Category Archives: Wednesday Blog

Baseball

Kansas City – Like many others here in North America, the dominant sport of my youth was baseball. As a child, I could have easily listed off the starting lineup for the Chicago Cubs, my hometown team, just as easily as I could have told you who was President at the time. Baseball dominated my summers, with the evenings often spent at CommunityAmerica Ballpark in Kansas City, Kansas, home of the Kansas City T-Bones of the independent Northern League, and later the American Association.

Today, when I look at baseball often what first come out of my mouth is a sigh. For me, the classic image of baseball is that period between the 1930s and 1960s when some of the greatest classic players took to the field. Even when the Cubs were doing well in 1998 and 2003, my mental image of the national pastime was in black and white, unlike basketball which has always been in colour.

In the intervening years since the Cubbies last nearly made it to the World Series, just under 11 years ago at the time of my writing this editorial, my views on the sport have changed slightly. For one thing, I find that baseball is a bit of an odd duck in the sporting world. To an extent, it appears to try and mimic the game-length of american football, while having very distinct roots in sports such as rounders and cricket, which take far longer to play in their traditional forms.

So, I say why not make the structure of baseball more like cricket? Looking at the structure of the game, each game lasts for 9 innings, unless there’s a tie. In that case you could be there all night. The longest baseball game that I’ve sat through went to the 21st inning, ending at 2.00 am, with the T-Bones losing at the end to Fargo.

Each game is a part of a series, in large part a holdover from past decades when intercity travel in North America was quite a challenge. Each series traditionally lasts for 3 games. So, why not slightly change the way that scores are measured? Instead of going per-game, why not go per-series?

For example, say the Cubs play the Nationals over 4th of July weekend in Washington. The series begins on the afternoon of Friday, 4 July, a game the Cubs win 7-2 over the Nationals. Game 2 is on the evening of Saturday, 5 July, a game which the Nationals win 13-0. Game 3, the final game of the series, takes place at noon on Sunday, 6 July. Game 3 is won by the Nationals with a score of 2-1. Therefore, under my proposed system, the Nationals would win the series 2-1, with the runs standing at 16-8. So, the score would be shown as follows: WSH 2/17 – 1/8 CHC.

The runs would only matter in regards of who wins the series if at the end of 9 innings in Game 3 both teams are tied. So, let’s say that with the Nationals vs Cubs example, at the end of the 9th inning in Game 3 the teams are tied at 1-1. The umpires would then go to the total number of runs from the series, which in this revised scenario would be:

G1: CHC 1/7 – 0/2 WSH

G2: CHC 1/0 – 1/13 WSH

G3: CHC 1/1 – 1/1 WSH =

CHC 1/8 – WSH 2/15.

The Nationals would win the series because they scored more runs over the course of the series. You will notice that in this tie-breaker scenario, Game 3 is not counted under the games won side of the score (Games won / Runs.) This is because neither team technically won Game 3, leaving it uncounted in the overall score.

What would this do for the overall flow of the game? For one thing, it would allow for end-of-series games to end quicker, allowing for the teams to be on the road faster if needs be, while also ensuring for fans with children that their Sunday afternoon baseball wouldn’t keep their sons or daughters out too late on a school night. At the same time, it would give more meaning to the series, which I feel has lost quite a bit of meaning over the years. It could also give more impetus to batters to work on scoring more runs earlier in the series, as that would better insure their team from losing on runs at the series’ end.

On top of that, this system could simplify league standings, eliminating the need for having teams be 1/2 a game back from another team. In this model, the teams’ standings would be shown based upon their overall series performance. Ties on the series record side would be resolved with the number of runs scored. If we use the current Cubs record using the official rules of baseball, they stand as follows:

Team     W     L     PCT     L10     STRK

CHC     38    48   .442       6-4       L2

Now, if we use the same system for this series-based record, the Cubs record stands as:

Team     W     L     PCT     L10     STRK

CHC     12    16   .430       5-5       L1

You will notice that I do not include the “games behind” category in the above charts. If this series method were to be implemented it would include a “series behind” category. I simply did not have time to translate the seasons of all of the teams in the National League Central from the current game based system to my series based system.

