No Sympathy

In the last few days I have heard the following phrase being tossed around a lot, "Innocent until proven guilty". Specifically, it has been thrown around in relation to professional athletes and their behavior regarding the law. I have been told that Barry Bonds, Michael Vick, and "Pacman" Jones should be treated better and deserve to have judgment saved until their court cases are resolved. I am sorry but I don't feel that that is an appropriate response. Yes, I believe every person in the world accused of a crime deserves a fair trial. But somehow, I am supposed to believe that these athletes deserve to have judgment not cast upon them. How many people do I see that commit crimes that are instantly chastised before they have a trial? Tons! And when you are in a high profile environment, such as Professional Sports, you need to go in understanding that you are being watched and scrutinized by MILLIONS.

Nothing Barry Bonds will ever say will lead me to believe that he did NOT use steroids. For this reason, Hank Aaron will be the Home Run King in my book. I don't care if Bonds hits 1,000 home runs. He will still be a cheating hack (who frankly acts like a jerk and then tries to accuse the media of picking on him) who wouldn't admit to cheating. Maybe Michael Vick didn't run a dog fighting ring, but if he didn't he should be sent to jail for being a horrible dog owner. There is no logical way that someone goes through 40+ dogs by the time they are 30. If they do, they aren't a very good dog owner. Even if you adopt 10 senior dogs at a time, it is really hard to burn through 40 (especially considering they were found at his house he built AFTER college).

If you are a pro athlete, you need to watch your back even more. And because you have money, you should be able to do that. Hire a driver. Then you can drink your heart out at a club and not drive home drunk. When you are going out of your house, don't bring a gun. If you are worried about your safety, hire security or call the police. The greatest thing lacking in Pro Sports right now is common sense. Maybe we need to start requiring athletes to finish school and with a 2.9 GPA.

Inspiring 10 year-olds

This past weekend I had the honor and privilege of being an Assistant Coach with the Minnetonka Magic. They are the 10U Fastpitch Softball Team that I have been an Assistant for all year (4 month season!). I have been with them through league games, scrimmages, practices, and tournaments. Well this weekend was the tournament of all tournaments! The girls played in the Northern League National Tournament. After getting seeded in the Silver Division they lost their first game in a tough battle. They bounced back to win their second game 9-6. Then came the next game. They would be playing another team from Minnetonka that was comprised of members of 3 different teams from the city. Our team played so well this season that we earned the right to play in the tournament as is. The other teams had to divide up to claim the other 2 team spots earned by Minnetonka Softball program.

The Magic fought hard for 80 minutes/5.1 innings. Our started was out of gas, bases were loaded. In comes our other pitcher. Gets the 2 outs and doesn't allow any runs. Being the visiting team, we are now up to bat in International Rules Extra Innings. We unfortunately are unable to plate a run and the other team comes up. After fighting hard to get the 2 outs there are runners on the corners. Batter hits the ball, throw is to the plate, runner slides in under the tag and the game is over.

This may sound like a disappointing end to a fantastic season (I believe the official record is 34-12) but it was really an inspirational end to the season for me. These 10 year-olds played their hearts out all season over coming slumps, bad calls, and injuries. They had a few different moments where they were backed up against the wall and fought hard to keep going. In the state tournament they lost a game and proceeded to play 6 games in one day fighting to finish 3rd coming from behind to win in 4 of those games. They played the whole season with class and energy. They were good sports and became one of the greatest teams I have ever seen. And so when they are older talking about when they were 10 playing in the National Tournament and telling stories about their amazing season I am glad that I was, in some small way, a part of it.

Magic here, Magic there, Magic everywhere! Poof There it is!

Sweat, Packing, and Cleaning

Let me begin by recommending that all people who need to move do so when it is not hot and humid out. I am dripping with sweat and just feel disgusting, but I can't take a shower yet because I will just sweat more and have to take another one. So I am waiting as long as I can.

Getting to my thought for the day. I have been taking magazine and newspaper after newspaper and magazine to the recycling bin here and I have been packing books into boxes and cleaning my apartment as I go. But for some reason, my place seems to have more stuff and is messier than ever. I am led to believe that every time I take a trip to the bin, a neighbor comes in and throws their crap everywhere so I have to clean it up. That is the only logical conclusion I can come to at this heat stroke induced point.

Oh yeah, and I recommend against hording. It is a pain in the butt when you need to move.

Thoughts for Monday

I am going to try and push through the obvious thoughts of the fact that it is currently 85 degrees and extremely muggy in my apartment and I am not going to turn on my electricity hog of an AC. I have had all sorts of thoughts in the past 2 months since I posted (bad me) and I am trying to figure out what direction I am going to head.

Right now the most prevalent think on my mind is another blog. Me being me, I get addicted to something and then inevitably something else comes along and then I get busy and forget about said addiction. These are usually CDs, webpages, and TV shows. I had for a long time been reading the blog of my friend's husband. Like I said, get busy or distracted and completely forgot about it (which is sad because it is really well written). Well I ran into my friend and her husband at a wedding. It reminded me how good his blog is and how I need to get back on track reading it. Fortunately, I have done this. He is truly an insightful, intelligent, and humorous guy and I love reading his blog. But that is not what I wanted to write about. No, seeing him at the wedding was a little difficult for me. Her husband has ALS aka Lou Gehrig's Disease. My grandma had ALS and passed away my senior year of college. Now, I knew that my grandma wouldn't live forever but this disease is a cruel, cruel disease. You see, ALS is a terrorist disease. It takes a perfectly functional brain and holds it hostage as it slowly shuts down the body. To explain it in clearer terms... When you are diagnosed with ALS your brain does not lose function, but your body does. Slowly your legs lose their ability to work, then it works its way north. You lose function of your hands and arms, your ability to speak, your ability to swallow and eventually your ability to breathe. Again, this whole time the brain functions just like nothing has happened.

The reason it was slightly hard to see him was first I know that there are some undeniable facts. 1) This disease is going to take his life at some point (unless science decides to find a cure and quit trying to solve old men's inability to get an erection. Also side note, this would be a good reason to support stem cell research, tell your politicians unless of course you enjoy letting productive members of society die). 2) If 1 happens, then his wife will have to go through the mourning of having the love of your life go. And I am a firm believer that if you are married for a year or 60 years, it is never easy to lose your spouse. 3) It brought back the memories of my grandma passing. And how painful it was to watch as bit by bit she died. Nobody deserves to have that happen to their body and no family member deserves to have to watch it happen to a family member.

But their was something uplifting about seeing my friend and her husband as well. Seeing the love they had for each other was so uplifting. I can only hope that some day I find a woman that loves me as much as she loves him and vice versa. Her husband and I had a good conversation about writing and about the other woman in his life (the computer program that allows him to write his blog which apparently has a female voice and has been named Erica). Upon returning home, I have had the enjoyment of catching up on his blog and exchanging a few emails concerning our favorite baseball team (true baseball fans cheer for the Cubs, to hell with the Yankees). Through seeing him and talking with him, my passion for promoting ALS research has been reignited and I hope that you too will help fight this awful disease.

Please go here for more information on the disease and how to help go here.

I have also been inspired to be more diligent about keeping this up to date (at least one post per week).
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