Tag Archive for: New York Yankees

Dude, It’s Ok!

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As someone who has been involved in youth sports in a variety of capacities, as parent, as coach, and as a general volunteer, I can tell you that we are lucky to live in a Village where teamwork is stressed and sportsmanship is king.  This past weekend, as a matter of fact, I took child #2 to his lacrosse game at a visiting field and was thrilled to see both teams play hard but in a manner that was considerate of each other. Case in point:  my son, the goalie, blocked a shot.  WITH HIS THIGH.  He went down to his knees, his helmeted head on the ground and lay still for a few minutes to wait for the pain to subside.  (And yes, it took every ounce of self control I had not to get up, run across the field, arms flailing, yelling “Honey?  Are you ok?”)  Finally, he got up, a little shaky, and returned to goal.  But before play could resume, the kid on the other team–the one who had taken the shot that had felled my son–walked over and put his arm around my son’s shoulder.  Their conversation went something like this:

“Dude.  I’m sorry.”

“Dude.  It’s ok.”

They are men of few words but the words spoken are enough.

Later, when the other goalie was carried off the field by his coach, having been hit so many times in the knee that he could no longer stand–yes, lacrosse is a rough game–all of the kids on the field, from both teams, went down on one knee and applauded his efforts in goal, inquiring after the game if he was ok.

I admit, I had brought the Sunday papers to the game so I could read during the numerous breaks in the action.  And there are a lot in lacrosse.  I turned to the back page of the paper where sports are reported and saw a headline about the New York Yankees’ catcher, Jorge Posada.  Posada is a long-time member of the team, a crucial part of the Yankee dynasty, but is now 39 years old and a little brittle.  All those years behind the plate, crouched down, take a toll on one’s body.  So this year, he has been relegated to designated hitter status mostly, coming out and hitting in the line up for the pitcher.

Until this past weekend.

It was a crucial three-game series against the Red Sox, the Yankees’ chief nemesis.  (Let me state right here that I am not–and was never–a Yankee fan.  However, I do not go so far as to root for the Red Sox.  I have my limits.)  Posada, hitting in the .160 range–which is bad for those of you who don’t follow baseball–was dropped by manager Joe Girardi to the number nine spot in the batting order.  Back in the day, Posada hit somewhere in the three-to-six range of the line up, so nine was definitely a demotion.  But what Posada did next stunned everyone.

He refused to play.

Thinking that the number nine spot in the line up was some kind of assault on his manhood and pride, he chose instead to bench himself.  He basically took his bat and his ball and went home.

Suffice it to say, this created a stir in the New York sports world.  The manager commented.  The general manager commented.  His teammates commented and some even defended him.  His wife took to Twitter to say that he had a bad back and wasn’t a bad sport.  He later confessed that he didn’t have a bad back, was indeed a bad sport, apologized, and said it would never happen again.

But it happened in the first place and that’s what matters.

I follow New York sports very closely and listen to sports radio a fair amount so I can tell you that in general, Jorge Posada is a nice, upstanding guy.  He does a lot of charity work.  He keeps his nose clean. He has a tight-knit family.  I’m inclined to give him a past because this was clearly an aberration and not his usual classy way of handling things.  But what went wrong in his brain this past weekend to make him do such a bone-headed thing?  I guess it’s pride.  It got the better of him.

The kids and I talked about this and I was happy that neither thought that what he had done was justified. The whole situation was interesting to me, however, because in one weekend, I saw more class and guts from a group of twelve-year-olds on a muddy lacrosse field than from a guy who makes fourteen million dollars a year to go to bat four times in one game, five if the game goes into extra innings.

So this post has nothing to do with writing and I don’t have a question to pose but I wanted to take the opportunity to give a shout-out to the kids out there who put sportsmanship before pride and play hard each and every game.  For free.

Maggie Barbieri

Raise Your Hand if You’re Not a Cheater

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Today we have the delightful showing of Alex Rodriguez’s inaugural apology tour…starting at Spring Training! I was watching the news last night and they announced that regular programming would be cancelled (that means you, “All My Children”) to show Rodriguez’s press conference. If I were an “All My Children” fan—which I was, years ago when I had a lot of free time on my hands (in college)—I would be supremely annoyed. After all, I think it is generally accepted that most people would rather watch Erica Kane marry another man than watch A-Roid malign a writer. Am I right or am I right?

I am fascinated by this whole steroid culture, mostly because I just finished a round of steroids myself to combat the dreaded g-i disturbance. I can tell you that steroids (at least the ones I was on—which are legal in all fifty states) a) make you very irritable, b) make you want to gnaw off your own arm, and c) make you very irritable. (When Roger Clemens claimed before Congress that he had never knowingly taken steroids, my mind returned to the time when he threw a broken bat at Mike Piazza. In my opinion, that was a textbook example of “roid rage.”) My curve ball is wicked, but I also have a fat face and a pot belly from all of the eating I was doing. So the tradeoffs, as far as I’m concerned, do not outweigh the benefits. I suspect that the steroids most professional athletes take have different restorative powers, but I’m wondering what they do with all of the unpleasant side effects like those mentioned above. And, do they, like me, enjoy cleaning their house in fits of energized activity as much as I do? I suspect not. If so, they wouldn’t have time to play ball. After all, there are ceiling fan blades to remove and soak.

I, for one, am interested by what Mr. A-Roid has to say. After all, this is the man who employed the “shoot the messenger” approach by accusing the woman who wrote the story in the first place—Selena Roberts of Sports Illustrated—of being a “stalker,” a charge that he said he could prove, but then failed to when pressed. He may employ the old tried and true “but I didn’t know what I was taking” or “I thought it was an herbal supplement” which, to my mind, is as lame as excuse as any. If you made your living from using your body like a professional athlete does, wouldn’t you take the time to find out what you were ingesting or shooting up?

Our local paper had several articles in it today and one in particular that detailed the number of teammates who were going to attend the press conference in a show of support. Now I’m not saying that there doesn’t come a time when you “forgive and forget” but think about how you would feel about a co-worker whose cheating and off-site antics cast long shadows of negativity on your workplace? Would you be so quick to stand up for that person, particularly if you were a clean-living, hard-working employee? Or should I give into my suspicious nature and believe that all of these guys are on steroids and have to back each other up because their time is coming soon? I hope not.

I’m not a Yankee fan, but I’m not a Yankee hater either. I’m sure that the team I root for has its share of users; only time will tell. But I do have a fervent wish that my children were growing up in a time where they could admire their sports heroes, not be suspicious or disappointed by them on a regular basis. I will admit that it used to be exciting when a lot of these guys who we now know used steroids came to the plate. It’s exciting to see home runs be hit, and records be broken. It’s exciting to see athletes run faster, jump farther, and throw harder. But not when they’ve had help.

I’ll let you know what Mr. Rodriguez has to say. It better be worth missing Erica Kane and her hijinks.

Maggie Barbieri