News from the Giants camp

The Giants signed closer Brian Wilson to a 2 yr. / $15M extension today and dealt utility IF Kevin Frandsen to the Red Sox for the oft-traded PTBNL.

Apparently, the Giants RF starter will come from within the organization and it seems as if Bowker is working ahead of Nate Schierholtz.

The P-C combo of Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner is going to be the hottest battery in the minors. Neither is likely to start the season in the bigs. Posey has demonstrated that he is ready, Bumgarner has struggled. It will be interesting to see if Bumgarner gets sent to AA rather than AAA.

The only other position of interest is the 5th starter slot. Although Bumgarner may have been the fan favorite for the spot, Todd Wellemeyer appears to be the leading candidate over Kevin Pucetas and Joe Martinez.

Other than that, decisions have to be made about Freddie Lewis, who will likely be dealt and Darren Ford, the fastest man in the organization. Ford is interesting in that--if he hits--he could be an ideal lead off candidate, certainly better than Aaron Rowand. And it seems like Ford is learning how to hit.

Rowand may hold down the spot purely due to salary consideration, aka "dead money walking".

They are a tough read, these Giants. I can see them just as easily winning 80 games as 90. The difference is "wait til next year" on the one hand vs. "Hello playoffs" on the other hand.

According to an article in Baseball America, citing data from www.fansgraphs.com, the projection for the Giants is 80 wins, one ahead of San Diego. That seems a bit harsh, but they break down the Giants offense as being far and away the weakest link on the team and in the division.

The pitching staff--as expected--grades out as the best in the division slightly ahead of the D-Backs. Surprisingly, the team fielding is ranked as the best in the division, the only team above baseline (barely).

All I can say is, the rest of the division must be a horrible collection of slow-footed clanks.

This is why I fear the pitching staff may eventually break down under the heavy load of carrying the rest of a mediocre squad. The everyday players do not contribute enough with their bats or gloves to bolster the clear strength of the team--which is pitching.

If the pitching falls off even slightly due to injury or bad luck, a .500 season could be all we, as Giants fans, should hope for. Everything has to go right with the pitching and a couple of players have to step up with career type years for 90 wins to be realistic.

The other theme that worried me at first were the persistent reports citing Pablo Sandoval's weight issues and his vision problems. He may wear goggles this year. It just seems like the team has identified some pretty impressive problems for a guy who hits .300 with 25 HR's. Does the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" come to mind?

Anyway, it looks like Kung Fu Panda is a legit hitter regardless of the teams efforts to re-make him.

GO GIANTS!!!

NCAA BRACKETOLOGY - SECOND ROUND ACTION

Amazingly, the two brackets representing Team Slavik held their ground in the group standings while at the same time meeting the shredder at home.

Losses to Kansas and Villanova killed our eventual champion and another Final Four entry. This chokes off our future prospects. This has so far shaped up as a tournament of upsets, perhaps showing even more this year the extent to which the playing field has been equalized throughout college basketball. Small schools can step up and compete for a berth in the Sweet Sixteen or perhaps the Final Four, if not a National Title.

The mid-major conferences are showing that they can compete with the major conferences and traditional basketball powerhouses. Now if only somebody can knock off Duke, we can enjoy the rest of the tournament.

NCAA BRACKETOLOGY - FIRST ROUND ACTION

Not a bad start for the two Team Slavik entries. In a pool of 44, Ledra's entry is in a rather large tie for second. She is currently holding down the third spot if you consider "best score" as the next tie-breaker.

My bracket comes in a large tie for third, seventh overall considering the best score remaining.
So not a bad start. Ledra had 25 correct picks out of 32 to my 24 of 32. The best entry in our pool currently stands at 26 correct, so we're in decent shape there.

We clicked on the Cornell 12/5 upset of Temple and the St. Mary's 10/7 victory over Richmond.
Florida as a 10/7 upset over BYU was looking good until O/T.

On the hurt side, Georgetown pulled the choke earlier than anticipated and I had them advancing further. Notre Dame's annual folding chair act was a bit of a surprise, but it shouldn't have been. I was looking at Washington as a live dog versus Washington but did not pull the trigger.

Murray State over Vanderbilt probably hurt more than just our entries. The Clemson loss and Oklahoma State losing to Georgia Tech in the 7/10 spots were not huge surprises or hurts.

So off we go to the second round in pretty good shape. Kansas to win on both cards was probably not too smart--the whole putting all our eggs in one basket thing, but we shall see how it plays out.

Handicapping the Health Care Vote

TIME TO STOP POINTING FINGERS AND CHOOSE SIDES


Just looking at this from a detached--"where would I set the over/under on this if I were making book"--point of view, this thing should literally come down to arm-wrestling over the last vote to push it over the 216 needed for passage.

Using information from the NYT listed here:

From the New York Times

Democrats to Watch on the Health Care Vote

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/16/us/politics/20100316-health-care-dems.html?ref=politics

Below are House Democrats who may decide the fate of the health care overhaul in coming days. Some are members who supported Representative Bart Stupak’s amendment that added abortion restrictions to the House’s bill, which passed in November, and feel the Senate bill, which the House will be voting on, is too weak on abortion. There are also representatives who voted “no” in November, but who party leaders hope to sway. If all of the current 431 House members vote, Democrats will need 216 to pass. The vote tally is based on a variety of factors — including the political landscape of each district, and the lawmaker’s voting record and past public statements on health care. The tally will be updated as more lawmakers announce their intentions.

If you phrase out each of the six column headings and make a best-case/worst-case projection in each category and average out the totals, Pelosi either has at worst 214.5 votes currently and at best maybe 220.

Here's how I see it. The site says she has 198 yes votes currently. Most of the more recent undecided are turning yes indicating she is garnering the low hanging fruit she needs so far. The other 33 should be a harder sell.

By category, the 33 remaining undecideds flesh out as follows:

Lame Ducks: 4
Pro-Life: 23
McCain Districts: 18
Obama Districts: 15
Freshman: 8
Blue Dogs: 18

Total of 86 "category points" among the final 33 undecided votes.

This adds up to more than 33 due to overlapping. Some are counted in more than one category, so we can't be too sure what category will most likely sway their final vote.

Among the lame ducks, Pelosi should get at least 3-4 votes. These guys are out, they can get other government jobs within the administration in exchange for their vote, or goodies for the district. This should be a slam dunk category.

