries. Way too long.
I didn't start this article wanting to simply comment on Jason Whitlock; I wanted this commentary to be more encompassing.
Hatred and hostility, violence and wrath have no place among us good Americans or other peoples of the world.
We must learn to overcome it.
Hate the hate.
Love the love.
I look forward to a time in that we celebrate a golf athlete who excels and is amazing to us all because he is from a poor socio-economic class rather than being from a certain ethnic mix. No ill will meant towards Tiger, mind you. He is awesome in so many ways, regardless of his parents' backgrounds or genes.
Character. Merit. Bearing. Honor. Esteem.
Grace and compassion. Tenacity and will.
These are the colors that matter the most.
Not all those other crazy things us humans slosh around in.
Window dressing.
No, give me the colors of my team, please. Give me the colors of the person's heart and soul, and there I will show you a piece meal of greatness.
A Moral Issue in Question in California and Everywhere
For those who may know me, you might be very aware that I favor certain standards that I consider to be morally based:
No raunchy or vulgar words or pictures, try to support the proper way of doing things without cheating, things of this nature.
I think that is correct. Cleanliness. Dignity. Respect. Honor.
I try to be religious and spiritual and morally upstanding.
This is a constant struggle. I am human, as we all are.
I try to find good people in sports who purport the same values.
In the world of sports, too, we need role models and heroes when it comes to decency and fair play. We all try to play the game the right way. Keep it clean and on the up and up.
Right?
This is related to all of us.
For the future of society and our children.
So this fall of 2008 in the November 4th election, California is voting for Proposition 8, and I wish to extoll the virtues of Voting Yes in favor of marriage between a man and a woman only.
This is about maintaining the institution of marriage meant for the rearing of children in an environment of both a father and a mother, as each child should deserve a chance to have as small and innocent human beings.
As adolescents and adults, people can make many decisions as they choose.
But as a California voter (I still have my Cali license and I maintain residency there as of yet) I plan on voting "Yes" for this Amendment (at that time #22, I think) that was overwhelmingly approved back in the year 2000 by 61% of us Californians.
I lived in the state of California from 1999-2005, before working abroad since that time.
And I still do a lot of work there and I am qualified to vote there this fall.
The information to support this initiative in time or money to this is:
protectmarriage.com
or send money and donations to:
Protectmarriage.com
P.O. Box 819
Placentia, CA 92871-0819
I do not consider this an "anti-movement", but rather a pro-active statement and guideline about an institution of our society that is for the benefit of our little ones and the greater whole of our community.
Earlier this year the California Supreme Court voted 4-3 against male/female marriage only, and I feel that they breeched the democratic process.
Four judges against three.
Reminds me of some Chinese judging techniques, if, in fact, any of them actually did favor their own.
Let the proper majority decide, let democracy continue, and the proper institution of marriage flourish.
And if you have not made up your mind up on this issue, please drop me a comment and feel free to voice your concerns.
Self Esteem, Reassurance and Redemption: USA Basketball
Today the US basketball studs did what was good for my soul. And let me just extrapolate that sentiment and propose that the drubbing that they laid on the Spanish selection was good for the American soul.
We are the best.
Still.
No doubt about it.
2004 was a hard time for a lot of us: we were dragging on in a war in Iraq, losing soldiers daily in a controversial conflict, the presidential race got people's dander up, and to compound it all the US "Dream Team 5?" lost THREE times in the Olympics and barely escaped with a BRONZE medal.
A bronze medal in Olympic basketball?
1988 was excusable: those were our unexperienced college guys who lost to professional Russians and Lithuanians combined. They did their best and provoked the rule change to include our NBA best.
1972 was a silver because of some crazy quirks and letting the Reds stay in the game. Kind of like our Olympic hockey team in 1980 over the Soviets and the others. Amazing miracles do happen on ice and the hardwood every now and then: a single team can catch that mystical lightning in a bottle. And again, it was our college boys, truly amateur athletes. (And they still won, wink-wink).
But not three losses, to teams like Puerto Rico, and Argentina... Granted, both teams had talent, but...these were our professionals!?
The USA team has the best basketball talent and play in the world, right?
Of course I'm right.
And let me explain why.
The reasons are historical, cultural, economical, and emotional.
Oh, yes, and biological and physical.
The history of our country is complex and grandiose and innovative and tragic all at once.
It involves persecution and freedom, religious liberty and intolerance, genocide and flourishing of population, bravery and hypocrisy, love of land and loss of life, sacrifice and horror.
We are a new breed of humans. We tend to be stronger than others: bigger, stronger, faster. And in many cases, more extreme, thus leading to our greatness as a people.
The Declaration of Independence, Constitution and all our laws and endeavors since document this. Within our homeland, we celebrate the best and the worst that humanity has to offer.
And basketball represents this.
Why?
By the time our country came into being, we Americans were a very mixed lot of Europeans, Africans, Asians and native Americans.
The majority of the African Americans were enslaved, and a great number of them were cross bred like cattle. Bigger, stronger laborers. I don't know what the numbers break down as, but it is safe to declare that the strongest survived, and often families were not arranged by choice of individual.
