Bored & (sometimes) Witty

I know I should be getting dressed so I can go clean my *empty* apartment, but instead, I chose to sip my morning cup of coffee from the comfort of my father’s recliner since he’d already left for work and watch SportsCenter. Everything checks out, right? Wrong.

I’m watching the Rays post game highlights (I had seen the Red Sox the night before- boo) and they are celebrating with champagne and whatnot. Great. I can get on board with that. Yes, it’s exciting but don’t forget you still have the Championship Series to play so you’re not there yet. After the AL/NLCS, go crazy because that will mean that you are the league champion. Then after the World Series, go nuts. But I digress.

So I’m watching the highlights, and I have to wonder: what is the deal with the effing goggles that the MLB players are wearing to celebrate their victory into the AL/NLCS? Goggles? Are you kidding me? Unless your name is Michael Phelps, take those things off,  baseball players!

I mean, I’m sure that champagne stings a little when it gets in your eyes, but this is the first year that I recall goggles being brought out. I’m pretty sure baseball has celebrated the same way for literally years and goggles were not part of the celebration. Wouldn’t the stinging of champagne be part of the celebration anyhow?

I don’t know if I everyone has heard my diatribe on how the country is getting soft, what with this whole “everyone gets a trophy in T-ball” and “hey little Jimmy, it’s ok that you sucked, I know you tried” which in turn usually means that little Jimmy grows up and becomes an adult in the real world and *surprise* the real world doesn’t care how hard you tried but whether or not you got the job done. Little Jimmy is left wondering why his boss doesn’t like his effort around the office because, after all, he is trying [shaking my head in disgust]. But it’s getting out of hand and professional baseball players wearing goggles proves it. That means that amid celebratory hugs and jumping up and down, they had to pause and put goggles on. Absurd.

When I was in college, I heard about “helicopter parents” who are those parents that do everything for their kids, down to going to their college advisors and petitioning to get into a class. I was appalled. Who are these kids that allow the parents to do that when they are in college? Who are the parents that want to do that. Holy hell, Batman! They are the same parents that don’t understand that winning and losing have different, but equally valuable lessons. The same parents that don’t teach the value of losing because they overshadow the losing lesson with the “you gave it your best effort.”

Don’t get me wrong, I fully comprehend the importance of having fun and trying your best, but at the end of the day, learning to lose and facing up to the fact that you are not the best, will make one work harder the next time around. I should pause a moment to give a shout out to Tom and Molly for being very good at feeding me a balanced diet of “you tried hard, but if you want to be better, what can we do to improve?” They never told me that I wasn’t the best because it was not a comparison to other people, but rather a look at me the individual (as opposed to saying “what can we do to make you better than everyone else”).

This, in turn, found me in the garage, hitting into a sleeping bag which served as a makeshift batting cage when we were growing up, while my dad stood on a ladder and dropped a tennis ball down to me, teaching me to get my timing down (it’s a handy drill, you should try it). Then, not only was the effort there, but I improved myself, thus coming to appreciate the work ethic and leading to my inevitable victory over the off-speed pitch.

Instead, parents and others are babying the youth of America, telling them that it’s their effort that is most important. I totally agree that effort is extremely important, but along with that, so it differientiating between effort that leads to victory and a half-assed attempts that are becoming more and more acceptable.

Well I got news for you. The doted-on-youth-of-America just grew up and the result is a Major League Baseball player who wear goggles to keep celebratory champagne out of his eyes. Suck it up, men!

I’m in no way saying that baseball players don’t work hard. They do and to be playing at the level at which they are means they have it. ‘It’ being that fire and passion along with skill, but goggles? Come on men! The stinging will feel better when it stops hurtin’!

I’m so disgusted.

What a bunch of pansies. I would call them something else but that’s just inappropriate, though deserved.