The pro-lifers should be tough to sway. They've gone this far, there is almost no incentive to cave now. The Dem leadership will extract revenge just for stringing things out this long. So at best, maybe 6-7 votes here for the Dems.

The McCain district, they should be able to sway most of those, maybe 2/3. So 9-12 votes here.

The Obama districts, 2/3 to all of the votes should fall in line. So maybe 10-15 here.

Freshman congressman. If Pelosi can't browbeat them, she ought to hang it up. Maybe another 6-8 votes here.

The Blue Dogs are another tough category. They've gone this far, but the issue of party loyalty and paybacks are pretty tough to handicap. About 1/2 cave in at the last minute. I give Pelosi maybe 9 here.

There's 86 "category points: up for grabs. She gets 43/86 in a worst-case scenario.

So at worst, if I give her half the remaining 33 votes or 16.5 plus her 198 coming in for a total of 214.5. Just short, but enough to make everybody sweat.

At best, she gets 55/86 or almost 2/3 of the remaining 33 votes. That would be 22 plus the 198 she has for a victory lap 220 votes to PASS HEALTH CARE.

It really looks like it may come down to the resolve of the Pro-Life camp and the Blue Dog Democrat camp.

Interesting to note that there are 13 congressman who straddle both camps, seemingly making them a tough switch. If that's the case, Pelosi almost needs to run the table among the rest.

(Altmire, Barrow, Berry, Cuellar, Dahlkemper, Davis, Connelly, Ellsworth, Hill, Matheson, Pomeroy, Space and Tanner are the dual campers)

If you begin to see these names switch to yes, then the tide will have turned to yes.

Should be a fun weekend, MARCH MADNESS and DC MADNESS rolled into one.

Que the Torch and Pitchfork Crowd!!!

THE TORCH AND PITCHFORK CROWD - COMING SOON TO A NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU!!!

I just love stories like this. It's a local story. But this is and has been developing nationally for years. So we're back for further review of the landscape.

Schools debate if students should bear full cost when they pay to play

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=365919

School board members learned last week that the cost of running the interscholastic sports for the district's middle and high schools averages $417.58 per athlete per sport.

At least two board members - Roberts and Jack Hinterlong - thought the fee hikes weren't enough. Hinterlong said a fee should cover at least 50 percent of the cost of the activity.

"I'm of the mind we have our backs pushed against the wall," Roberts said, noting the Batavia teachers union had just agreed to give up part of its raise and insurance benefits for next year, to avoid laying off up to 60 teachers.

If it comes to spending money in the classroom or on a club, the decision is a "no-brainer" for her, Roberts said. She'll favor the classroom.

Like it or not, since the beginning of the 20th century, extra-curricular activities and sports have been considered to be a vital, integral part of a well-rounded education.

This whole tactic of figuratively holding a gun to the head of extra-curriculars and sports in order to extract property tax increases from the electorate has been going on for many years and it was repulsive when it was done.

Now the shift is to use the programs to augment diminishing revenues and avoid cuts that strike at the fatty portions of the budget--which is very clearly salaries, benefits and spiraling, out of control administrative costs within the budget.

How logical is it to cut muscle and leave fat untouched? Or to attack a segment of the school that actually has demonstrable, proven positive effects on the health and well-being of kids?

We can't fire teachers who act criminally within the system and harm kids with any reasonable speed, but we sure can take a knife to what works pretty quick, can't we?

It doesn't make any common sense.

Average Total Spending per pupil has surpassed $9K each and is heading towards $10K nationally.

According to the Census Bureau, it was approaching $9K in 2007
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/010125.html


Average Spending on Extra-Curricular Activities (ECA) is about $450 each.

According to Encyclopedia Brittanica via Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracurricular_activity

So we are looking to correct budget deficits by demanding payment from a segment of the curriculum that currently only commands 5% of the budget!!

Are you kidding me? Again, this is like someone who is drowning in debt suggesting that all they need to do is cancel a couple of channels on his cable bill or switch his cellular phone plan.

Compound stories like these, with the history of shell-game maneuvers like:

-- The "Pass a State Lottery to Benefit Education" shell game that was perpetrated on Florida voters years ago. Little or none of the funds went to benefit education

-- The property tax shell game that many municipalities play today--whereby property appraisals that are the basis for determining tax revenues sent to the schools are kept artificially high by basing them on inflated pre-housing bubble levels. They change the rules or methodology from recent sales (which are currently deflated) to a three-year average (to lock in the inflated values longer) in order to lock in higher revenues. Funny how when the market was moving higher they couldn't re-assess houses fast enough.

-- The prior history of "extra-curricular hostage taking" strategy to extort property tax increases via referendum.

And now this current strategy shift to off-loading of expenses is nothing more than a selective tax increase on parents whose children are involved in ECA.

It's done because administrators and politicians cannot properly budget and control costs and expenses in an efficient manner.

So they kick the can down the road instead of taking proper steps to controlling the part of the budget that is bloated and out of control and responsible for the deficits. Nothing but a bunch of cowards, thieves and charlatans.

When the "torch and pitchfork" crowd comes knocking on their door, I hope they don't act too surprised. What we really need is a politician who confronts corrupt, out of control monopoly power of government in the same way the trust buster Teddy Roosevelt (the better Roosevelt) did when the abuse was on the private side of the ledger. Public abuse of power and control is just as bad.

Urban Dictionary definition of "torch and pitchfork" crowd:
A group of angry or vocal opponents who regularly come out against something, usually prognosticating dire consequences.

I guess the shoe fits.

However, it's not enough to complain and not offer constructive solutions. Here's a story of a district--Towanda School District (PA)--that is taking on the difficult steps necessary to tackle the problem in a common sense way.

http://thedailyreview.com/news/towanda-school-board-decides-to-not-eliminate-extracurricular-activities-1.630162

While the Towanda School Board had said in mid-January that it was going to look at the school district's extracurricular activities and possibly eliminate some of them, the board has since decided to keep them all in place.

The decision to preserve all extracurricular activities was made at the school board meeting on Tuesday, when the board also approved a school calendar for the 2010-11 school year and heard from a financial advisor on the state of its swap agreement.

In addition, Towanda schools Superintendent Diane M. Place announced that, under Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year, the Towanda School District would receive a 9 percent increase in its basic educational subsidy, which is the primary form of state assistance to school districts.