Meanwhile, European descendants learned hardiness and fortitude by colonizing and settling the new lands across North America, many dying in the process and leading to a dramatic strengthening of the gene pool, as ascribed by Darwin and other evolutionists. Some diseases and hardships make us survivors more resistant, and superior in genes and nature.
Instinct and nurture breed better competition to survive and thrive.
American Indians went through their own population control, devastating as it was. And Latinos became a hardier lot than their ancestors, as I assume the numbers of Asians who migrated here as well.
And it has been 100 years since the Emancipation Proclamation and we have been intermixing to a large degree before and since.
Evidence Tiger Woods. He is America.
As is the basketball team.
The fact that this teams happens to be all African-American is in actuality an abnormality. Usually we have a few Euro-American (i.e. white) players on the dream team, but the point of this team and this country is that we reward the best players no matter their race or creed.
This is America, and we look past skin color, or at least we try to, in order to achieve the best and most likely results of victory.
We are a color blind people when it comes to success.
We are Americans, first and foremost.
And we take our lumps. And get bloodied. And we improve.
We lost a few battles in the War of Independence over two centuries ago. To the British and the Hessians.
And then it got serious.
Same thing with the American Indians, and the Mexicans and the Southern Confederacy.
Oh, then those former opponents and enemies became our close allies and in some cases our staunchest supporters.
Do you sense a pattern here?
The 20th century came and went, and there were two trends that I will posit:
A)The United States showed the world that it will not back down to anyone and it will save the world from tyrannies and oppressors and crazy notioned ideologies that don't work, and B) the fact that the US was dominant in the game of hoops.
We got the poorest of the poor in our land to integrate with the rest, to prove that they are one team who excel on this stage.
Take THAT Soviet complex of cyborg automatons. Mao? Whatcha got over there that us Western capitalists don't know about already? A thing called "control"? Totalitarianism? Does that system cut the mustard? Does it produce enough mustard?
Good luck really beating our pick-up players who hustle for fun, hailing from the tough streets, and I include French Lick, po dunk Indiana as part of those streets...
And the truly great ones end up being celebrities and multi-millionaires...No matter how poor they grew up. Again, see Larry Bird...Or any number of ballers from urban jungles...Isaih Thomas, Jason Kidd, ...
So, we are trying to hold on to our deserved self esteem as United States citizens.
We have a right to be proud and faithful if we continue to sacrifice and strive as our forefathers did.
They sweat, bled and died. And sometimes it was awful, and even mistaken, war after terrible war, depression and poverty overwhelming our youth and desperate families.
Extremes of the American dream.
But we came together as one people.
We beat the Fascists and ethnic racists of Germany and Japan while our own national passtime was still not integrated to our own men.
But we eventually came together as one.
And we still do today.
And our players, from all socio-economic stations and backgrounds, give up a part of their professional career to show the world what we all know:
USA basketball is the best.
Spain today was OK. Just not good enough.
Lithuanunia, Croatia, and Australia still undefeated?
Argentina is the defending Olympic champ? Greece has some tough Euro victors?
Hey, let me reassure you, as I have been reassured today.
The USA redeem team is where it's supposed to be.
Poised to prove that they are the best.
Lebron.
Kobe.
Dwyane.
Chris P.
Carmelo.
Dwight.
Chris B.
Deron.
Tayshawn.
Carlos.
Michael.
Oh, yeah, and the guy who has never lost an Olympic match, who just scored his first basket ( I believe it was his first attempt) in today's trouncing of Spain?
Jason.
He's old. He doesn't shoot that well. But he's American. And he knows how to win. And like most Americans, he will capitalize on the strengths of the team to get the necessary result.
He is willing to subdue his own ego and selfish notions to achieve the American dream. He follows the directions and rigors of one of the world's best coaches of all time. Coach K, who was coached by former Olympic coach, Bob Knight at West Point.
A person and place that has known wins, losses and sacrifices.
I caught the news early this morning while catching up with the US basketball team warming up with the Turkish national team.
Ken Griffey Junior to the White Sox, approval pending!
And I wanted this to work...
Why? Allow me to explain.
I have been a pretty avid baseball fan since I was a kid...And Tim Raines, Senior was my man. Short, fast, and a switch hitter, as I fancied myself. And he played in exotic French speaking Montreal, Quebec. 1981-1990.
And then he was traded to the Chicago White Sox. While I lived in South America. Trying to spread the gospel of a message that I believe was restored largely by Joseph Smith, Jr. 1830.
And I grew to like and love the White Sox. Even after Raines left the Pale Hose five years later. 1995.
And ten years later, the White Sox caught fire and marched to the World Series, and won! 2005.
And I was in South America again, and I followed the results by Internet, but I was far away from the game, relatively...
Throughout the 1990s, and especially after the trade to Cinncinnati and all his later year injuries and consequent comebacks, I grew fonder of the legend known as Junior.
He is 38 now. I turn thirty eight in October. I see my heroes age and retire from the game, the basebaths where they had their days...and nights.
Like the ever vanishing youth and yesteryear.
