Beat Cancer: The NFL's Sunday Reminder & Coping With Our Morality Through Baseball

Blog number two, and I am already choosing to speak "sentiment and philosophy" over "wit and drunken statistics."  This will not be a trend, but I feel it is appropriate to write on this point at this time of year...

Sundays, When We Watch Football and are Reminded to Beat Cancer:

As I sit back on my couch to watch some football this Sunday, the NFL does a great job reminding myself, as well as millions of others, that there are those out there fighting battles far more difficult than those on the gridiron. 

The NFL’s effort in raising awareness is seen throughout the day as, “#BeatCancer” rises in trending topics on Twitter.  As each down passes I cannot help but be reminded of life’s fragility, and remember those who were with me, talking about division rivalries every Sunday, only a short time ago.

This week will mark one year since I first lost someone near and dear to me to cancer.  Unfortunately, I cannot say that this was the last person in my life that I have lost over the time since, as other relatives, friend’s parents, and even more tragic, friends grown up with, have all been taken far too soon.

In my mind, I am too young to deal with the loss of a parent or relative, I am far too young to see a friend my age taken away from this life.  But as I have learned, and as I think about every time I see the referee blow a pink whistle this month, there are no guarantees, and cancer does not care if you are ready to deal with it.

As I write this today, my thoughts lay with the woman more a mother to me at times than my own, and of her current battle against cancer.  When I was home this weekend I asked my mother how she was doing, my mom sat me down and with a tear in her eye, could she only look to me for answers as to why the good people in life need to go through this.

With a stomach full of turkey, and a head spun on wine, I decided to get philosophical in my attempts to explain the greatest open question of all when it comes to mortality, “why?”

It began like this...

What would you rather have, eighty years with someone else, or the time you had with them? 

This question has a loaded answer, so it makes the point come across much easier.  My mother and I agreed that, given a choice, we would not trade the time we had with these people, for a lifetime with others.    

There are people out there who have eighty-plus years and they let it pass them by.  Then, there are those who in a short time make such an impact on us, that all we can do is be thankful for those memories, and that we got to be a part of something so amazing.

I do not blame a “higher power” for taking them, I can only be thankful that I got them as a part of my life, in whatever capacity that ended up as.

In our own lives going forward, we must take our stand in the fight against cancer.  So that we may hopefully better not just our own lives, but better impact the lives of those around us, by forcing an end to this disease. 

 On Life as Baseball:

To avoid religious preaching, I will speak my final thoughts on life as a euphemism to baseball:

It is as simple as this:

 In the ball game of life, we are all on pitch counts.  What we do with it is up to us. 

When the manager comes to get us, we are applauded for the effort we gave, and we accept that not all great efforts are complete games.

When the manager came for those we have lost, know that there was a stadium full of spectators giving praise for their performance on the mound, and the impact they made.  Know that the crowd was left hoping to emulate their own life’s performance after what they had just witnessed.   Know that the manager does know best, and that those taken from this game, were done so because they were needed for another game, at another time.  Most importantly, know that we will see them play again, but for now, we must take what they have shown, and apply it to ourselves.

We can all build off of the strength of those fighting cancer, we can all better ourselves from the memory of those whose time in this game has passed. 

We accept that at some point, our own pitch count will be up and that the manager will come to take us out of this life’s ball game.  All we can do is make sure that when they do, we gave the crowd our best performance, that when the book is closed on our pitching line, it was truly one to be remembered.

Let’s strikeout cancer.

A Battle of Aces: How it Affects The Championship Series

Many sports talk shows were speaking this week about how the Aces of the four remaining teams match-up, and what it may mean in setting up the World Series.  I have also heard that blogging is all the rage.  As a response to these topics, I decided to make this.

The ALCS: Thank you Indians Rebuild and Cost-Cutting, Sincerely, The Rangers and Yankees

Cliff Lee

It is hard to believe that Lee is only 3 seasons removed from posting an era over 6, but over these 3 years this has been a completely different Cliff Lee.

Arguably the most dominant pitcher of last year’s playoffs, Lee looks like he has picked up right where he left off with those Phillies.  It seems to be the case with Lee that he takes it to another level in the post-season.  He dominated Tampa Bay in his 2 starts posting a 1.12 ERA and a .69 WHIP.  Oh and he’s struck out 21 in 16 innings as well. 

Lee was less than spectacular during his 15 starts with the rangers in the regular season, and his track record shows that he will consistently be an animal as long as he is on the mound when it counts the most. 