Extracurricular activities

As the school board works on the school district's budget for the 2010-11 school year, it has been looking for ways to cut expenses, as it will be facing increased health insurance, pension, and salary costs in the coming year.

At its Jan. 11 meeting, the school board had asked school district Business Manager Doreen Secor to draw up a list of the school district's after-school sports programs and other extracurricular activities, which would include the amount spent on each program and the number of students who participate in each program.

The school board had planned at the time to look at the list to see which programs to eliminate.

The school board reviewed the list on Tuesday, and then accepted the school district administration's recommendation to keep all the extracurricular activities in place for the coming year.

The school board also accepted the administration's proposal to pare 2 to 3 percent from the school district's budget for after-school sports and other extracurricular activities, which would save the district $10,000 to $15,000.

"I'm not sure we could go much above (2 or 3 percent) without adversely affecting the quality" of the extracurricular activities, Secor told the school board.

By not eliminating extracurricular activities, the school district will "continue to offer the diverse opportunities to students that set us apart," Place said.

Place said that students do better academically if they are involved in extracurricular activities, and high school Principal Dennis Peachey said the activities also result in higher school attendance rates by students.

The main expenses related to extracurricular activities are stipends for coaches and advisors and transportation costs to meets, school board Vice-president Pete Alesky said. "The rest of the costs are not that much," he said.

Swap

In December, Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner had sent a letter to every school district in the Commonwealth, urging them to refrain from using interest-rate swaps and to terminate any swaps agreements they may have. Wagner has said the swaps are "risky financial instruments."

But Les Bear of Robert W. Baird & Co. in Exton, who is a financial adviser to the Towanda School District, said the school district's swap has worked out very well for the district.

So far, the district has earned $214,000 from its swap, he said. The district entered into the swap several years ago.

The swap is currently tied to the district's 2007 bond issue.

As the bond is paid off, the risk that comes from being in the swap agreement and the cost of terminating the swap early decreases, he said.

The exposure to risk and the cost to terminate the swap early "will reduce dramatically after 2012," he said.

While the swap is scheduled to end in 2023, the district could end it at any time before then, he said.

The cost of terminating the swap early, which is based on market conditions, would be $300,000 today, he said.

"Potentially, by 2015, it could be a lot less," he said.

He said the district should look at ending the swap well before 2023, after the early-termination cost decreases.

It is interesting to note the use of interest rate swaps as part of the budgeting process.

Because on the one hand--at the grass roots level--we have parents and kids selling coupon books or cookies and conducting car washes to help the schools balance their budgets while in the ivory tower we have administrators playing a game of poker with complex financial instruments.

THAT'S INTERESTING.

NOTE ON INTEREST RATE SWAPS from www.investorprotection.com:

Interest-rate swaps are complex financial instruments and tied to variable interest rates. If interest rates remain favorable, purchasers like a municipality benefit. If market conditions create an unfavorable interest rate environment, however, the bank responsible for initially selling the swap receives higher payments from the purchaser.

BECAUSE IT CAN LEAD TO THIS:

http://www.investorprotection.com/jpmorgan-chase.php

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is a global financial services firm with assets of $2.1 trillion and operations in more than 60 countries. For years, the company made big profits by arranging complex investment deals involving credit derivatives for states, cities, hospitals, school districts and other entities that sell debt in the municipal bond market.

In 2007, the collapse of the subprime market and the subsequent liquidity squeeze caused many of these financing arrangements to sour, forcing countless public agencies and municipalities to come up with billions of dollars to pay for increased interest payment costs.

WOW!!! Billions of dollars??? That's a lot of car washes, dude!!!

Get educated folks. And get involved!!

Which path should we be taking?

THE DEMOCRATIC PEACE CLOCK
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP.CLOCK.HTM

Now is the dawning of a new world. The democratic peace has kicked in and global violence is waning; and nearly five hours to universal peace and security.

What is the democratic peace?

It is the web of factual propositions that:

Democracies do not make war on each other.
The more two nations are democratic, the less their mutual violence.
Democracies have the least foreign violence.
Democracies have, by far, the least internal violence.
Modern democracies have virtually no democide (genocide and mass murder)
Putting all this together, democracy is a method of nonviolence. And therefore, the democratic peace.

Sounds good to me.

But wait there's more.

What is the democratic peace clock (DPC)?

This measures democratic progress in the world and thus, how close we are to eliminating war and democide (genocide and mass murder), and minimizing other forms of collective violence. Each percent increase in the percent of the world population democratic is an advancement in the clock of 58.2 seconds--virtually a minute. Midnight, the darkest time of night, was when there were no democracies and thus, violence and turmoil encompassed the whole world. High noon will be when the sun shines full on the world, and when the entire world will be democratic, and therefore, the world will be at peace. In 1950, 31 percent of the world's population was democratic, which was not yet a sufficient percent to effect world peace as a whole. On the DPC the time was 3:43AM, still a time of deep night. In 2000, however, there were 120 electoral democracies, or a democratic world population of 58.2 percent, more than half the world, and this was now having a great positive force on world peace (to be shown empirically below). The DPC was at 6:59AM, and it's dawn. As of 2001, The Gambia entered the list of democracies, raising the number to 121 electoral democracies out of 194 countries. There are 86 liberal democracies enjoying civil and political rights.

NOTE: I have updated the clock and count of democracies to mid-2006 here. By then the clock had advanced to 8:15AM.

From Democratic Peace Blog:

Political Freedom vs. Economic Freedom and Wealth

http://democraticpeace.wordpress.com/tag/economic-freedom/

Obviously, there is a close relationship, as by theory there should be. One cannot dominate a free market with a government dictated economy without destroying freedom in the process. Note that even the so-called “people’s republic of Sweden” is indexed as being economically free in the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal index. So is Denmark, and so-called “socialist” Israel is indexed as mostly economically free.

Then, what about the economic development, or what I prefer to call the wealth of a nation, and welfare of a people. The next chart shows the close relationship between the Freedom House ratings and various measure of wealth and welfare.

There you have it. Political and Economic freedom not only go together, but also they are an engine of a people’s wealth and welfare. Add this to the fact the democratically free countries never have had a famine, virtually never murder their own people, have the least internal violence, and never any wars between them, and you have freedom as the closest thing to a general solution to humanity’s ills.