Nostalgia and memory of things as they were and once appeared and how they someday may be again. Or could be; eternal bliss.
And now Griffey, Junior has joined my favorite team for the stretch drive, the dog days of August, and then the fall...
When I turn 38. 2008.
And I will leave my family for a season, a tough thing to do. For military reasons. This fall. Perhaps the Kid will be batting in those cool October nights. And bring me a sense of home, while a thousand or a million miles away from my wife and children. My girl, and my other girl, and my boy. And the new born.
Joseph Smith, Jr. was often separated from his loved ones.
Sometimes jailed for months at a time, like he was when he was assasinated. 1844.
At age 38.
And now I see all my worlds come together.
The kid is old, and playing with younger guys at their physical peak.
Can he do it?
He dresses in a uniform that can bring on the heat of the enemy. Can he survive?
Can he remain in one piece? Stay whole. Perform the rigorous duties, mental and physical and even spiritual and emotional.
I'm not Joshin': We need to defeat Kenya by Chasing that Steeple!
Ok, you are one of those sad sacks that is burned out by all the commercialism of the Olympics, the cheating, the drugs, the egos...
GET OVER IT.
There is much more purity in these events than you would like to admit.
And one of the American underdogs that I am pulling for? Josh McAdams! Yes, I said Josh McAdams!
He only qualified by placing third for the USA team, but maybe he has what it takes.
Maybe he got interested in the steeplechase more after living in Thailand for two years (here is a link about him if you care: Read the full story here ), a land where some of their celebrations include dowsing everyone in sight with water.
Look it up by Wikipedia! I dare you. "Thailand Water Festival".
But Thailand is not my worry when it comes to the 3,000 meter steeple chase.
Kenya is.
Why? Because since forever (1984 to be exact, that would be Los Angeles, without the Communists and Carl Lewis) a Kenyan has won this event EVERY single time.
1984: Julius Korir in 8:11.8
1988: Julius Kariuki in 8:05.51, and Olympic Record
1992: Matthew Birir in 8:08.84
1996: Joseph Keter in 8:07.12
2000: Reuben Kosgei in 8:21.43
and 2004, I will let you figure it out. But trust me, he's Kenyan. And the time is not too killer. Suggest room for hope, no?
Is this coincidental with presumptive candidate Barack Obama? His dad and all?
Who knows?
All I know is, I am pulling for this guy. Josh. And in the fall? John probably has my vote. But that is incidental.
There was a boy named Kwaka from a little village. He was born on a Wednesday. He loved to run, and this was the sport of his friends and family. Run, and run fast.
Run faster than the others.
He was from a town called Alalapadu. Not far from Brazil. But he didn't know much Portuguese. He didn't know that much of the official language of Dutch, either.
He spoke three local languages that were spoken by his ancestors and their allies.
One of those allied clans had a friend who knew some one from a place called Bloomington, Indiana.
This was a far away place where he heard that some people became famous and studied books for running fast.
Kwaka loved books. One reason why he ran so fast, and did it so well, was because his father's father had once told him if he ran faster than anyone else, he could read all the books in the world.
That was Kwaka's desire.
And so he did.
Eventually, when he was fourteen, fifteen and sixteen, a man would come by from the northern coast of Paramaribo and take him back in a plane to run there.
And everyone would cheer.
And he learned more Dutch. And English.
He was told that most of the books of the world were written in English. This was a good language.
Only three books were written in his native tongue.
One day, that friend of the neighbor clan went to his family and asked if they could send Kwaka to Bloomington for four rainy seasons.
It took two days to explain it clearly, especially to his granfathers and uncles, but they finally all agreed it would be a good thing.
And he went. And there was snow, and basketball, and many funny youth, and beer parties, and loud cars and trucks.
But there were fields and trees and bugs, and even fish in the ponds and streams.
He liked it.
But most of all, his two largest loves were first: beating all those that he ran against, from funny named places like Purdue and Michigan and UCLA, and secondly the libraries at Indiana University campus.
There were bookstores, sure, but the libraries were large and quiet. And he could check out various tomes and read them outside at nearby fields and forests. He would even try to read books that he was not familiar with their language.
Peaceful like his homeland. And he could spend hours there, reading all the books in the world.
And ironically, a few short years later Kwaka went to an event called the Olympics, and he competed in track and field, and he ended up re-writing most of the record books of the running events he competed in.
He was unstoppable.
And five years of that, he went back home to Alalapadu, and he did two things.
He started a track and field program there, with a real paved track...
And he made sure that the largest building in town was built: a voluminous library.
I have lived in a few different sports areas and I am faithful to these places and their passions, give or take. I was born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana (1970-1989). Bob Knight was a central figure. I then lived in Chile for two years, where soccer became more of a presence on my global map. After returning to the Hoosier state one year, 1992, I became more aware of college football for a five year stint in Provo, Utah (1993-1997). BYU Cougar football! I made another return to Indiana from 1997 to 1999, and then spent the last six years in southern California, minus the last six months of 2005, in southern Chile again. And I got back yesterday, UPDATE:Now in Loudoun Cty, Northern VA! I am in the South! I love sports enough to think that they matter...Some how.
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