Expect Lee to dominate the team that will likely throw several bags of money his way this off-season because you know, the Yankees do not have a dominant left-hander and are in dire need of one... oh wait.

Prediction: Lee makes the Yankees bats look like the Pirates ones, twice.  He will answer any questions regarding his pending off-season mega deal.  As well, he strikes out A-Rod in all at bats that he is not throwing at his face.

C.C. Sabathia

A lot of controversy surrounds whether Sabathia is this year’s AL CY Young Award Winner.  If you are Joe Morgan, you say he is.  If you know the first thing about baseball, you say Felix Hernandez deserves it. 

Either way, we can all agree that C.C. is a force on the mound, and that one cannot help but draw startling comparisons between his physical stature and that of the will-knotted Charmin Toilet Paper Bear.  The only problem with C.C. is that, before last season, he was a playoff choke artist with a career 7.92 ERA in 5 post season starts.  Not to say he did not overcome these jitters last season, as he did post a 1.13 ERA in the ALCS, but this Rangers team has bats that can punish with the best of them, not to mention contains arguably the most clutch hitter in all of baseball in Michael Young (Jays fans, insert Esteban Loaiza sigh here). 

The fact is C.C. is great, but has not yet proven enough that his emotions can be used in his favour.  One has to think that all it will take is a clutch Young single, or a Josh Hamilton hitting it a mileout of Yankee Stadium, or another dazzling outing from Cliff Lee (the anti-C.C.) to throw Sabathia off of his game.

Prediction: C.C. will be dominant in Game 1, but C.J. Wilson will give the Yankees offense left-handed trouble as it has all year.  As a result C.C. will not get the win, will play on tilt in his second start, and be ineffective.

The NLCS: The Key To Dominant Pitching Is To Have LeRoy As Your Middle Name, Just Ask These Guys

Tim LeRoy Lincecum:

He has back-to-back CY Young Awards.  He has now struck out 245 batters this season, and has also pitched just over 221 innings.  If someone had said 3 years ago that a strikeout pitcher could log over 200 innings in each of his first 3 seasons, I would have responded with, “So he plays for Dusty Baker? Well, let’s enjoy it before Tommy J comes knockin’.”  But Lincecum is the exception to the rule, and his trophy case is fast to support that fact.  The only real question with Lincecum is, “how much longer can he go?”  If the answer is, “As long as his hair is,” then he will go well into the 240-250 inning marker and continue to post brilliant complete game 14 strikeout performances.  If the answer is, “as long as someone in the SF Giants offense can hit it,” well then maybe “Tim’s Tank” is finally running on “E” for this season.

Prediction: Lincecum will be Lincecum-like and dominate.  However he cannot carry this team by himself and simply will not be able to go the distance in 2 games and win them both 1-0.  Even “The Freak” cannot be THAT good.

Harry LeRoy Halladay:

Speaking of potentially running out of gas, Roy threw 250+ innings during the regular season.  Yet, no one is worried about this statistic as he is Roy Halladay, and is more machine than man.

Halladay’s post –season capabilities were a big unknown going into this post-season.  Some surely asked, “Will he be solid? Will he give up the Halladay patented “poor first inning,” and put his team out of it early in these clutch low scoring NLDS games? Or will he give arguably the greatest pitching performance in post season history and no-hit the best offense in the NL?”  We all sat and watched Roy do the latter, and dominate with such a stoic demeanour about him that it was clear, everyone else on earth was more emotionally involved in what was happening in that game than Roy Halladay was.  Doc just simply kept on pitching.

Truth is Doc was built for the playoffs.  He works harder than anyone in the game, and once the ump calls “play ball” it seems like doc shuts everything out except the strike zone and goes to work. 

I think the only thing left to ponder in his post season abilities is not, “Will he be great?” but, “How great will he be?”  Doc was already in a league of his own during the regular season, now, he has taken it to an all new level.  All we can do is sit back and watch something special every time he takes the mound and pitches himself a new story to be written in baseball folklore. 

Prediction:  Doc out duels Lincecum in a battle of the NL’s best.  It comes down to late-game focus, and frankly, Doc is more likely to get that 1-0 lead with his offense than Lincecum is.  First run wins the game with pitchers of this calibre, and Halladay will get it.

In Conclusion:

In my opinion, Cliff and Doc are the cream of the crop in their respective leagues (no offense to their counterparts).  It is hard to believe that the Phillies could have had both of these aces this season, but here is to hoping that we get a Phillies/Rangers Series, and Ruben Amaro Jr. puts the man he always wanted against the man he once settled for.