Three cheers for freedom. Okay, you freedomists out there, to work.

I would just ask myself, on which path do we appear to be headed?

More free or less free?
More wealth or less wealth?
And if wealth is linked to our welfare and security, then why shouldn't we be concerned about the direction we are heading?

And what are the future consequences?

and further,

”Testing Whether Freedom Predicts Human Security and Violence (2001) By R.J. Rummel, Appendix to Saving Lives, enriching Life: Freedom as a Right and a Moral Good
In this appendix, I did a variety of mathematical and statistical operations to test the hypothesis that freedom predicts to human security and violence. The conclusion:

For all nations 1997 to 1998, the human security of their people, their human and economic development, the violence in their lives, and the political instability of their institutions, is theoretically and empirically dependent on their freedom–their civil rights and political liberties, rule of law, and the accountability of their government. One can well predict a people’s human security by knowing how free they are.

Moreover, just considering the violence, instability, and total deaths a people can suffer, the more freedom they have the less of this they endure. This is to say:

Even if we just improve the human rights of a people, even if we promote some democratization of their political institutions, it will improve their human security, and reduce the violence that inflicts them.

These blogs are run by a fellow by the name of Rudy (R.J.) Rummell, who is a a Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii.

One of his blogs mentions that he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

I suppose one can only wonder--after reviewing some of his work--why he has not actually won a Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe after seeing whom they choose to waste their time honoring and the narrative of Rummels' views (pro-democaracy, pro-America), perhaps wonder may be suspended.

According to Rummel, that there is a correlation between political power and democide.
(He defines democide as murder by government).

Political mass murder grows increasingly common as political power becomes unconstrained. (Again what path are we on? Are we there yet?).

At the other end of the scale, where power is diffuse, checked, and balanced, political violence is a rarity.
(Oh yes, checks and balances, it seems like I heard about that once in school. Maybe when we learned about the Constitution and how a bill becomes law and all that those other brilliant, founding concepts that todays group of criminally corrupt and morally and ethically bankrupt politicians seem to want to trample over or ignore.)

"The more power a regime has, the more likely people will be killed. This is a major reason for promoting freedom."
(Good reason)


He concludes: "Concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth."
(Amen to that brother!!)

To where the alternate path may lead, I don't know. But why take any chances?

--------

"With all [our] blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens--a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities." - Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801. ME 3:320

"Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in
their manners. ... Six days shalt thou labor, though one of
the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be
looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase,
and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances
will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring
them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing
all your estates among them." - Benjamin Franklin

My diet and weight loss rant (since it's that time of year)

Last week, an old friend of mine from high school--who I recently re-connected with through Facebook--asked me about a popular diet / weight loss regimen being promoted on the internet. Since I thought that he was considering the routine for himself, I reflexively launched into am e-mail rant. You see what blogging can do to you? It turns out that he was asking on behalf of a client or friend who asked him about it, so I thought I would reproduce the exchange here.

This is an issue I used to deal with time after time when I trained people in the gym. They would bounce from one diet program to another, gain weight / lose weight like a yo-yo (typical) and get frustrated, never knowing why they were seemingly doomed to fail. More time than not, they blamed themselves (I got off the program, I did this or that wrong...) for failing rather than the program, but they returned to the same approach again the next year, either on the exact same diet regimen whatever was the "newer, better" diet program being promoted that year.

Since we are about to enter beach season in most parts of the country--which means the thoughts of young men and women nationwide turns to how well or poorly they will fit into their swimsuit / bikini--I thought it would be a decent public service to share our exchange here.

Anyway, the conversation goes something like this.

My friends question:

Have you ever heard of "The *** ******* *******" diet/workout ? I just ran across it today and the info-mercial was just too long but they do seem to have stirred up a lot of attention...

My response:

Oh boy, where to begin?!? (THIS IS A FORMAL RANT ALERT)

I'm going to try to be nice to Mr. *** ****** of **** ** **** *******, but I'm afraid I'm going to fail. It strikes me as "sizzle" salesmanship in a world starving for steak.

He plays into the same myths and fallacies of dieting and fat loss that doom most (90% percent) to failure while at the same time positioning himself as "not like all the others" with the pitch that there is some sort of miracle pill (he uses the "15 minute miracle" on his site) or drill that will make this effort easy on them. People love to hear that, unfortunately, it's BS.

- Lose 42 lbs. + 10 inches in 45 minutes per week (says FAST and EASY to the buyer)
- Lose 60 lbs. + 8 dress sizes on 45 minutes (says FAST and EASY to the buyer)

People unfortunately move from one diet to the next, one fad program to the next and have initial success early when they are somewhat motivated and excited only to FAIL later. And the sad part is, when they fail, they blame themselves for the failure NOT THE PROGRAM OR FAD DIET.

The basic premise is WRONG. Fat loss and changing lifetime habits is not easy, IT'S HARD.
People don't get FAT in 15 minutes, but they want to lose weight in 15 minute.

He says lose fat, not weight by eating the right foods, the right amounts at the right time. Sounds OK so far.

He trashes fad diets and programs as doomed to fail and snake oil salesman. I'm just afraid he might be one himself.

His method of sales is the success of both he and his wife. Anecdotal and we don't know the specifics of HOW they gained the weight in the first place and how they lost it. I'm going to assume they gained it the way most do, by not being conscientious about activity level and sound nutrition.

What bothered me the most was, I could find nothing on his site or independently that mentioned his education, credentials, certifications in fitness or exercise science. The narrative was he figured this stuff almost by accident.

I hope not, or I've wasted a lot of time and effort over the years.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Especially true in fitness and weight loss.

Don't sell/buy EASY, it's not EASY. We live in a microwave, point and click generation that wants results fast and easy.

Our metabolism and our bodies physiology and responses to diet and exercise on the other hand have been developed over hundreds and thousands of years. This disconnect (IMO) is the reason for most of the failures.

It's HARD--at first--to change bad habits that have crept in subtly over years and years. Once the results kick in it becomes easier, but requires near constant maintenance and vigilance. But it takes TIME and PATIENCE, which nobody wants to hear. But then they wonder why they keep on failing.

Google Art Devany, Dr. Fred Hatfield (nicknamed Dr. Squat because the was the first man to squat over 1,000 lbs.).

