Although the Detroit Tigers lost today and it feels as though my heart was stomped on, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The Tigers were expected to be cellar dwellers before the start of the ’09 baseball season. They played extremely well this year and were just a few outs from making the playoffs. It just wasn’t meant to be I guess. There is always next year. Spring training is just around the corner.
When your team has a two game lead in the AL Central with three games to go until the end of the season and they lose you can’t help but ask yourself what did I do for this to happen. Maybe I should’ve prayed a little bit more. Was I sitting on the correct side of the sofa? Was it because I wasn’t wearing my Tigers hat? Perhaps I should have been nicer to my coworkers? Is it karma? All true sports fans ask themselves this I am sure. I cannot be the only that lives through this sports misery. The Tigers still have a one game lead with two more to go against the White Sox. They win the next two games and they win the AL Central. If the Tigers lose their next two games and the Twins lose their next two games, the Tigers win the AL Central. If the Tigers get swept and the Twins sweep, I will be miserable until the Spring.
Things that have me thinking are the following:
» Is homework really such a bad thing? Is it possible for students to be successful if they don’t do homework. I’ve never been one to assign tons and tons of homework but how much can it hurt to practice just a bit at home. Why do some parents refuse to be accountable for the learning of their children? It’s their child. Why does everything fall on someone else and never on them. It’s outrageous at times how parents behave.
» Who came up with the idiotic idea of teaching a math lesson a day? Pacing calendars are necessary but a lesson a day? You can’t expect learning to take place like that.
» Is school accountability wrong? Why do we get clumped together as a whole in regards to test scores? Why not do this by grade level. I think that would be a more effective. Why do I get test scores three months after the kids took the test. Can’t I get a sneak peek? Last year I think I got a teacher report card. This year I recieved nothing. Did the budget cuts affect this?
» Is it evil if I start “teaching to the test” while at the same time making education fun? Is that a good compromise? More science experiments! Chess! Podcasts! Webcasts!
» As a parent it must be tough to accept that not all your kids have the same abilities but at what point do you accept that reality? Not every sibling is exactly the same and each one has various strengths. Why not accept it?
» Finally, why is it that I don’t see more crazy kids having fun outside? This past Sunday afternoon we were driving back into town and we some kids banging away on a drum. We slowed down to see what was up and we got a much needed laugh. The kids are future musicians!
Somewhere on the tele I heard a talking head describe how much Americans loved baseball. In what other sport do people know who holds the home run record (Hank Aaron in my opinion but it is more than fair to say that Josh Gibson probably hit more HR’s than the Aaron and Babe Ruth in the Negro Leagues), stolen base record (Ricky Henderson), and who won the ’84 World Series (the Detroit Tigers). Ask who the sack leader in football is and no one knows nor cares beyond that immediate season. Baseball fans know their sport. Perhaps some study the sport too much (sabermetrics). Another thing is that regardless of whether your team stinks or not you are loyal to your team and to its players. As a kid my favorite ball player was Alan Trammell, shortstop for the Tigers. My family lived down the street from old Tiger Stadium and the chances that I got to go to the games with my dad were heaven. Like Arjona says about your parents: “te heredan sus complejos, Iglesia y hasta equipo de futbol.” I don’t mind at all inheriting the Tigers as a team, bundled with all the issues up i my head. There’s meaning when you follow your hometown team and not because of the uniform or some other lame reason.
Baseball is democracy in action: In it all men are “free and equal,” regardless of race, nationality or creed. Every man is given the rightful opportunity to rise to the top on his own merits…It is the fullest expression of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly in our national life.
-Francis Trevelyan Miller
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a married/ pedagogue/beisbol fanatico/gardener/south paw live from Porterville, California
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