In general, this series based system is more of a mild Monday afternoon brain teaser, and what I’d call an interesting exercise to consider. Whether any of the world’s baseball leagues will ever implement such a system is yet to be determined, however I will say that it would add another layer of excitement to the national pastime.

The Fantastic Growth of American Soccer

Kansas City – If I were to tell my 13 year old self who didn’t care at all about the 2006 World Cup in Germany that I spent the entirety of this afternoon and evening watching the 2014 World Cup from Brazil, my younger self would probably be shocked. For me, like many of my fellow Americans, soccer is a very new phenomenon. We knew it existed back in Europe, Latin America, and Africa, but it simply has not made good roots here in the United States until very recently.

In the Summer of 2006, as the football/soccer world converged upon Germany, I was far more focused upon the old classic summer sport here in the States and Canada: baseball. I did not really care all that much that France and Italy made the final, though I knew they did, and remember my parents watching it while I played MLB At Bat in another room on my PlayStation 2. That being said, within two years I would have caught the soccer bug.

You’ll notice that throughout this article, I am referring to the sport known commonly the world over as football by its name here in the US and Canada: soccer. This is simply because we already have a sport called football, American Football, which frankly I’ve never really understood or cared for. The first soccer match that I ever watched in full was a repeat broadcast of the 2008 FA Cup Final on Fox Soccer. I chose to support Southampton over Cardiff City because of Southampton’s association with my own family, as my great-granddad Thomas Kane spent some time in Southampton with the American Expeditionary Force on his way to the trenches of France during the First World War. I know, it’s not the best of reasons, but it worked at the time.

At about the same time, the domestic first tier league here in the US and Canada, Major League Soccer, was just past its tenth anniversary, and beginning its expansion and meteoric rise to prominence that we are still in the process of witnessing. It would be another year until my parents and I made it to a MLS match, when during the summer of 2009 we went to see our local club, the Kansas City Wizards, take on Chivas USA at the Wizards’ then home CommunityAmerica Ballpark, the proper home of the Kansas City T-Bones Baseball Club. What an experience it was!

When the Wizards announced they would be building a soccer-specific stadium a few blocks east of the T-Bones ballpark, which was just a few miles east of my family’s farm, we knew we had to get season tickets. The 2010 World Cup was truly when the sport became prominent here in Kansas City, when our official watch party at the Power and Light District was featured a number of times on ESPN’s broadcasts of the USMNT matches in South Africa. Later that year, in December, the Wizards ownership group announced the rebranding of the team as Sporting Kansas City, and from there on out this city was on its way.

Since the start of the 2011 season, I have attended a good majority of all Sporting KC home matches, and have quickly found a great appreciation for the sport itself. It’s funny how things work, how a sport can change one’s life. When I first started watching soccer in 2008, I found other European based sports like rugby and cricket to be odd and confusing. Now I watch more rugby than American football, and follow cricket just as much as I do baseball. At about the same time that I was introduced to soccer, I was also introduced to my family’s current favourite sport, Formula 1.

Nationally, soccer has grown exponentially over the past few years. One major announcement that came earlier this year in the favour of the new sport was that it was just as popular among 19-24 year olds as the national pastime, baseball. As noted in an article on Al Jazeera America by David Keyes, a former editor of XI Quarterly, soccer is “now second only to basketball (above baseball and football) in youth participation numbers.” The youth of this country are becoming enthralled with the beautiful game. With the additions of New York City FC and Orlando City SC in 2015 and Atlanta in 2017, soccer is truly becoming a major sport in the United States. The world will know how far this country has come when our men’s national team wins the World Cup.