Both are more on the "it's not over-eating, it's under-activity" that causes obesity and it's the activity (muscle building) end of the equation that fad diets neglect. BECAUSE IT'S TOO DIFFICULT FOR THEM TO PACKAGE FOR MASS MARKETING.

I included a couple of DeVany's pubs. The Evolutionary Fitness is pretty good. It might change how you view the term "Diet".

I'll also attach a presentation I used to go through with clients in the gym that borrows heavily from Dr. Hatfield's work (with permission) with the International Sports Sciences Association.

I would have guessed you would gravitate more towards a Crossfit workout type guy from a programming standpoint. You were an athlete, were there any fat guys on the wrestling team? I know some of the stuff that used to go on back then in terms of training make me cringe when I think about it, but still...athletes are fit, they get fat after they retire when they stop working hard.

HARD WORK, my favorite two four letter words.

I feel much better (THIS CONCLUDES THE RANT PART OF THIS MESSAGE)

Copy of the Nutritional Guidelines Notes I used when I worked with clients in the gym:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/28421895/Eagle-Article-Nutritional-Guidelines

Here is Art De Vany's website:
http://www.arthurdevany.com/

The articles I sent to my friend contain some copyrighted material so I don't want to reproduce them here, but Art puts out some great stuff on nutrition and fitness. His site and materials are well worth checking out. Dude is 70+ years old and in great shape, a Jack LaLanne with a huge brain.

Just a pretty neat test....

Try it and let me know how you do....

The Color Test:

http://www.humorsphere.com/fun/8787/colortest.swf

The old right brain vs. left brain thing. Here's another popular one.

The Spinning Woman Test:

From maniacworld.com

http://www.maniacworld.com/Spinning-Silhouette-Optical-Illusion.html

If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa. Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

The hug heard around the world

[CONCACAF.com]
U.S. defender Abigail Dahlkemper, facing camera with orange headband, consoles Haitian goalkeeper Alexandra Coby after the U.S. team defeated Haiti 9-0 in the opening round of an under-17 women’s soccer tournament in Costa Rica.

GREAT STORY!! You just never know when a random act of kindness is going to be seen, heard, felt around the world.

Story from the St. Pete Times:
http://tampabay.com/sports/teenage-american-goalkeeper-shares-touching-moment-with-defeated-haitian/1079497

The Wisdom (or is it Madness??) of Crowds and Baseball

In their recent edition, Baseball America, did a "prospect draft" of this years crop of MLB rookies. On the surface, the premise of the article brought to my mind the book "The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations" by James Surowiecki.

Baseball America started the process by culling the prospect list of their staff of reporters-- Will Lingo, John Manuel, Jim Callis and Conor Glassey.

These guys are chatting with MLB GM's, scouting directors, farm directors, scouts and coaches year round. It's safe to say that if they don't know it, it's not worth knowing as far as the future pipeline of major league stars goes. Anyway, they combined each guys list and came up with a consensus of opinion that seems to match the methodology described in the book.

Is this the most effective method? Who knows? That's why they play the games.

Every year brings a surprise or two in terms of an early bloomer or a well-hyped bust, but most years the BA list is as good as it gets.

See if you see a similar connection between BA and the book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds

The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, published in 2004, is a book written by James Surowiecki about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group. The book presents numerous case studies and anecdotes to illustrate its argument, and touches on several fields, primarily economics and psychology.

The opening anecdote relates Francis Galton's surprise that the crowd at a county fair accurately guessed the weight of an ox when their individual guesses were averaged (the average was closer to the ox's true butchered weight than the estimates of most crowd members, and also closer than any of the separate estimates made by cattle experts).[1]

The book relates to diverse collections of independently-deciding individuals, rather than crowd psychology as traditionally understood. Its central thesis, that a diverse collection of independently-deciding individuals is likely to make certain types of decisions and predictions better than individuals or even experts, draws many parallels with statistical sampling, but there is little overt discussion of statistics in the book.

Its title is an allusion to Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, published in 1841.

We feel more comfortable with the opinion of an expert or guru when many times the collective wisdom will do as good or better a job. It's easy to assume that if we find the "right" person that they will lead us to the "right" answer. Many times, the greater wisdom is in the consensus or collective opinion. And it plays right into the baseball culture of going by "The Book" as well as the corporate culture of CYA.

On the home front, the Giants managed to put the Big Two, Buster Posey (ranked 7th overall) and Madison Bumgarner ranked 14th on the list. Further down, I found Zach Wheeler (49th) and Thomas Neal (96th). Not bad placing four out of 100.

The Rays placed seven in the top 100 including:
#6 OF Desmond Jennings
#18 RHP Jeremy Hellickson
#34 RHP Wade Davis
#35 LHP Matt Moore
#54 SS Reid Brignac
#67 SS Tim Beckham
and # 68 RHP Alex Colome.

The future is bright for the Rays.

The Cubs and Indians placed five players apiece.

The Giants and nine other organizations were up next with four players.

This tells me that the Giants are roughly middle of the pack in terms of absolute number of prospects, although they are top-heavy on the list with Posy and Bumgarner posting where they did. Sadly, the Giants appear ready to block Posey this year and maybe save a year in control unless he wows them like Longoria did the Rays a couple of years back.

The other top players on BA's list included:

The Braves 20-year old OF Jason Heyward, who topped the list. He already looks like a star.

The Nats RHP Stephen Strasburg looks ready to pay dividends on his big bonus paid last year.

Marlins OF Mike Stanton was third and Yankees C Jesus Montera ranked #4.

Rounding out the Top Five was Orioles LHP Brian Matusz.

The law of small numbers and the usual caveats about injuries can quickly turn a bumper crop of four or five players, who could contribute to a team's fortunes, into a low yielding field of one or two contributors.

Which is why this stuff is so interesting, it's very fleeting and no matter how smart you may be, you can look like a colossal screw-up due to issues entirely out of your control. It's partly what draws us to fantasy leagues and March Madness bracket-ology.

You didn't need to look too far into the spring training notes to find Hank Blalock signing a minor league deal with the Rays and Khalil Greene getting released by the Rangers last week to see how quickly the fickle fortunes of baseball can turn. A couple of years ago, you might not have sounded crazy picking Blalock over former teammate Mark Texeira as a prospect. And now one is on Broadway and the other is trying to light up Central Avenue.

