Weight Training for Sports

Archive for March, 2010

I’m quite sure there are baseball fans which are more enthusiastic and dedicated to the game than myself, but you’d be hard pressed to knock me out of the top ten.

I’ve lived and breathed baseball my entire life, playing, coaching then teaching, attempting to pour out every bit of information I was blessed to safe guard for future generations given me by a generation passed.

As a homegrown rabid St. Louis Cardinal baseball fan I find myself in quite a quandary this season, although not directly about my beloved Cardinals, who are holding their own despite a bullpen which has crashed and burned lately, but indirectly.

The issue of an unsettled Albert Pujos contract has been weighing heavily on my mind and have released internal conflicts which I am battling and I’m having a real difficult tug of war with my basic beliefs in life.

Here’s the deal. Do I think any baseball player is worth the money Albert is demanding in his new contract? As I ponder how in the world I’m going to keep gasoline in my truck after the Oil gods have ripped me off, again and again…I simply say “No.” I don’t believe anyone in the world is worth that kind of money.

But then I try to bring the astronomical figures down to real life wages, something I can wrap my mind around, and everything changes. If I’m a plumber making $50 and hour (No, not Joe the plumber) and another plumber working for another employer is making $100 an hour and only puts out half the work I do, would I feel slighted? Yes, of course I would and so would everyone else in the situation. Right?

That is until the $7 an hour retail clerk reads about me crying because I’m only making $50 an hour. That person shakes their head, mutters a few choice words about how selfish and greedy I am, then goes on about their mundane job.

When you bring the issue down to those terms, it does reflect a different light on the subject. The adage “I felt sorry for myself because I didn’t have new shoes, then saw a man who had no feet” definitely makes one step back and review his thoughts.

As I stand looking down at the raging and rising Mississippi River, I say a quick prayer for those in New Orleans and come to the conclusion I am very sad about baseball, but not because of the money someone has or doesn’t have.

It’s just, I can’t imagine Lou Gehrig or Babe Ruth in any uniform other than the stripes of the Yankees, or Stan the Man not being in a Cardinal uniform. Some things are meant to go together, like peanut butter and jelly and to lose Jelly to a higher bidder is unthinkable.

I can’t fathom Albert Pujos in any baseball uniform other than the St. Louis Cardinals, but if money destroys this vision; well, I guess baseball has become no different than Wall Street or the NFL owners.

Pakistan, South Africa in the fifth and final ODI on November 8 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium in Dubai. You can watch Pakistan v South Africa fifth ODI cricket match live is 11:00 GMT.

The series is locked at two games each and the stage is set for an exciting series climax.The is a kind of yo-yo with the South Africans won the first three ODIs and with the Pakistanis when Graeme Smith pulled back, tried to half-chair push the initiative.

However, both victories, the Pakistanis have been achieved largely by brilliances individual and seem to make a better decision maker teamwork. In addition, the Proteas are notoriously “choker” long and Shahid Afridi would be willing to exploit their perceived defects.

The series is locked at two games each and the stage is set for an exciting series climax.The is a kind of yo-yo with the South Africans won the first three ODIs and with the Pakistanis when Graeme Smith pulled back, tried to half-chair push the initiative.

The teams are as follows

Pakistan : 1 Imran Farhat, 2 Mohammad Hafeez, 3 Younis Khan, 4 Asad Shafiq, 5 Fawad Alam, 6 Shahid Afridi (capt), 7 Abdul Razzaq, 8 Abdur Rehman, 9 Zulqarnain Haider (wk), 10 Wahab Riaz, 11 Shoaib Akhtar

South Africa : 1 Graeme Smith (capt), 2 Hashim Amla, 3 Jacques Kallis, 4 AB de Villiers (wk), 5 JP Duminy, 6 Colin Ingram, 7 David Miller 8 Johan Botha, 9 Dale Steyn, 10 Morne Morkel, 11 Rusty Theron

Waqar Younis, the Pakistan coach, seemed pleased with the performance of his bowlers in the 4th ODI and will expect them to restrict the South African batting once again. Zulqarnain Haider and Wahab Riaz were two young players who played crucial cameos in Pakistan’s victory on Friday and were singled out by skipper Afridi.

BasketBall

The history of basketball finds it way back to the year 1891. It was a Canadian physical education instructor by the name of James Naismith who introduced the game of basketball to the world. He was born in Ontario and taught physical education at McGill University and Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts. James Naismith, during his stint with Springfield College, a YMCA training school during that time, invented the indoor sport with able support and guidance from the American phys-ed specialist Luther Hasley.