One added benefit to the growth of American soccer is the timing of the regular season here. Rather than play in the winter like the majority of the world’s leagues, which would be nearly impossible in much of the north, including my hometown of Chicago, our league plays from March to December. This ends up working out well on a global scale for viewers around the world, or at the very least for those of us Stateside, as when the MLS is off the European, and Mexican leagues among others are on. On the other hand, if you are like my family, my Chicagoland readership, expats included, or I you’ll spend the MLS offseason watching the Blackhawks.

That’s the beauty of the sporting scene here in the US and Canada, we are already used to having multiple sports going on at once. Just look at your average November or December Sunday: the NHL, NFL, and NBA will all be at play, often with franchises from the same city playing at the same time. Adding another sport to our springs, summers, and autumns is nothing new. I am more than happy to be following the Blackhawks, Sporting KC, the Bulls, and my two favourite baseball teams (the Cubs and Royals) all at once. Multitasking is something of a speciality for a triple major like me.

So, looking at this year’s World Cup being played out in Brazil, I find myself gleefully watching every moment I can. This played itself out to the extent today that I ended up watching three of today’s four matches in full. Come Monday though, it will be all for the USMNT.

Remembering D-Day 70 Years On

Kansas City – I am a pacifist. I find myself in disagreement with violence, especially that special breed of violence that is of a homicidal nature. In a more general sense of the traditional argument, I do not agree with the just war theory as proposed by Augustine of Hippo. That being said, the one war, in fact the most savage and violent event in all of human history, that is the Second World War, is one area in which I find my disagreements most challenging to uphold.

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy. It was the beginning of the Liberation of Europe from the Nazis, and the end of their staining upon the face of humanity. D-Day was truly one of the last great events in which the majority of humanity were united as one in the stamping out of evil. Soldiers from Britain, the Commonwealth, France, and the United States crossed the Channel on that fateful day, the first of whom landed quite possibly 70 years ago exactly from the moment that I am writing this sentence (Midnight in Chicago, 06.00 in London.) Alongside them were many other fine people who had escaped from their home countries then occupied by the Nazis, to keep the fire of freedom burning in exile.

Now, 70 years on, we have a good opportunity to recall their brave sacrifice and determination to see an end to Nazism. Today is an excellent time to consider our own positions in the span of history. How do we in 2014 best live to preserve freedom? How do we today strive to keep our society safe for dialogue in the present and amongst future generations? I began by declaring my own views regarding violence. At this moment in this editorial, I feel it necessary to beg the question, not just to my American audience, but to my readership in the rest of the world: Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers defeated Nazism, which evils are there in our own world that need defeating?

From my own perspective, which I admit is a bit left of centre on the American political spectrum, the greatest evil which we as humans still need to face is the weaponisation of fear. Despite the War’s ending 69 years ago, we are still bombed each and every day. Only now, those bombs do not directly, physically slaughter. Rather, these verbal bombs, these armoured words are dropped upon us all every day. Look no further than the fear mongering that comes from the more extreme mouthpieces of our media and political class. This year also marks the 150th anniversary of some of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War, a war which still impacts this country just as much as it did when it was being fought. Even now, the United States is divided culturally, socially, and politically along the same exact lines as it was in the 1850s and 1860s.

This country has come so very far from the unity that it experienced during the Second World War. Sometimes I do wonder if we give the men and women who worked against Nazism and Fascism proper honour and respect. Our actions in the present are modelled in at least a minimal manner upon the deeds of the past. But also they are shaped by the years in between, by the joys and sorrows, the optimism and cynicism alike. Today the United States is a very cynical nation. Then again, it would appear that in general the West has become quite cynical over the past few decades.

Let us honour the memory of D-Day by working together to keep the flame of freedom burning as bright as it ever has. It will require us to keep the dialogue going. Most importantly though, to truly honour those veterans and their fallen comrades in their struggle for liberty, let us embrace everyone. Let all people be free to be whomever they are.