What's Going On With Sports These Days

If you're a sports fan these days, everything that is going on in the world of sports is just frustrating. It has come down to giving personal fouls on a touchdown celebration that involves saluting the troops, who can get the most money, and molesting little kids behind closed doors. I just do not understand how all this is happening.

Look, first of all, penalties should not be given for touchdown celebrations, especially when it involves saluting our troops. How much power and ego do these refs have. I mean can someone tell them that nobody, in the stadium or watching on TV, is watching the referees. Please! This happens in all sports and they need to realize the game is not about them and nobody will ever know their name, until they screw up extremely like Jim Joyce. NOBODY CAME TO WATCH YOU! They paid good money to watch the players compete at the highest level of the game.

Second of all, The NBA owners need to take the D-League players and say, "Congratulations, you made it to the NBA!" And they need to play with the D-League players who make a fraction of what some of these selfish NBA players make. I understand that you want $50,000 more, but some people don't even make that in a year, so shut up and go play. The game will go on with or without you. It may not be right away, but believe me, someone will carry on the tradition. What makes these athletes today think they are bigger than the game itself. And I am an athlete myself!

And finally, how can we trade the molestation of little kids for a good coach. Not God or Jesus, but just a basic good coach. Nobody should look at a situation and say, "Well he is a good coach, so we will let this stuff slide." NOOOOOO!!! There are plenty of good coaches out there who can do just as good, if not a better job than he was doing. Come on people! What is happening to the world of sports, and just the world in general.

These things should not be happening. We take sports really seriously here in the United States, and for these things to be happening is just not okay. I am currently an athlete, but as a fan, I refuse to see NBA players get more money so they can buy more tattoos to show off during the game. Fans are paying for those and I do not know how some fans do it. Prices soar and fans just give in. I know sports are great, but who wants to pay $100 for a Laker game, $9 for a beer, and $12 for some nachos. Not me. Let's just get back to the way sports should be. Get paid what you get paid, and go out there and play. Sports these days make me sick and I hope they turn around here in the near future.

Walk Up Songs

I don't know what it is, but baseball has this tradition of playing a special song every time a player walks up to the plate before their at bat. It is a weird tradition and I don't know who came up with it, but baseball players have loved the idea ever since. Some songs are special to the player and some songs are made by the players. Either way the goal of the song is to make your entrance known. When the crowd hears that song they know exactly who is coming to the plate; especially mine. I don't mean to brag, but I have had many people tell me that my walk up song is the best in the league. I even found that umpires were singing it before I stepped into the box. that has never happened before in my career. I have had many walk up songs and I have never had an umpire sing along to the song.

When the PA first played it I think they turned the volume up all the way so it would ring out all over Fargo. The song is Hall & Oates-You Make My Dreams Come True. Some people can't wait for it to be played and then they start clapping and they feel good about the whole atmosphere of the game. The difference between my song and Mike Coles's (who hits right in front of me) song is drastic, but I hear many people getting into his song as well. He has two rap songs and both of them get many people in the crowd to sing along. I don't know what it is, but these songs are what get the crowd ready for that player to step in the box. Whether they like it or not, the crowd knows who is stepping to the plate.

The reaction I have gotten to my song this year by players, fans and even my own teammates is no credit to me. I did not come up with the idea of Hall & Oates. The idea came when I was coaching first base for my college team and we played Dallas Baptist University. I forgot exactly who the player was, but when I heard him walk up to it, I knew that I was going to use it for my song. I loved the way it made me feel and it still makes me feel that way every time I walk up to the plate. I am not writing this to brag about having one of the best songs in the league, but rather to share with you the phenomenon that is the walk up song. It really is something special to the player and to fans as well. As long as there is baseball there will be new walk up songs all the time, and the search to find the one that gets everybody's blood flowing will go on.

Rain Delay

This is my first post in awhile and I started it before Mongo came in and said the game time which is 30 minutes so I gotta make it quick.

Rain is the worst thing to mix baseball and when they do mix you get something that is just wasting time. All the players do is try to find something to do to kill time. Usually we play cards or watch TV. But sometimes we have a good time and make short films and stuff. Bottom line is all we are doing is trying to waste time. The time we spend wasting the day away waiting for rain to pass is terrible. If you know the game is cancelled then you can go do what you but when you're waiting on mother nature, it is not fun. Just chill, get something to eat, maybe hit, or just take a nap. Taking a nap is favorite among a lot of people. Me and some other guys like to battle with our gadgets. One thing is common between fans and players though and that is that we never know what is going to happen.

Like I said I don't have much time, but for the people who want to follow this blog I promise this time I will try to write something once a week. That way people can get an idea of what we do as professional baseball players and why we keep coming back until they take our jerseys away. Lastly, GO DEADHAWKS!

Learn How to Drive

Okay, I have been traveling and driving A LOT lately. One thing I have realized is that people just do not know how to drive. I have devised a plan on how we can make people better drivers, and at the same time stimulate the economy by producing more money for the DMV. Every 5 years, we should have to take another driving test and have to pay $20 for this retake test. There will be a behind the wheel test and a written test. Here's what the written test will look like:

1. Which lane is the FAST lane?

2. If you are driving while nobody else is on the road and there is a right lane and a left lane, which lane should you cruise in?