The Khalil Greene case is even more crazy. A year or two ago he looked like he was going to be the type of hitter who could contend for the batting title or pound out 20-25 HR's for you and now he can't even stay on the field. It's like the hitter's version of Steve Blass--where he has just lost the ability to compete effectively at this level--albeit for a slightly different reason.

Both cases are confounding and hopefully Khalil pulls out of it--because he seems like a great kid--but it goes to show how powerful intangibles like mental and emotional skills really are in generating and maintaining optimal, elite performance.

Anyway, back to BA. After that, they went further and had eleven different staff members draft a full team from each of the thirty organizations top thirty list of prospects. They added Cuban signees Aroldis Chapman and Noel Arguelles. Sounds like a fun exercise.

Among the Gigantes:

Posey went first in the #7 slot and Bumgarner next at #11 to close the first round.

Zach Wheeler went in the 6th round.
Thomas Neal in the 10th round.
Dan Runzler in the 14th round.
Tommy Joseph in the 14th round.
Roger Kieschnick in the 15th round.
Nick Noonan in the 19th round.
Ehire Adrainza in the 23rd round.
Waldis Joaquin in the 27th round.
Brandon Crawford in the 30th round.

Not a bad haul, but again a surprisingly low eleven Giants out of 330 players overall drafted. A pedestrian, to-be-expected 1/30th of the players picked, or a C grade for the organization. Not quite the basis for the bright future I have been envisioning, but lets hope the BA people are wrong here.

The Red Sox graded out the highest in this exercise with 16 prospects drafted, the Indians second with 15, and then the Rays and Twins with 14. When is somebody going to write a book or gush romantically about the Twins organization or maybe the Rays Andrew Friedman if they manage to secure another W/S berth with the budget they have to work with. There's not much room for error there in either organization.

The top four teams in the grading turn out to be A.L. teams. Not a good sign if you're looking for the N.L. to return to dominance in the All-Star game or World Series competition.

It was good to see Casey Crosby make the list at #34 and Toms River NJ's own Todd Frazier #50.

I would not have minded seeing the Giants draft Frazier a few years back.

I can't wait to get back to baseball. It's 50+ degrees here in Chicago and feeling like mid-spring already. We'll probably pay for this big-time down the road, perhaps by having the Cubs home opener snowed out, but let's get back to the diamonds and PLAY BALL!!!!!

Japanese knuckleballer knocking on baseball's door

JAPANESE KNUCKLEBALLER - ERI YOSHIDA

We highlighted this young Japanese pitcher when she was fist drafted in November of 2008 and it appears that she may be something more than a novelty.

From ESPN:
http://sports.espn.go.com/boston/news/story?id=4961259

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The fraternity of knuckleball pitchers is small, and Tim Wakefield of the Boston Red Sox is its active godfather.

Eri Yoshida hopes to expand that roster and break the gender barrier at the same time.

Yoshida, the petite 18-year-old who became the first female drafted by a Japanese professional team, Kobe 9 Cruise of the Kansai Independent Baseball League, made her pro debut on March 26, 2009, at the Osaka Dome. She learned how to throw a knuckleball as a young girl by watching video of Wakefield.

I ask the question again --

Will Major League Baseball be the first of the major sports to break the gender barrier in the modern era?


From the NBA, this analysis regarding the prospects of arguably the best women's basketball players making the leap from WNBA to NBA.

David Stern thinks it will happen by 2020.

From si.com:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/ian_thomsen/12/04/countdown/index.html


NBA players like LeBron James and Candace Parker's own husband and brother think not.

Shelden Williams, husband to Candace Parker, arguably the best women’s basketball player, said “it’s not something that could happen,’’ pointing to the differences in size, strength, and game play.

He also said that Parker didn’t argue.

“We’ve talked about it,’’ Williams said. “She feels the same way.’’

And then Shelden maybe went a step too far (for Stern’s liking):

Williams said of Stern’s comments, “He has to say that because he wants to promote the WNBA, but it’s not something that’s realistic.’’

I think a Diana Taurasi who could play outside the paint might be a better contributor. A good spot shooter or a three-point specialist a la Steve Kerr could make the jump. Would that be good for the WNBA or would it detract from fan interest? There certainly would not be a mass exodus of women players from the WNBA to the NBA similar to what occurred after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, but it may be the final nail in the coffin for a league that seemingly has trouble attracting anything other than a friends and family fan base as it is.

In baseball, a pitcher that is able to master a trick pitch like the knuckleball or the screwball could certainly make the bigs. There is no need for such a pitcher the level of upper or lower strength that precludes most women from success in other sports or positions where this is nearly a requirement.

Time will tell but it appears as if the NBA or MLB has this event on the radar. It's becoming more a matter of when it happens rather than if it happens.

Baseball Training Q&A – Part II

In the second part of this Baseball Training FAQ post, we want to look at some of the common questions and issues that arise as baseball players move from the 12-13 year age group into the high school and collegiate years.

It is in these years that a solid weight training program can begin and more specialized training methods like speed and agility training can be incorporated. Although the training methods become more specialized, the athlete can still compete in multiple sports and resist the temptation to become a victim of sports specialization.

A weight training program that aims to generally strengthen the major muscle groups and targets the posterior muscle chain can begin at this stage.

The four most important areas to develop are:
- the posterior muscle chain
- the shoulder scapulae retractors
- the external rotators of the humerus
- the hip and knee extensors

Exercises such as squats, lunges, rows, chin-ups, pull-ups, push-ups and glute-ham raises are effective for baseball players.

After the athlete acquires a foundation in the basic exercise movements, we have always favored the “Big Three Lifts” – The Bench Press, The Squat and the Deadlift and their derivatives and the “Quick Three Lifts” – The Clean – The Snatch and The Jerk as our fundamental strength and power exercises.

If you employ these lifts within an intelligent periodization plan and practice sound nutritional habits, the sky is the limit. You will reach your full potential as a ballplayer.

Medicine ball exercises that mimic the same movements employed in the gym and on the baseball field. Caber tosses, granny throws, forward overhead (soccer throw-in) passes, basketball chest passes and similar movements help transfer the general strength built via weight training into power. (Strength + Speed = Power)

Kettlebell exercises that are similar to the exercise performed in the weight training area are effective for building explosive strength (i.e. POWER)

Clubbell exercises can be developed to mimic both the bat swing and the throwing motion and develop strength, speed and power throughout the relevant range of motion.

