There was a time not too long ago when the Falmouth-Barnstable games in any sport were so heated and fans were so, shall we say, vocal, that it made attending the games one of the highlights of the school year. That rivalry began in November 1895. I have to be honest when I say I miss some of that tension.
I was chatting with a middle-aged couple from Falmouth in between periods at last night’s Falmouth-Barnstable hockey game. They were Falmouth fans and the woman had graduated from Falmouth back in the late 1970s. She seemed openly disheartened that something was just missing from the entire ambience of the gorgeous Falmouth Ice Arena. I confess, I did, too. I wondered aloud if it would seem out of place if half the fans were sipping tea.
Change is good, I thought. But not all change. Only time will tell, but it’s hard to imagine a rivalry that started 20 US Presidents ago without at least a tiny bit of good ole New England vitriol and some entertaining bravado.
Speaking of change, is it just me or hasn’t the game of baseball had enough of the gimmick of metal bats at the collegiate and high school and youth levels? In what universe is it within the realm of normalcy to spend $400 for a baseball bat. Ridiculous. It’s not like they last for more than a season or two, tops. You can buy nearly a dozen wood baseball bats for that kind of money. I used the same oversized Mickey Mantle Louisville Slugger for most if not all of Little League. I think the kid who broke it is still running. Honestly, how many great high school pitchers’ arms are going to be sacrificed so some fat cat investor can keep counting Benjamins? At the collegiate level, it’s just plain too dangerous, but even at the Little League level where I’ve personally witnessed children’s lives changed forever because the ball exploded so quickly off the metal bat they could not react in time. Watching an 11-year-old’s face get caved in from a baseball hit by a metal bat is enough for me to say “enough.”
Is it that difficult or prohibitively expensive in this advanced age of technology to come up with some sort of audible sound system for announcing high school games? I swear you’d think some schools wired up a set of empty Maxwell House coffee cans with string to announce lineups or goals scored. Some schools do it right though. The Falmouth Ice Arena is one such place.
Speaking of audio, one of the longest versions of the National Anthem available for free download is an old Whitney Houston version. I could not help but crack up at a recent high school game listening to that one. It drags on and on and on. Pick a shorter version. She might have had a beautiful Grammy Award-winning voice prior to her Bobby Brown, drug-addled demise, but please, need we be reminded of that demise at a high school sporting event?
Granted, my influences growing up were guys like Mel Allen, Curt Gowdy and Johnny Most but it’s fairly sad that ESPN sports anchor Stuart Scott passed away Saturday. I am showing my age when I say that I was not influenced by him in any way as a journalist but he was exceptionally fun to listen to, spoke clearly and with near-perfect pronunciation, and absolutely knew what he was talking about, barring no topic. He will be sorely missed and had grown to become a part of the cultural fabric of today’s sports world.
Speaking of pronunciation and the things that comprise our cultural fabric, is it really necessary and acceptable for high school athletes to bellow out canyonesque obscenities in the midst of competition (or any time, really)? Am I really getting so old that a former US Marine can’t handle a few public F-bombs? I’m sorry, but I really can’t. Somewhere along the line it became “okay” for the occasional F-bomb to be emitted from the lips of athletes who can barely drive yet, nevermind vote or join the military without parental consent. I’ve dealt with it as a coach. Muttering under your breath in a dugout is one thing. Standing in the middle of a game competition with 2,000 grandparents and little siblings is quite another. I say sit on the bench if you can’t control your mouth, I don’t care how good you think you are.
Which brings up the topic of parenting. I really wish more parents would look up the word “vicarious.” Vicariousness does not imply “support of your child.” It’s not a good thing, in otherwords, and quite shameful, to be frank. But every season, in every sport, at every level, it seems, some parent shows up at one of his kid’s games and simply cannot handle that child not getting the “playing time” that parent believes his child “deserves.” I never felt I “deserved” anything growing up and playing sports. What I always felt was that if I worked hard enough and performed well enough then the playing time would take care of itself. I can’t remember ever complaining I was not playing enough and I am sure there were times when a coach had good reason not to play me. I thought my high school baseball coach walked on water, basically, for example. That did not prevent him from benching me MID-GAME at least three times. Once for imagining that I got the green light to steal second base. One for fighting with my best friend in the locker room just moments before we were about to face our rival Lincoln-Sudbury and once for arguing with my best friend on a trip to the pitcher’s mound in the middle of a game. I certainly never felt compelled to shout out some obscenity as a way to deal with emotion. We were taught to channel that emotion into taking it out physically against an opponent by playing well. End of story.
Speaking of athletic behavior, one thing that gets under my skin every time I see it is taunting. On television – watching multimillion dollar professional athletes do it… well, that’s one thing. Watching a 138-pound 16-year-old high school football player do it? Really? I’ve seen more teams’ efforts get squandered because of the antics of some half-pint wearing a helmet who behaves like he just slayed three gladiators in the Colosseum than I’d care to remember. I think I heard one guy swear one time during a high school football game when I played. I certainly don’t recall ever standing over someone I just laid out and hovering over him or pointing my finger at him or standing chest to chest with him after he got up. I never even felt compelled to act that way, while at the same time I certainly remember feeling compelled to hit him so hard that I envisioned his teeth flying out of his head before doing so. Yes, football is a violent game, but the code of decorum is vanishing. I watched a high school football team fully defeat itself with penalty after penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct this past season. It was out of control and disheartening to witness.
A couple of years ago, a national debate about high school pitch counts ensued after a Cape high school coach left his pitcher on the mound in a seven-inning game for 154 pitches. Nevermind that playing spring baseball in Massachusetts means pitching in 40-degree weather, how about the fact that there is no victory worth destroying a talented young person’s future athletic career. Why do I say no victory is worth it? Well if you can find one person at the high school that young man pitched for who can remember the opponent or the score of the game that he threw 154 pitches in, then I will drop it. But to have a national debate erupt over the issue because of it and then watch that same school do the same thing to another kid just this past spring? Does any school take this stuff serious? Are we not paying enough to athletic directors to maintain statistics and to record the information and keep track of its athletes so that simple things like this never occur again? Being a good high school baseball coach takes a heck of a lot more than having a pretty resume´. Molding young people’s lives is serious business and so is the physical and emotional health of those student-athletes.
Trading Rajon Rondo was the final straw. It took me a decade to get back into obsession-mode with the beloved Boston Celtics. There was a lull after the Hondo, Jo Jo White, Dave Cowens days… then came Larry and Tiny, Maxwell and McHale, the Chief and Gerald Henderson and D.J. and even Wick Wobey ala the Couse. Then came the saving of Paul Pierce’s career with Garnett and two of my all-time faves Ray Allen and Rondo… heck, they even made me care about Nate Robinson which I was not sure was possible. I forgave Celtics’ management for dumping Big Baby and Kendrick Perkins… but it’s likely going to be another decade before I care again with that same passion to watch every game every night.
Sean Walsh is the sports editor for www.capecod.com. His column, “One On One,” appears here weekly. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm or send email to [email protected].
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