Sunday, October 26, 2014

Mo’Ne Davis Throws Out First Pitch in World Series – A Glimpse of Things to Come?

First appeared on Blogccritics.

moe 1 Mo’Ne Davis, a 13-year-old girl from Philadelphia, threw out the first pitch in the fourth game of the 2014 World Series between the Kansas City Royals and the San Francisco Giants. That may in and of itself be something to pull this low-rated contest out of the TV doldrums, but it carries more significance than merely a bright young person coming into the spotlight for a few seconds in a largely ceremonial role.

In case you weren’t following the news this summer, Mo’Ne captured the attention of the nation by pitching like Nolan Ryan to get her team, the Taney Dragons of Tom’s River, New Jersey, into the Little League World Series. She gained fame by pitching a complete game three hitter (a shutout no less) to get her team there. She suddenly was in all the papers, on TV, and got the cover of Sports Illustrated. Not bad at all for a “girl” who decided to compete and succeed in a notoriously “boy’s” venue.

moe 3So now Mo’Ne takes center stage at the Major League Baseball World Series. MLB, and sports in general, can use more of Mo’Ne and stories like hers. Her vibrant, youthful, and enthusiastic appearance (she threw a perfect strike by the way) helps people everywhere forget about steroids, players behaving badly, and professional leagues unwilling or unable to address festering problems that are lingering as people watch every contest, like a nefarious presence lurking under the grass on the field.

What makes Mo’Ne more than special is that she defied a general consensus that girls don’t do that kind of thing. For my 13-year-old daughter – who loves soccer and sees herself as a future Mia Hamm – Mo’Ne is great role model and example of what a girl can aspire to do in sports. If Mo’Ne can get to the World Series to throw out the first pitch, what does her future hold? Perhaps she will grow up and be the first female to break the barrier in MLB and get a serious shot at playing on the field. Even if my daughter doesn’t play baseball, this can make her think of not just being the next Hamm but perhaps getting to be on the pitch with male counterparts someday, if that’s what she wants.

Professional sports are a good deal like politics – basically a testosterone fueled dance over the course of history. Only in a world where men rule most countries could we have so many wars, so much oppression, so little compassion, and a distinctly bleak outlook as we are faced with diseases, terrorism, war, and poverty. Since men have messed up for so many years, perhaps it’s time to let female leaders take over and have a go at it. My thought is that they cannot do any worse and probably could do a whole lot better.

This takes us back to professional sports – an arena that men have continued to destroy through arrogance, greed, and ignorance. It is hard to argue that the males in charge of the National Football League (and the men who take the field for them) have not taken the most lucrative professional sport in the world and turned it into a charnel of embarrassment involving all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors. The attempts to “save” the NFL have mostly involved Little Dutch Boy initiatives, with Commissioner Roger Goodell looking decidedly inept, with his thumb jammed in one hole in the dyke while new leaks are sprouting everywhere. The men who get rich in the NFL should wake up before good Roger is swept away in a wave that could take the league down with him.

moe 2The “you throw like a girl” mentality is completely lost on Mo’Ne Davis. You know she must have heard it all, must have faced the questions and the looks of disbelief as she stepped onto fields with boys to play against boys. You have to admire her tenacity, her courage, and grit in taking on the naysayers to get where she has already gone, but now it is beyond getting her to that point. She has performed remarkably and that should open doors, not just for her but for little girls everywhere who pick up a baseball. Instead of saying “never” to themselves when thinking about playing, because of Mo’Ne, they will say “Why not?”

I believe people want to see professional sports reinvigorated in some way, and wouldn’t it be great to see extremely capable female athletes getting an opportunity to compete against males in all sports? I for one would love to see a match between Serena Williams and Roger Federer. Wouldn’t it be exciting to see players from the WNBA play a game against NBA players? What does anyone have to lose from allowing such contests but their preconceived notions and cultural chains.

I have always heard naysayers throwing out things like, “Girls will get hurt” or “girls can’t rise to that level of play.” Well, why don’t we give girls an opportunity to try out and see what happens? What does anyone have to lose? There are more Mo’Ne Davises out there waiting to get their chance, and they deserve it. 