Exercises that build grip strength can be added using old-school tools such as the sand bucket exercises to newer technologies like the weighted agility gloves.

Your training goals and focus should be built around building power rather than absolute strength. Generally speaking, you want to perform exercises that build bat speed and throwing velocity.

In these areas, relative strength is more important than absolute strength. The athlete that can perform more weighted chin-ups relative to body weight has more valuable relative strength than his peers.

The athlete with a higher relative strength in the bench press than absolute strength will correlate better to higher bat speed.

Higher grip strength measures correlate well to improved bat speed as well.

So the measures we are looking to improve are:

- Wtd Chin-Up Strength to BW
- Bench Press to BW
- Grip Strength

Exercises that strengthen the lats and subscapularis will improve speed of movement for the throwing motion.

Exercises that increase the strength of the lats, triceps, knee extensors and hip extensors lead to improved bat speed.

Core exercises that focus on rotational strength are not effective for building speed in the throwing motion or the bat swing.

Recent data suggests that the recent trend to focus on core strength building is actually leading to an increase in oblique muscle strains.

Core strength does not correlate well to bat speed increases because the trunk rotators are not well known to have high potential for increase in strength relative to other muscle groups.

It would be more effective to focus on rotational range of motion than rotational strength in your training. This transfers more effectively to improved bat and ball speed.

Strength + Speed to develop Power.
Relative Strength over Absolute Strength.
Rotational Range of Motion over Rotational Strength.

Some of the following tests can be used to evaluate strengths and weaknesses prior to beginning a training program and as the program continues to assess the overall effectiveness of the program.

Overhead Squat Test:

It is the best test to evaluate the muscular chains and assess for weaknesses.

To assess the length – tension discrepancies of the various muscle groups, the Overhead Squat with a snatch grip can be used.


Backward Overhead Medicine Ball Throw

To test for explosive power and overall athletic ability, this test is probably the best. It displays the ability to generate power and incorporates high neuro-muscular activation, coordination and proprioception, and general ability to move across multiple planes.

The test is an integrated, total body movement that displays key movement patterns that are relevant to the ability to generate power from the lower body, through the trunk and to the upper body.

There is not probably nothing more important to success in most sports that having this ability. It’s the essence of athleticism.

Caber Toss Test

To perform this test, you need three different weighted bats and baseballs. For hitters, we use their game bat and bats weighted +/- about 20% of the game bat weight. For baseballs, we use the game weight baseball of 5 ¼ oz. and weighted baseballs of +/- 20%.

We have adapted this test for throwing and bat speed using weighted balls and bats to assess the player’s ability. You measure ball velocity and bat speed achieved using the various weights.

If the athlete is like most, a 50/50 mix of fast / slow twitch muscle fibers, the difference between the values obtained when testing will be about the same as you move up and down the weight scale. On a graph, the slope is relative smooth.

If the values increase as the weight gets lighter, this indicates a higher level of fast-twitch muscle fiber.

If the values decrease as the weight gets lighter, this indicates a higher level of slow-twitch muscle fiber. They cannot generate speed over the same line of force regardless of the weight employed.

Superior athletes have higher levels of fast-twitch muscles and can generate higher force against lighter loads.

The higher the differential (greater slope on the graph) at the lighter end of the weight scale, the greater potential to generate speed.

In addition to motivation, these graphs can also be compared to other throwers. Some may have a steeper trend than others. A thrower with a steep line is relatively stronger in the lighter implements. This person is probably relatively weaker, but able to accelerate faster. The thrower with the flatter curve may have better countering positions, or may be stronger. Comparing curves may give throwers more insight as to their strengths and weaknesses.

This defines the athlete with the greater potential for success.

Good News about jocks

From Foxnews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,587462,00.html?test=latestnews


'Dumb Jock' Just a Myth: Physically Fit Students Do Better Academically

NEW YORK — Getting students to exercise more might not just address obesity issues but also improve their grades with a U.S. study finding physically fit students tend to score higher in tests than their less fit peers.

The good news:

Test scores dropped more than one point for each extra minute it took middle and high school students to complete a one mile run/walk fitness test, according to Dr. William J. McCarthy and colleagues at the University of California in Los Angeles.

Schools and parents seeking to optimize their students' academic performance should take heed, McCarthy noted in an email to Reuters Health.

For optimal brain function "it's good to be both aerobically fit and to have a healthy body shape."

The conclusions:

These findings, McCarthy's team notes, confirm and extend those of previous investigations. They say further studies are needed to figure out why aerobic fitness may play a role in academic performance.

If future studies confirm a cause-and-effect link between lower fitness and reduced academic performance, "schools will have to reverse their recent disinvestment in physical educationostensibly for the purposes of boosting student achievement," they concluded.

Correct, we never should have let our physical education programs lag nationally. They provide a positive contribution to the academic mission of the schools. When you remove one the other is bound to suffer.

We thought we could get away with scrimping on our kids education. We were wrong.

The NCAA recognizes this and it need to filter back down to the lower grade levels of education. Across the board, in virtually every ethnic and gender classification, graduation rates are higher among athletes than among non-student athlete populations. In many cases this is before accounting for the NCAA's flawed graduatin rate accounting system.

The federal rates do not account fairly for transfer students and actually penalize schools when students transfer by counting them as academic failures. According to the federal government, more than half of all college students will transfer at least once. So this is a large accounting error.

Maybe the next time there is a referendum on school funding in this area, the schools should try to promote passage of the tax increases by holding overpaid government workers hostage rather holding a gun to the head of the kids athletic and / or extra-curricular programs, as they so commonly do.

Can you imagine?

"If this property tax increase doesn't pass, we're gong to have to let go of all our mid to high level administrators." Those "reports to nowhere" to the federal government will never get their on time.

That would be pretty cool. The increased numbers of people performing their civic duty by voting might make it worthwhile, right?

I ask for too much.

I ♥ Marco Rubio

I ♥ Marco Rubio - For more reasons than this, but this is a great start.

Tallahassee, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio has a message for his opponent, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist: real pro-life advocates oppose Roe v. Wade. Rubio appeared at the Christian Family Coalition candidate forum in Miami this weekend.

