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At the end of the summer, I set some fitness goals for myself regarding baseball. I realized a good deal about my body during the baseball season:things I still could do and things I couldn’t do anymore, and things I was sure I could get better at. I realized throughout the season that I had lost some elements of my game that I had once had. Although I still have a pretty quick and aggressive bat, and can make good contact, the power I had in college was gone. I also realized that I am even slower than I was then. I also was getting a lot of soreness in my hips and knees, where I have never had pain before. Over the past month I have started a workout regimen that I hope will bring those elements back, and, possibly, improve on them as well.

The nice thing about baseball is you don’t necessarily have to be fast in order to be a good baserunner: you have to be smart, understand your own limitations, and have good technique rounding the bases and sliding. Those have always been strengths of mine; speed not so much. You can also get extra base hits without being fast: you just need to hit the ball further. So, I’ve decided to focus more on power than speed, since it will get me more bang for my buck. My workout plan also includes a good deal of knee and hip strengthening exercises, in order to avoid the joint pain I was experiencing during the season. This will also help with increasing speed and endurance. As for cardio, I will work primarily on interval trainining, meaning sprints mixed with jogging. This mimics baseball-like activity (which is a lot of stand-and-go, unlike basketball or soccer which is constant movement). This will also help to shed some of those extra pounds, which don’t help the knees either.

The main part of the workout plan is focused on lifting for power. I am using a program from Men’s Health called the Power Training Program (yes, I bought the book. No, I will not have arms like that). The program was designed by Robert Dos Remedios (@robertdos), who does College Athletic Strength Training. What I like about the program is that it focuses on gaining power. This means that there is a focus on quick movement exercises such as snatches and pulls, where you move a lot of weight quickly. Also, there is an emphasis on areas where power is generated from: your core, hips, and knees. As mentioned before, these are all areas that I need strengthening in anyway, so the program is perfectly tailored for what I’m trying to accomplish. It also focuses on “real world” movements, so no machines that isolate one body part. Each exercise works a number of muscle groups and mimics movements that occur during a game. I have been doing it for about three weeks now, and already my knees feel stronger and my weights are increasing.

The final element of any good workout plan is diet. The fact remains that if you eat garbage while working out, you won’t make any gains. And if your goal is to make gains in athletic performance, a crummy diet won’t help either. I have always been up and down in regards to diet. Eating to stay in shape is one thing; I have a high metabolic rate so I don’t pack on pounds quickly. But when I’m exercising for athletic performance, making sure I’m getting the right amount of carbs, protein, fat, etc. is critical to making gains in strength and power. My body needs to be properly fueled in order to do the type of workouts that I’m doing.

So, I’ve gone technical, through the discovery of Daily Burn. Daily Burn is the closest there is to a social media online nutrition and exercise program. I can track the food I eat, it breaks it up into the various categories, allows me to set nutritional goals, weight goals, and so on. I also can input my workouts, so I can track progress on weights and so on.

The nice thing about about Daily Burn are the iPhone Apps (You all new it was going to go in this direction). This allows me to input nutritional data on the fly (including an app that allows you to scan barcodes and directly recognize what you’re eating), and see how many more carbs I need to eat to meet my goals. It also allows me to program all my exercises for each workout, so that I can keep track of what I’m going to be doing each trip to the gym. This is extremely helpful, as I tend to skip out on sets, reps, or exercises because I’m tired. If they’re written down, it makes it more evident to me that I’m cheating myself, which makes me less likely to skip out. I would recommend Daily Burn to anyone who is interested. It makes the whole process a little more enjoyable, since you can see your progress. If you join, look up my profile and we can push each other.

Hopefully, this program will result in a more powerful baseball season next year. It certainly has helped to keep me in the gym, and has provided a good deal of new exercises and physical challenges that I haven’t dealt with in a while, and I’m learning things about what my body can and can’t do. Having specific goals make working out much more enjoyable…I have found that I am much more motivated to get to the gym since I know that I am trying to meet certain objectives.

Any tips or suggestions? What are you doing to keep fit?

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For those of you who know me, I am an avid baseball fan. However, I have also always considered myself to be a baseball player, having played competitively through college. Unfortunately, arm injuries and complicated summer schedules have stood in the way of playing at all for five years – a long time. So, this year I decided to give it a shot again, and joined the City of Lansing Wood Bat League.