Mo’Ne Davis is already a female Jackie Robinson, a breaker of barriers and game changer on the Little League level. She has given girls hope and opened the eyes of males who used to think girls should just try out for the cheerleading squad. Thank you, Mo’Ne Davis, because of you the meaning of the words “You throw like a girl” will never be the same again.


  Photo credits: AP, People

Monday, October 13, 2014

Columbus Day – Talking to Kids About the Explorer

First appeared on Blogcritics.

columb 3 My son came home from school on the Friday before Columbus Day – no doubt like kids in many places in America – carrying a little art project about Columbus and having a story to tell about the explorer. As he told me what he had learned, which basically followed the longtime tale that I heard as a kid, I felt compelled to talk to him about it, but I wanted to handle it carefully because I know he is young and certain things would not be appropriate to say at this time.

Columbus Day follows a tradition that has gone on for a long time now, as it has been officially recognized since 1892 when President Benjamin Harrison marked the day to be celebrated on the 400th anniversary of Columbus landing in the Bahamas. It became a federal holiday in 1934 thanks to Italian-Americans pressing President Franklin D. Roosevelt to make it official. In 1970 President Richard Nixon approved the day being celebrated on the second Monday of October.

Over the years since some states have notably changed the day to be one of observance for Native Americans, or as in the case of Hawaii it is known as Discovers’ Day. There is a trend to look at Columbus as not some great explorer but rather a plunderer, an enslaver, and a murderer. That is not a story you want to tell a five-year-old, but then there is the opposing view that glorifies Columbus as brave adventurer on a mission to spread Christianity and European civilization. That is difficult, however, for Native Americans who can make the case for having developed an advanced culture of their own, not needing Colombus’s religion or civilization.

So as you stare into the innocent face of your child, what can you say about Columbus that will not dampen his or her enthusiasm about what was learned in school but still touch upon some of the truth you know? Well, for one thing, I explained that Columbus came from the same city in Italy as my father’s ancestors. My son liked the word “Genoa” very much and kept repeating it. I also said that Columbus was very brave to take small ships out on a vast ocean, and that there is great truth in the notion that his “discovery” changed the world forever.

columb 1I also went on to tell him about the Native Americans whom Columbus mistakenly called “Indians.” I explained that this was their land, that they welcomed Columbus but didn’t expect him to take what was theirs. I gave him an example: what if some strangers came to our house and we welcomed them, but then they decided to not only stay but also to push us out of the house? He said, “That wouldn’t be fair.” And, of course, that is more than true.

We then looked at a couple of things online, and I showed him some pictures of Columbus, like this one of him landing in the “New World.” I tried to explain that the Native Americans had lived here for thousands of years before Columbus came, and that they were friendly until they realized that Columbus wanted gold and more gold, that some of their people were taken as slaves, and that they were taught a religion that they never wanted or needed. This, of course, would lead to battles between both sides, and some people would say that the “Indians” were bad, but many people would consider the situation and think the men that kept coming after Columbus were the bad ones.

We left it at that and went on to other games to play and stories to read. I treaded carefully because I didn’t want him going back to school and disputing anything that his teacher had said. I did feel obligated to tell him a little something more because I want to be honest with my children, and I always consider parents as their children’s first teachers, so it is my obligation to set him straight not only now  for the rest of his life.

As adults we can have conflicted feelings about Columbus ourselves, and why not? We can see him as either a daring explorer who set out like a 15th century Captain Kirk to go “where no man had gone before,” or we can see him as an inept navigator who grossly underestimated the size of the earth and the distance across the ocean. Columbus did want to spread Christianity and felt it was his call to do so, but he also sought gold as tribute and brutally enslaved Native Americans (though some would argue that he exclusively did this with the Carib tribes that were cannibals and brutal in their own right).

columb 2So do we look at Columbus as the guy who gallantly went before King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and wooed them with an orange (or apple depending on the story) to prove the world was round? Or should we see him as the precursor of the explorers to follow that would rampage across the Americas, murdering, spreading disease, and plundering the wealth they found? Was he so totally incompetent that he insisted on calling the natives he encountered “Indians,” even though he must have surely known that he had never reached the shores of India; or did he know what he was doing – setting the stage for more extensive colonization of this new land and acquiring wealth and fame in the process?