3. If you are going to turn right and you see someone is waiting for you, so they can pull out, should you signal?

4. What does YEILD mean?

5. When at a stop sign, and you were the first at the stop sign, should you wait for everybody else to come to a stop before proceeding?

6. If 2 people come to a the stop sign at the same time, who has the right of way?

You have to get a perfect score on these six questions, or you fail, and you can not renew your driver's license. You have to go to traffic school and learn how to drive again. I am so tired of people not knowing how to drive. I feel as though most of driving comes as second nature after awhile, but if you never knew how to drive in the first place, you have already started off on the wrong foot. It really is not hard. I am not the best driver myself because I speed. One thing that makes me not the best driver is the way I swerve in and out of traffic, but the reason I have to do that is because other people are TERRIBLE at driving. I am beginning to believe that most people on the road do not even have their driver's license. Get a clue people!!! I think they sell them at Wal-Mart. Go pick one up.

Summer is Just Around the Corner

With the Packers winning the Super Bowl, football season is finally over. I can say that I actually gave football many chances, but until they get rid of stupid penalty calls I am always going to be bothered when I watch a football game. I get excited when someone gets laid out, or someone picks a ball for a touchdown. Don't get me wrong I think football can be exciting, but when I hear football fans say that the Super Bowl was boring, I have to second guess why they even watch the sport. Anyways, this means that summer is right around the corner.

I am here in Mississippi and it is freezing, but I will always keep my hopes up because warm weather and the best sport of all is only a couple months away. Summer is the best season and there is a reason why baseball is played during the summer; because it is the best sport! There have been a lot of offseason moves and I have not even been able to keep up with all the deals around the league. Once baseball season comes around people begin to appear in a better mood. Unless it is too hot, enjoying the heat while watching a baseball game for 2 and a half plus hours can is one of the best things in life. Eating peanuts, spitting sunflower seeds and watching their favorite players like Albert Pujols crush balls into the gap is another. I know my baseball fans will agree with me that there is nothing like baseball season. Another reason I think it is the best is because they play everyday. A baseball season has 12 times more games than a football season. Anyways, if you're a baseball fan start getting those juices flowing for the upcoming season. Being a Dodger fan, I completely forgot who won last year, but I definitely hope whoever did, does not win ever again. Go Dodgers!!!

You have no new E-mails

If you're like me, when you read an email, and you like it, you just keep it in your inbox for later pleasure. Well, again, if you're like me, you never go back and use read those emails again. EVER! So I tried something new today. I went through my inbox, put the important emails, like receipts, papers, etc. and I put them into a folder, and I deleted my WHOLE INBOX. I know it sounds nerve racking to people who are like me, but it was kind of refreshing at the same time. Every time I hit delete my stomach dropped. I don't really know why that is, but I was nervous I was going to delete something important. In the end I felt relieved when hotmail told me that my inbox was really clean. I kept the important ones in folders, but again, if you're like me you get so much junk mail that you can barely keep track of the important ones.

Guess what? 5 minutes later I already had another email. I wish there was some way to stop these junk mailers to stop mailing me, but it was my fault for having an email in first place I guess. Try doing what I did today and you never know you might get a fresh new start on your email life. I felt relieved when I saw there were no messages that I had to deal with. I kept the emails for a reason, but when I realized I never read them again, I figured what was the point of keeping them. Go ahead, clean up your inbox, and you never know what you'll clean up next.

Immigrants

You know what, I really wanted to stay away from this subject, but it just keeps going. I know many of you out there are immigrants or know an immigrant living in the U.S. Can someone please tell me why people are protesting against a Major League Baseball team because of some law and how it just simply protects what makes this country so great; FREEDOM!!! So now we got people protesting against a team of professional athletes (who may have 5 of 30 guys actually from Arizona) about a law which denies something that has always been denied; illegal immigration.

Look I have many good friends who come from an immigrant family and I love them dearly, but what's the big deal in trying to enforce laws that were already in effect. You mean to tell me that smuggling someone across the border is a FELONY now! Why wasn't it a felony before? I don't get it. I'm not going to lie though, I don't get why it's illegal to pick someone up off the side of the street and pay them to work for you for the day.

Anyways back to the real story at hand, that got to me this morning as I read the USA Today in the Wingate lobby. I just don't see what protesting against the Arizona Diamondbacks, in Boston, while playing the Red Sox does for anybody in this debate. And it also happened in Chicago and Los Angeles. What are we doing to each other? What did the Diamondbacks do to make this law come into effect? NOTHING! Are we really looking at the Diamondbacks as the people responsible for this law? NO! Why aren't we protesting against the Washington Nationals for what our Federal Government does to us with every law they've passed in the last 10 years? I don't know, it seems like the wrong people are protesting against the wrong team. Protest to the team of lawmakers who are doing this. Leave the Diamondbacks out of it!