I decided to do this for a variety of reasons. First, I’m not getting any younger. This isn’t to say that I’m old, but in baseball years, I would be about midway through a professional career. Also, my actual career can easily stand in the way of a summer playing baseball; most archaeological field work is conducted during the summer months. Second, I wanted to prove to myself that I could still play at a competitive level. It took me three years in college to become truly confident with my abilities in baseball, and then it was over. Injuries kept me off the field. I wanted to show myself that I still “had it”. The competition in the league was mixed; but at its best, I was playing against current and former Division I baseball players, and theoccasionalformer minor leaguer. It’s good baseball, and if I could hack it in that league, then I still “had it”. Third, I wanted a hobby, particular something that I was good at, and that would provide me with a competition. I had tried this over the last couple years with running, but the fact remained that I hate running. It didn’t have elements of sport that I enjoy. Baseball is the perfect blend of teamwork and individual accomplishment. It is full of strategy and head games. Failure is always threatening, perfection is fleeting.

The season went well. I found a home on a squad called the Naked Bats (sponsored by a bat making company owned by the coach). The baseball was great. The guys I was playing with were passionate about the game, understood it, and played it respectfully. Although we were knocked out of the playoffs today, I am pretty certain that under different circumstances (we were missing a lot of players), we could have made a good run.

Personally, I couldn’t have been much happier with my season. I had a respectable batting average around .330, and played well at first base, where I can still get a good stretch. My arm, which had caused so much pain my senior year of college, felt great for most of the season. However, there were new pains to deal with: my hips, knees, and back all were sore for days after each game. I also didn’t have the power that I remembered having, although I made good contact a number of times. Now that I know what parts of my game need some attention, I know what to focus on to get ready for next season. Something which I am very much looking forward to.

So what did I pull away from this season? Well for starters, I can still play. I showed myself that. I also learned that I am getting older, and that as I age certain things become more difficult for me to do. I am hesitant to say that I cannot do them. At this point, I think that I am just out of practice. I am looking forward to actually having an off-season again, where instead of working out to stay healthy, I can work out because I have a baseball team that is counting on my being in shape. I also enjoyed being on a team again. There is something magical about being in a group that works hard together, wins together, and loses together. Baseball is full of those moments: the perfectly executed double play, thesacrificebunt, the hit-and-run. Each is teamwork. Each requires you to count on another person to do their job, so that you can do yours, and so your team can succeed. It was nice having that back in my life.

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Since I graduated from K-College, my involvement with baseball has gradually deteriorated. The first year, the injury to my shoulder kept me from playing, so I coached at my high school. The following year, 2006, I tried to coach, but full-time employment got in the way. I then got shoulder surgery that summer. 2007, school kept me from coaching, and a summer in St. Mary’s City kept me from joining a summer league; the same with last year. This year, however, there is nothing standing in my way. I have some extra time since I am taking a small course load, and I will be in Lansing all summer. I will get to play baseball this year.
Today, I hit baseballs for the first time in many years. It felt great. My swing is still good, and I am definitely stronger and in better shape then my college days. My timing is definitely off. I have been in contact with a couple of teams that play in the Lansing Wood-Bat League, which is a very competitive 18+ league. It has the occasional former minor leaguer in it, but mostly people who were good college and high school ballplayers. I am very excited to play. I have worked up a deal at CourtOne, which has indoor batting cages. For $50 a month, I basically can show up whenever I want to hit, throw, and take some grounders. Dad and I are going to try to work out a schedule so that I’ll have a partner to do this with.

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There are a couple of baseball players that I have grown up watching that taught me things about life. Ryne Sandberg and Mark Grace, long stays on the Chicago Cubs as I was growing up, anchored the right side of the infield for my entire childhood. During their stay with the Cubs, they played for good teams and bad teams, always giving their best, always suiting up every day, providing consistency and dedication to a team that didn’t provide a situation conducive to winning. Both, near the end of their careers tried to stand up to it: Sandberg threatened and followed through with retirement, and Grace threatened and followed through with leaving the team. These, I think, are important lessons: be consistent, work hard, and don’t be afraid to speak up.