One thing I have done to get to know more is reading a collection of Columbus’s journals. Surprisingly, Columbus was quite a fine writer; very florid and descriptive language captures the time and place so very well, so assiduously, that I had trouble stopping myself from reading. It is hard to argue that Columbus did not think he was doing the right thing as I read his own words, especially as he starts out the journal with the words “In the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is clear that he felt he was on a divine mission of some kind, but we also know that some of the worst atrocities in history have been done in the “service” of religion.

So talking to our kids about Columbus and other figures in history can be daunting, but there is also an obligation we have to make sure they know different stories than what they are taught, no matter how inconvenient it may be to tell them. Depending on their ages, kids can handle more than we think, and it’s about getting the conversation started at the appropriate level. We are always our children’s first teachers, and we owe them more than standard history lessons – we owe them the truth.

  Photo credits: christopher-columbus.eu, armchairgeneral.com  

Sunday, October 5, 2014

NFL Means ‘No Football Leagues’ For My Kids

First appeared on Blogcritics.

foot 1My 15 year old nephew broke his leg playing football this weekend. Now, even before this happened, I was planning to write this article based on my worries about my own kids playing the game. His injury just confirms my worst fears about a game I love to watch but do not want to see my children – or any kids in my family – play.

This worry of mine goes back to my getting hurt playing football when I was a teenager. I can remember the play as if it happened an hour ago. All the surroundings are vivid in my mind – the blazing red and orange leaves falling from the trees, the cool autumn wind blowing over the field, and the ball leaving the quarterback’s hand heading in my direction. I never caught the ball because the guy who tackled me crushed his helmet into my lower back, knocking my legs out from under me. I remember lying there on the grass, staring up at the cruel blue sky and seeing a dark bird that seemed like a vulture checking me out.

All these years later my back still hurts – a car accident seven years ago reinjured the same area of my back to make things worse. Now I see my nephew lying in a hospital bed with a cast covering his foot and going all the way up to his groin, and I figure that he will now have to deal with rehabbing it, and hopefully it won’t hinder him for the rest of his life as my back has. But I am also hoping he got a message loud and clear – no more football.

Football has been getting a bad rap these days with NFL players behaving like criminals. We all know their names and their alleged misdeeds (no need to rehash that here), and no matter how much we fans of the game want to spin it, we are a long, long way from the feel good days of Mean Joe Green sharing his Coca-Cola with a young fan in a TV commercial. There have just been too many incidents, and the stench goes all the way up to the top – Commissioner Roger Goodell is sitting on top of one messy heap of trouble.

foot 2But none of that has to do with why I say “NFL” for my kids – “No Football Leagues.” A lot of it has to do with my own injury, and injuries to friends and relatives over the years. Then what inspired me to want to write the story was the tale of a teenage Long Island football player who died after being injured in a game.

When I see the picture of young Tom Cutinella, I think of my family members and my own kids and I know that I don’t want them near the gridiron now or in the future. Tom’s picture has been in all the newspapers and on TV, but my nephew’s photo has just circulated among the family. They were just two teenagers who got hurt playing football, but despite his horrendous injury my nephew got lucky – it could be much worse.

foot 3My kids both play soccer now, and I am under no illusions that they cannot get hurt in that game either (anyone watching the recent World Cup matches knows how those players get hurt too), but the nature of the game is not shock and awe; it does not have a grind-into-the-ground philosophy. Just watch any National Football League game and you are going to see aggression that is worthy of the battlefield, and how often do we need to see NFL players getting carried off the field on stretchers to know that this is not the best game for men to play let alone children?

I recently read an article in which a youth league football coach is complaining about parents being afraid to let their kids play football these days. He says that if steps aren’t taken, youth football could “disappear.” Well, I don’t know about other parents but I know I am definitely worried and, if you look at a picture of this guy’s players, they are wearing protective helmets that make them look like astronauts. I don’t care about all the protective measures taken, football is an inherently violent game that is very dangerous, and my kids will not be part of that.

Yes, other sports hold dangers as well – I won’t be going out to get my son a hockey stick anytime soon – but football is a game built on crushing the opponent. I was watching my Jets only earlier today, and my son said, “Dad, I hate football. I only want to play soccer.”

As they say, “Out of the mouths of babes,” so I took the remote and turned the TV off. We went outside and kicked the ball around (boy, does my back hurt when I do this, but I don’t let him know that). I didn’t need to watch the Jets lose another game anyway.

  Photo credits: ny daily news, ny post