Honor Thy Opponent

"I have tried to teach them to show class, to have pride, and to display character. I think football, winning games, takes care of itself if you do that." -Paul Bear Bryant

Some good news...

Athletic Management : Momentum Media:

Honor Thy Opponent

In the Bakersfield, Calif., area, the issue of proper etiquette for when a player lays injured on the field took center stage recently. The discussion was spurred by fans of Liberty High School freshman team who became incensed when players from the Frontier High School team did not take a knee after a Liberty player lay on the turf and appeared to be unconscious.

Instead of dropping to a knee in solidarity with the Liberty players, the Frontier team was called to the sidelines--despite chants coming from the Liberty stands calling for the players to take a knee. But according to Frontier administrators, the team was behaving according to protocol.

"The protocol at Frontier High School is to stand respectfully and quietly on the sidelines while the injured opposing player is being attended to," Kern High School District spokeswoman Lisa Krch said in the email to the Bakersfield Californian. "No one is allowed to talk and there is no coaching at that time, either. During this particular incident, the Frontier coach saw an injured player and sent his student athletes to the sideline."

Adding to the discussion was Christopher Meyers, Director of the Kegley Institute of Ethics and a philosophy professor at Cal State Bakersfield, who called the tradition of taking a knee "a terrific expression of sportsmanship and respect."

"I am thrilled to see it moving out of youth sports into high school and collegiate athletics," Meyers said in an email to the Bakersfield Californian. "One of the key values of sports activity is the development and enhancement of character, as revealed in the virtues of honesty, honor and fair play.

"So long as 'taking a knee' is meant sincerely--and by every account, it appears to be--it is a wonderful example of exactly those virtues," Meyers continued. "Student-players should thus be encouraged, but not required, to participate and I would hope coaches would embrace the character-building opportunity it affords."
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On a positive sportsmanship note, after losing to Copperas Cove (Tex.) High School, Ellison (Tex.) High School Head Coach Trent Gregory quickly gathered his emotions and called the opposing players over and asked them to huddle around them. The reason?

"I just wanted to thank them," Gregory told kdhnews.com, "for showing respect to our team and our program and our school."

Gregory also shared words of encouragement as Copperas Cove prepared for a potential District 12-6A championship-deciding game in the coming week. The move caught the Bulldawgs off guard.

"That has never happened to me before," Copperas Cove senior linebacker Michael Sumrall said. "That is good sportsmanship. It shows that he doesn't just care about himself and his team but that he cares about others, including his opponents."

"It is not always about wins and losses," Gregory said. "We always want to win, but it is about growing young men with character to have respect for each other."

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RE2PECT to the Captain.

He played the game the right way. Much like Cal Ripken before him, just a model of consistency, grace and dignity. He gets RESPECT because he gives respect  A great team leader for many, many years. 

Playing in the white-hot spotlight of NY, this is simply an amazing stat. 

from ESPN.com

http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/11582355/derek-jeter-umps-make-call-captain-career

Also, the fact that given who he is, and how he looks, and where he plays, it's amazing that he hasn't made the back pages for much more than the "alleged" overnight gift bag to his gal pals fiasco. 

Some other amazing stats, career milestones for The Captain:

• As a player, his teams are more over the .500 mark than any other player in history.
• He captained the New York Yankees, one of sports most marquee franchises, longer that anyone else in history. 
• It wasn't too long ago, people were debating whether or not Jeter might catch The Hit King,  Pete Rose for most hits all-time. 
• A .309 batting average over 20 season of play
• 3,461 career hits
• 260 HR's playing in a park that is not user-friendly to RH power hitters
• 5 Silver Sluggers and 5 Gold Gloves 
• Mr. Clutch, even though there is no such thing apparently, according to SABR

Now, this might be a little over the top, and I knew somebody would go there:

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/09/derek-jeter-new-york-yankees-last-game-re2pect

The heavens are crying ahead of Derek Jeter's farewell to Yankee Stadium

The heavens are crying? Really? Anyway, a certain first allot Hall of Famer. Not just a compiler of stats of a hanger-on veteran. He's been  a solid contributor his entire career. 

from Baseball Reference:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_SS.shtml

71.7 career WAR/42.2 7yr-peak WAR/57.0 JAWSAverage HOF SS (out of 21) = 66.7 career WAR/42.8 7yr-peak WAR/54.7 JAWS

The JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score system) was developed by sabermetrician Jay Jaffe — first at Baseball Prospectus in 2004 — as a means to measure a player's Hall of Fame worthiness by comparing him to the players at his position who are already enshrined, using advanced metrics to account for the wide variations in offensive levels that have occurred throughout the game's history. The stated goal is to improve the Hall of Fame's standards, or at least to maintain them rather than erode them, by admitting players who are at least as good as the average Hall of Famer at the position, using a means via which longevity isn't the sole determinant of worthiness.

A great day for baseball and a great day for the Yankees. On top of the hoopla of  Mariano Rivera's career victory lap maybe some in the greater N.Y. metropolitan area are suffering from hoopla fatigue, but the fact that it seems to bother America's biggest  bitch / whiner / bed-wetter / equal opportunity ball of hate  Keith Olbermann makes it all the more appropriate to me.



(BTW - Just because you remember who Red Ruffing is and can spout some seemingly endless innocuous stats that your staff likely cherry picks for you, doesn't mean you know dick about The Game, sir). Your tedious rant only reflected the kind of person YOU ARE, which is to say the polar opposite in every way, shape or form that Derek Jeter is. You sir, will NEVER be the Captain of anything. You can only dream of being 1/1,000th as popular as Derek Jeter is. If ESPN had any shame whatsoever, they would make you go away,  AGAIN!!! And take whoever that idiot is off-camera, that giggles like a school girl at the pablum that dribbles out of your mouth, with you. You're both cretinous losers in the game of life, that much you have made perfectly clear by way of your otherwise rambling, incoherent rant.

Rock on, Captain.  RE2PECT. I got your back on this one. 

Giants concede defeat, respect their opponent

This is all you can do sometimes, tip your cap to your opponent, lick your wounds and come back to fight another day.

I'm still not counting on the playoffs providing too excitement for the Giants, I think the injuries have been / will be just too much to overcome. The path in the N.L. leads through Washington and Los Angeles. The Pirates, Cardinals and Giants have to dig deep and see if they have enough to challenge the front-runners.

The Pirates with their youth, energy and vigor, the Giants with their "been there done that" experience and brittle bones, the Cardinals with The Cardinal Way, which is to consistently come up big in the playoffs.

from mercurynews.com
POSTGAME NOTES: Giants lose division, but move on and look to clinch and hand their season to Madison Bumgarner - Giants Extra:

— This one really had to hurt the staff. They watched their team get overwhelmed, and to top it off, Wilson came out for the ninth. But the coaches, led by Dave Righetti, handled the end with class … 

A positive: Andrew Susac is now 3 for 7 against Kershaw this season. Matt Duffy is 2 for 2. Joe Panik is 2 for 8, which is like a .600 average when you adjust for Kershaw. These kids are not afraid.

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Bowed, but not broken