This past weekend, the Chicago Cubs announced that they would not be resigning the face of their franchise, pitcher Kerry Wood. Wood, now 31, has been with the Cubs organization since he was 17. He has fought back from numerous arm injuries, including his most recent which almost kept him out of baseball for good. A change in position, from starter to closer, revitalized his career. This is a Cub I may have learned the most from. By all accounts, he is a terrific teammate, father, husband, and citizen. He has been dedicated to the Cubs, who in return have given him many opportunities to heal, fight, and earn his way on to the team. He is a true Cub: when faced with adversity, he struggled on. He fought through bad seasons, good seasons, injuries, position changes…all with his head up, never complaining, never quitting. It is a shame that he will not be in a Cubs uniform next year. I will miss him. Cubs baseball, without Wood, much like without Sandberg and Grace, will not be the same.

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So it may be too soon to start writing about what I just watched on television, but I’ve got to get this off my chest. The Chicago Cubs just lost the first round playoff series to the Dodgers. They didn’t just lose, they got crushed. They were outscored 20-6 in the series. They made six errors. They played terribly. Rookie of the year Soto? 2-10. Aramis Ramirez? 2-11. Alfonso Soriano? 1-14, including the final out of the series…a strike out on a, believe it or not, slider in the dirt. His favorite pitch to not hit.

I am almost at a loss for words that aren’t four letters. In an attempt to reflect on this constructively, I think that Joe Torre made the best point in a post game interview: with all the pressure of history, the Dodgers were fortunate to have been playing at Wrigley for the first two. Now that may seem odd at first, but if you watch those games again (not that you would want to…), momentum was critical. The minute that grand slam was hit, the entire stadium went dead, and never woke back up.

Now, I’m not blaming the fans. Because I am one of them, and there is no way I’m taking responsibility for the terrible play. But I am pretty sure that the immediate deflation of the stadium (I know that my first thought, no matter how hard I tried to suppress it, after that grand slam was, “oh no….here we go….this is how it always happens” ), caused the Cubs to press even harder. What was terrible about it, was everything that happened that was bad was…so Cubs. Walks. Errors. Overswinging at good pitches. Swinging at all at bad pitches. These are things that the Cubs have been doing for, well, a century. And every Cub fan recognizes it. Cub players? They’ve only been with the team for a couple years. Cub fans? We’ve been here the whole time. So when things like this happen, we can’t help but think, “oh, my, God…here we go again.” It is imbedded. We have been conditioned to think the worst.

So, when our pitcher has walked the bases loaded and given up a grand slam, don’t expect the fans to be the ones to pull the team out of it. We will be terrified. We will wonder what it is that could possibly go wrong next. And we will hope and pray that there is someone in that dugout or on that field that will pull us out of it.

I have said quite often that my favorite thing about baseball is that the same mistakes high school ball players make are the same mistakes professional players make. This means that baseball is hard. Really hard. So hard that even the pros can’t get the fundamentals down. Any high school ballplayer will tell you that if you press too hard, if you try too hard to hit a home run, you won’t hit it. If you try to hard to throw a strike, you won’t (it’s called “aiming”…it has its own name, for crying out loud). In essence, trying to hard is like trying to fail.

The minute that that ball fell over the wall in the first game, the minute the entire fan-collective thought to themselves, “Oh, my, God”, the Cubs players finally felt the weight of the last 100 years. They had been denying its existence all season. They weren’t concerned about the past. They were focused on this year, and only this year. But they realized, in that minute, what their success this season had done to Cubs fans: it had inspired hope. We honestly believed that we were going to win the World Series. And for Cub fans, that is a fragile, fragile hope. That is someone who has been betrayed their entire life deciding to trust again. And when Wrigley fell silent, the Cubs players felt it. They realized what they had: they had a much larger responsibility then just winning the World Series. They had the faith of Cub fans clinging to them.

So, they pressed. They tried too hard. And ultimately, they failed.

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So…I don’t know who has been following baseball lately, in particular the Chicago Cubs, but it should be noted, as Scoop Jackson has at espn.com Page2, that things are a little tense in Cubland right now. But why, you might ask? I thought you had a nice comfortable lead, and you sent all these Cubbies to the All-Star game and everything is peaches and cream? Well, our beloved Cubs have lost eight of their last nine baseball games, and are only 4.5 games ahead of Milwaukee, who thankfully have only won three times in their last ten games.