The game commenced with 18 men at Springfield College in Massachusetts. Naismith was given a deadline of 14 days to create an indoor game that would provide “an athletic distraction” (in the words of Hasley) to the nasty and disorderly class. It was a tough call for Naismith, who had to exercise a lot of patience and infuse positive enthusiasm into the minds of his students to engage in an outdoor game that was to be played indoors in the best way possible. He recalled a game he used to play as a child and improvised on its concept.

Naismith was instrumental in laying down 13 rules for the basketball game. The rules stated that the ball should be thrown in any direction with one or both hands. He made it clear that a person could not run with the ball. The player should throw it from the place from which he caught the ball in the first place.  Players had to refrain from using the fist when handling or batting the ball. He had termed shouldering, holding, tripping, pushing or striking in any way of an opponent as a foul in the first instance. If things of this nature happened the second time, the person who caused the infringement of the rule would be disqualified or would not be substituted at all. If any side made three consecutive fouls, it was to be counted as a goal for the opposing side.

Naismith also made it clear that if the ball went out of bounds, it had to be thrown into the field of play by the person touching it. This player had the right to hold the ball for only five seconds. If held longer, the chance to throw went to the opposing side.  He gave special importance to the umpire who had to judge the player and report to the referee when players made three consecutive fouls. He defined the time period of the game as being comprised of two fifteen-minute halves with fifteen minutes breaks in between. Naismith concluded that the side making the most goals was to be termed as winner.

The game caught the fancy of the YMCA class and the popularity of the game grew, though Naismith quietly shied away from taking any credit for his invention.  He wanted the game to be enjoyed as a recreational activity, but he never imagined that the game would soon develop into a passionate and intensely competitive sport. Naismith’s moment of glory came, however, when he was invited by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) to witness basketball become an Olympic sport at the 1936 games in Berlin. He passed away in 1939 and since then the game has grown in fame and prosperity the world over. In 1959, James Naismith entered the Basketball Hall of Fame (called the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame)

The first formal rules for the game were introduced in 1895. It was not until 1897 that teams of five players on each side became standard in the history of basketball.  Iron hoops and a hammock style basket came into existence in 1893. A decade later, open-ended nets came into existence, which did away with the practice of manually retrieving the ball from the basket each time a goal was made.  After the end of World War II, there was a need to infuse sports entertainment into the large sports arenas during the times not occupied by pro hockey and college basketball games

. This gave rise to the history of basketball in its pure, professional championship format.

Walter Brown of Boston introduced professional basketball in the form of the Basketball Association of America in the summer of 1946. The esteemed members of the new league were New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Washington, Detroit, Chicago, Providence, Toronto, St. Louis, and Boston.   The league played in big arenas in large cities but the players were not as talented as the ones in the National Basketball League, the recognized league operating chiefly in smaller cities in the Midwest. However, some people from the NBL joined the fray and the strength of B.A.A picked up as college stars and fresh young talent entered the league. The regular season started and the Washington Capitols were the clear winners in the Eastern Division, with the Philadelphia Warriors taking second place and the New York Knickerbockers grabbing the third and final playoff spot.

The Western Division had the Chicago Stags narrowly edging out the St.Louis Bombers with a one-gain tiebreaker at the end of the regular season. The Cleveland Rebels acquired the third playoff spot.  The playoff system devised by the league pitted the first ranking teams, the second ranking teams and the third ranking teams against each other in the opening round. The games began with the Stags usurping the Caps in six games and Philadelphia outdoing St. Louis in a three-game showdown of second-place finishers, while New York defeated Cleveland in three games in the third bracket. The Warriors defeated the Knicks to move into the finals with the Stags.

The finals of the first championship of BAA (the present day NBA) opened in Philadelphia with Joe Fulks scoring 37 points, leading his Warriors to a victory against the Stags. Though the Stags won the fourth game, the Warriors won the overall title with an 83-80 victory with a 34-point contribution from Fulks. Howie Dallmar is credited with hitting the winning basket to break an 80-80 tie, with only a minute left before the finish of the game. 

The history of Basketball has witnessed a lot of landmark events that have increased the popularity of the game to dizzying heights. It is almost a second religion to the sport-loving people in the US. No doubt, basketball is heralded as a sport that gives a healthy balance to the physical, mental and spiritual state. This is truly the game that keeps you on your toes!