Growing up..

Growing up in a single parent home for most of my childhood, I was left to decide whether or not I wanted to play sports. I played in a recreation league in football, basketball and baseball. My father nor my mother forced me to play any sports. They did not want me staying at home all day either, but they never made me go out for teams in any sport. I was influenced by the players on the television, my brother, and I liked talking sports with my father. My friends that I grew up with were older than me and they influenced me as well. Sports was a good thing and being a fan of brash and cocky players was okay too because they were usually the best players on the field or court. Reggie Jackson comes to mind. Micheal Jordan, the 86 Mets, Lawrence Taylor, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes and of course the Greatest! Jon McEnroe is another. The point is I loved playing sports because of what it gave me. It gave me pride, it made me feel important, it made me feel like I was a part of something, it increased my self esteem. Sports also has been a huge reason for some of the jobs I have gotten. I was on a sports trivia show because of my knowledge and I have been on other sports shows because of my passion.
The point of my self serving monologue is I don't know what has happened to our youth today. They would rather play video games or skateboard that pick up a basketball or baseball. These kids are so disinterested in playing sports. they have no passion to play or even learn about the game. One of the biggest reason why kids are so fat today is that they don't want to leave their homes and play sports at all. They will go to a friends home and play video games but break a sweat, you must be crazy. Now today there are games where kids can break a sweat and most kids will play those games when they are younger, but our youths today would rather learn how to get girls, buy drugs, or shoot someone than learn how to throw a baseball or play football. It is sad that young black kids don't even bother playing baseball anymore. When a sport has to go out and purchase fields with the hope of having kids playing on them, that is a problem. The funny thing is that baseball can provide more opportunities than bot football and basketball. Football may 47 to 53 roster spots on a team, but most of the jobs are race specific. Although that may be changing, I don't recall counting more than 3 white running backs and maybe 5 or 6 white wide receivers in the NFL who are actually doing anything. Don't get me started on other positions. The point is why has baseball been so forgotten. Barry Bonds cannot be blamed for kids not wanting to play baseball. Steroids is not a reason either. There is more money in baseball than any sport in this country. Soccer makes more money globally but the money is in baseball. Tiger isn't taking kids away from baseball. People may want to watch golf on a Sunday when Tiger is in contention before they watch a baseball game, but no one I grew up with can afford golf clubs. Lebron and Kobe are taking kids away from baseball, but they are only continuing what Jordan, and Dr.J did before them. I wrote a blog a while ago about how kids think that if they can dunk, they are good players. Well that is only true if you can make the dunk or get to the rim and be able to dunk.
My baseball team cares about as much about playing baseball as I do about eating my favorite sausage and pepper sandwich ten times a day. My job is to get them to play better and catch the ball. That is it. My job is to motivate them to want to win. I don't know what else I can do...