But what might be causing this recent slide? Well, there is the pitching. Carlos Zambrano is having some arm issues, and has missed a start. Also, Rich Harden, the recent pick-up from the A’s before the trade deadline, is also suffering from a “tired arm”. The former has never been hurt, the latter, well, if you remember he was a risk because of his injury past. Even on tight pitch counts, he still can’t make it through a season without getting “tired”.

Also, the Cubs bats have fizzled. Fukudome hasn’t had a good game since the All-Star break. The Cubs haven’t had explosive innings like they did earlier this year in a while. Basically, they appear to be an offense that is taking it easy, and a pitching staff that didn’t realize the season was as long as it actually is. The Cubs are running out of steam, and the season is at its most crucial point.

“But Terry, don’t worry, this will all work out in the end,” you are probably thinking. Or possibly, “well at least you are in first place.” Well, historically speaking, things don’t work out in the end. The Cubs do not “win”, they simply build your hopes until you’ve finally believe they are going to win it. Examples? Black cats in 1969. Leon Durham in 1984. Steve Bartman in 2003. Last year. And yeah, we’re in first place. But after 100 years of losing, first place just doesn’t cut it anymore. I don’t want to be in first place. I want to win the God d*mn WORLD SERIES.

So yeah, I’m a little nervous. I’m worried. I’m stressed out. I’m tired of waiting for next year. I’m tired of saying, “well, it’s the Cubs!” I’m tired of curses, and balks, and walks, and strike outs, and disappointment. I’m sick of it. So if the Cubs would just, as Lou said yesterday, Roll up their shirts (?) and kick some ass, it would be greatly appreciated.

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at mlb.com, the website is putting together a “baseball of the future”weekly report, where they look at the ways in which the future of the game will change using technology. The August 4th edition was called,“fan enjoyment”, and focused on the giant scoreboard at Kauffman Stadium, home of the Kansas City Royals. As you recall, I had a discussi on previously about the differences betweenWrigley Field and Oriole Park at Camden Yards, where I discussed the differences in the fan experience, as dictated primarily by the scoreboard. It is interesting to read the quotes of the scoreboard operator at Kauffman Stadium, saying that every event must start and end with a scoreboard scene. This means every at-bat, groundball, inning, and so on. Again, it is the need to make sure that every person is stimulated by something at some point – and it detracts from allowing The Game to be the stimulant.

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Well, the All-Star game festivities begin this week, with the Home Run Derby this weekend and the All-Star game on Tuesday. I always enjoy watching the game, because it is a rare time to get to watch the best ball players face off. I particularly enjoy it now that the game actually counts; the winning league gets home field advantage in the World Series. So, unlike the basketball, football, or hockey All Star games, this game actually matters, and the players actually play it for real. People slide, and pitch inside, and try to leg out doubles, and dive for balls in the outfield. It is a real game, and the players play it that way, and that makes it exciting to watch. Also, this usually means that, with so many incredible ball players on the field at once, something amazing will probably happen.

This year, 8 of those amazing players are actually members of the Chicago Cubs! Gone are the days when only Sammy Sosa or Ryne Sandberg were the representatives. This year, Alfanso Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, Aramis Ramirez, Geovanny Soto, Carlos Zambrano, Kerry Wood, Ryan Dempster, and Carlos Marmol all made the team. Soriano cannot play because of a broken hand, and Wood is out because of a blister. Marmol was then selected as Wood’s replacement. The most incredible story on this list? Definitely Wood and Dempster. Last year, Kerry Wood was about to retire until his arm magically healed, and Dempster was the teams closer. This year, Wood is the closer (formally a starter for the Cubs), and Dempster is having a career year as the Cubs No. 2 starter.

Needless to say, I am excited. I am pumped. I’ve never been so elated about a season as I am this year. To be honest, I’m not quite sure how to feel. The Cubs have the best record in the major leagues, have the most All-Star representatives, and just made a huge trade last week forA’s starter Rich Harden that will make them even more solid. It is a bizzarre feeling, and I’m not sure what to do with it. On Tuesday, however, I will be kicking it with a couple beers and my Mark Grace jersey on to watch some baseball.