“If you don't believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned, you are not pro-life. Everyone says they're pro-life, but I am pro-life because I want to protect the rights of everyone, including unborn children who can't speak for themselves," he said. “Some say they're pro-life but don't want to change laws, only hearts. However, senators can't change hearts. Only God can. Senators make laws and make decisions about the judges that interpret those laws.”

During his 2006 campaign for governor, Crist said he was "pro-life" but was not for changing abortion laws. But Rubio told an audience last week that he "won't dance around the issue." Rubio said that the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion, Roe V. Wade, is wrong. Rubio has also been touting votes he made against spending taxpayer money on stem cell research as well as a bill requiring abortion centers to show women an ultrasound of their unborn child with the hopes some will not have an abortion.

It should not be a surprise that an administration that stands so steadfast to protect the rights of those that seeks to kill innocent citizens does so little to protect the rights of innocent babies.

We protect presumed "innocent" terrorists and systematically destroy innocent babies. NICE!!

It's not an argument of legalism vs. theism because both are lawyers by training as well as professed men of faith. So how does a Marco Rubio come to his position and a Barack Obama come to his?

I just love some of the pro-choice crowds arguments in favor of maintaining the status quo.

- "It's the Law of the Land"

From Ronald Reagan:

Regarding abortion:
"Our nation-wide policy of abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people, nor enacted by our legislators--not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973. [It was] an act of raw judicial power"...

"We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life--the unborn--without diminishing the value of all human life."
[Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1984. pp 15-18)]

The Supreme Court ratification simply means it's the law of the land for the time being.

The Supreme Court once ratified slavery with the Dred Scott vs. Sandford decision as well. They were wrong then, they are wrong now with Roe vs. Wade and Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. It's going to take time for them to admit they were wrong.

Of course, they never institutionally admitted they were wrong about slavery and reversed themselves, we had to go through the Civil Way to correct their mistake back then.

Today, we just discard fetuses like chord-wood in medical dumpsters or sell it for profit in the name of research. AGAIN, NICE!!!

Interesting parallel as well in that the Supremes used the justification that slaves were not citizens and therefore were not entitled to have their rights protected. They were not considered viable persons in the eyes of the court. Just like the unborn today.

The pro-choice stance is also similar in logic to the failed argument of the South, proclaiming it was their choice (states rights) to decide on slavery within their borders.

- It's my choice (states rights argument).
We restrict lot's of activities that people would "choose" to do. It's not that simple.

- It's my body (borders), I can do what I want
See above.

- It's not a baby, it's not viable.
Neither would you if you were in a car accident and found yourself on life-support. Wouldn't you want your rights protected in your absence of viability?

- We don't want to go back to the days of back-alley abortions.
We never lived in such a day. Abortions back then were done in clinics the same as today. By doctors and everything.

- What about for cases like rape and incest or to protect the life of the mother?
I'm with you on the life of the mother. And I was even there in the other two cases, but to see how the abortion industry has now grown to protect the perpetrators of rape and incest and morphed into a form of back-up birth control, was that the original intent of Roe v. Wade? REALLY?!?

Have't we stretched the definition of protect the life of the mother too far so that we're now protecting the "mental health" of the mother to mean "I don't want to deal with stretch marks" or "I'm just not ready to be a mom." REALLY?!? And this puts your very life at risk?

Morally, ethically, spiritually on the same side of history as slavery, eugenics and ethnic /racial cleansing IMO.

What, you say "It's just a few bad apples that give the barrel a bad name"?
Right, Hitler and his fellow henchman were just a couple of bad apples as well. History tell us what kind of damage they were able to do.

I'm glad some (like Rubio) are standing up forcefully against this scourge of abortion and so-called "respectable" organizations like Planned Parenthood.

Do they promote infanticide? - Of course, they do. And worse.

The "choice" is simple. Choose Life.
-------
But wait there's more:

Rubio became well known after publishing his book 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future. The book was put together with primarily from input Rubio received from Florida citizens. This was done through what Rubio calls "Idearaisers".

A politician who listens to his constituents, acts in their best interests and understands the boundaries and limitations of government?

NOW THAT IS THE KIND OF CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN!!!

Bad news in the 'burbs

From the Daily Herald:

Youth sports leagues find fewer suburban kids are signing up to play

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=358994

Many experts and coaches blame the computer and video games for a decrease in softball and baseball enrollment this year.

And while the finger can be pointed at everything from the recession to competition from other sports, experts increasingly are blaming children's habitual video game playing as a key reason why droves are ignoring America's No. 1 pastime.

And the better children get at video games and more used to the fast-paced action they get, the less likely they'll give them up to play the real game, experts say.

"Instead of going out to play sandlot baseball, kids today are content to sit in front of a computer to play a video game," said Rich Honack, a professor at Kellogg School of Management.

Studying generations, he says his data shows the computer is the reason for the decrease in kids playing competitive sports.

It seems like this may have more to do with the economy but if the DH wants to knee-jerk it into a "TV / video games causing the downfall of the country" thing than who am I to argue with them?

The "experts" have been blaming video games since "Pong", "Pac-Man" and "Super Mario" were de-rigeur.

I completely agree with them here however.

Rizzo agrees that video games are playing a part in the demise. "My concern is if kids aren't playing baseball," he said, "they're likely doing something that could get them in trouble."

He believes parents must take a more active role in assisting their children in finding physical activities.

"Parents have to reassert control," said Shifrin, who serves on a council studying the impact media has on the health of children.

"I'm concerned with any statistic that decreases a child's physical activity."

If team enrollment figures are declining, he says, parents need to be aware. "It's a wake-up call."

And here.

And when kids are in front of the computer or texting for countless hours, there are other negative consequences. Children are failing to learn life lessons about achieving goals, building esteem, the commitment it takes to be on a team as well as how to interact with others.

"Social skills are lacking in these kids," Honack says.

Another fear is what will happen to sports teams at higher levels?

"I'm hearing that this trend is already creeping into the high school level," Honack said. "The numbers are dropping everywhere. It has no boundaries."

Again, the cuts at the HS level, in most cases, are due to budgetary / economic considerations more than the kids interest levels.

I agree with most of the conclusions, I just think the emphasis on the reasons for the decline are a bit misplaced. There is no need to over-hype this issue.

Actually in this area, I applaud Mrs. Obama's efforts to "reach across the aisle" and work with former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee to work on the issues of childhood obesity.

She could teach the President a couple of things about how things can get done in Washington.