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Ashleigh and I caught another Orioles game this past weekend, adissapointing 5-3 loss to Texas. We sat directly underneath the scoreboard in centerfield, and it made me realize something different then when I had done same thing at Wrigley Field.

I’m going to preface this post with a disclaimer: I think that Camden Yards is one of the most beautiful ball parks in the Major Leagues, and a fantastic place to watch a game. I haven’t been to many, but I have always been impressed, ever since my aunt took me thare when it first opened. As should be no surprise, Wrigley Field is, I think, the best place to watch a baseball game. The reasoning hadn’t been entirely clear to me, although this weekend helped solidify it for me. So anyway, if this sounds like a knock on Camden Yards, it isn’t meant to be, it is simply a description of a dramatic difference in two ballparks that were built nearly 80 years apart, and I think, therefore, reflect quite dramatically all that has changed in America during that time. At any rate, my job is to look at man made structures and figure out how they reflect or shape human behavior, so here it goes.

Wrigley Field was built in 1914, and became the Cubs home field in 1916. It is the second oldest ball park in the majors. It is small, seating just over 41,000 people. The foul territory is incredibly limited, the outfield wall is made of brick and covered with ivy, and fans can watch the game from the rooftops across the street. The scoreboard is enourmous, operated primarily by the individuals inside it, who replace the numbers on all the scores by hand. It keeps track of the time (analogue), the batter’s number, strikes, ball, and outs. An electronic ticker was added underneath it that puts the batters name and a couple stats up.

Camden Yards was built in 1992, and was the first of many new “retro” ballparks built in the 90s. These parks were built in the downtown areas, and were supposed to mimic the fan-friendly styles of older parks, such as Wrigley Field. Much like Wrigley, Camden has some unique features: the warehouse on Eutewa Street and the high right field wall come to mind immeidately. The scoreboard is one of modern extravagance: Although topped with a classic rendering of The Baltimore Sun and an analogue clock, two large screens depict videos, games, and highlights between innings, full head shots of players, and stats galore.
It is interesting to consider how the differences in scoreboards changes the way you watch a baseball game, but I argue that it most certainly does. It hadn’t become clear to me until Saturday, when I would have to physically turn around in order to watch the Crab Shuffle or the blooper real in between games, or to figure out who was pinch hitting. It was also interesting to watch everyone else in our seciton do the same, and to watch the umpires watching the board between innings. At Wrigley, this doesn’t happen. You watch the drunks, or the players taking warmups or flag down the Old Style guy or listen to the five piece pep band. It is an entirely different baseball experience. I’m not advocating one over the other (although I prefer Wrigley, but again, personal preference), simply pointing out the differences.

So why? What’s going on here? As should be no surprise, parks with the multimedia scoreboard are trying to keep baseball “interesting”. Most sports only have serious down time every half hour, whereas baseball could have it every ten minutes. Someone paying 30 bucks for a seat should be stimulated at all moments of the game, so the scoreboards have become the center of the baseball action. For most of the game, you are consulting the scoreboard, be it for a batting statistic or some between inning entertainment. About the only inning that the scoreboard is not being watched at Oriole Park is during the 7th inning stretch, when the same country song is played and everyone dances (I should point out that this is the most exciting inning break for everyone). At Wrigley, the focus is always on the field. The park is small, you are on top of the action at all times.

The newer parks of the last twenty years are all fabulous structures. Camden, more so then most, has managed to capture the feel of the small park, and it is a shame that it does not fill up as it did in the 1990s. Wrigley continues to fill up the seats, and has for a long time, in part because it is a tourist attraction in and of itself. People go to “experience” Wrigley Field, not so much to watch baseball. I’m not sure what that says about the park itself, but I think it implies that the afternoon at Wrigley can be relaxing place, whereas the newer parks are trying to constantly create a frenzied, constantly stimulated place to be — which is precisely the kind of world we live in.

All that being said, baseball still is the most wonderful game in the world, and the ballpark has a lot to do with that. It is a variable: only in baseball does the field vary from place to place. The only restriction is the distance from the mound to the plate, and from base to base, and that makes this game unique, and that makes it special.

Go O’s! Go Cubs!

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