On the bike, and away from the back

He walked by from the back of the gym as I was preparing to do my leg curls. He was wearing a New England Patriots T-shirt, shorts and a weight belt, and had muscles that made it obvious he went to the gym a lot more than I do. His face looked enough like someone who used to work for me that I had to take a closer look to make sure it wasn't him, that he hadn't put on about 40 pounds of muscle in the military.

He sat down at the other end of the weight machines, and after I had moved on to the leg press, I saw him working on the arm curl machine, his earbuds in, his face one of concentration.

As for me, I finished my leg presses, then went out and used the ab and back machines before telling my wife, who was on the treadmill, that I was finished. Another hour gone, I put on my sweatshirt and sweatpants before going home.

It was an unusual workout, not because I rode the bike particularly well or lifted especially heavy weights, because of something else that I don't normally do.

I was sweating.

* * * * *

My wife and I decided to join a gym late last year. My motivation wasn't to become a muscleman, but instead to maybe lose a little weight (although I also have to work on the eating part of that equation) and not be so horribly out of shape. Seriously, I was sometimes finding myself winded carrying laundry up the stairs, and my energy level was practically non-existent.

We checked out a local health club that offered workout equipment, tennis, a pool and classes, but as nice as it was, it was a little pricey for us. If we were going to play tennis or swim more, maybe it would have worked out, but we probably weren't going to.

After some Internet research, we wound up at the local Boston Sports Clubs. It was convenient, being close to both our house and the train station where I usually pick up my wife after work, and the prices were reasonable. My wife got a membership that allows her to take yoga classes, and I got the basic membership.

We decided to go Tuesdays and Fridays after work and Sunday mornings, and for the most part, we've stuck to that schedule, although I missed a couple days because I was sick. It helps having someone to go with, to make sure I go on the days I'm not particularly motivated.

We're eligible for an hour of free personal training, but we haven't used it yet. Instead, we have our own routines. My wife walks on the treadmill, sometimes lifting weights at the end, while after a couple days of experimenting, I settled on riding a bike for 45 minutes, with weights the last 15. I do arm and leg exercises alternating days, with ab and back work every time.

I'm probably missing a lot with that approach -- every time I walk past the punching bag, especially when I've had a bad day, I think about doing my Sergio Martinez impression -- but this seems to work for me.

I've found that riding the bike -- I prefer a seater -- actually helps me relax. Once I get my legs loose, I get into a nice rhythm with the pedals, and for one of the few times during my day, I'm not bouncing from thing to thing. Pretty much all I can do is read my Kindle, look up at the TV once in a while and pedal. That's it. It's actually a nice diversion.

At first my goal was a 6-minute mile, then a 5-minute mile, which lets me ride nine miles in 45 minutes. Lately, however, I've been able to go at a pace that lets me ride 10 miles in 45 minutes. I'm only on level nine out of 20 or 21, which means no hills, but I'm doing better.

* * * * *

The bikes and machines I use are at the front of the gym, while the locker rooms are in the back, where the free weights are. With the free weights come the people who lift free weights, who, like the guy in the Patriots shirt, come across to me as very serious. They seem to all know each other, as they talk amongst themselves when they talk at all.

I try to avoid these people at all costs. In my mind, they look at me and they see some out-of-shape guy who actually thinks riding a bike while reading a book and a few minutes of weights will get anything accomplished.

Of course, they may be perfectly pleasant people, even willing to provide a few tips if I asked, but I'm not going to take that chance. I keep a quick pace, and try not to make eye contact.

* * * * *

One bit of trepidation I had before I joined the club was what I call my "broken radiator," a problem I've had since my youth. Since I don't sweat that much, and therefore don't cool off from sweating, I have a tendency to overheat during physical activity.

Usually, the worst I get is a headache, but once it was so bad that I was seeing spots while driving home from playing volleyball, and by the time I got home and put a cold washcloth on my head, I literally felt the heat radiating off my ears.

So I was wondering what would happen if I worked out, and I make sure my water bottle is full every time. I drink every 15 minutes for about a minute at a time while I'm riding, plus a little more when I'm done, and by the time I'm finished, I've pretty much drained the bottle.

And I've started sweating. First it was a little on my arms, but I just thought that was from having my arms folded on the arms of the bike. Then there was a little on my back, but yesterday, it was down my back and my front. It wasn't pouring off me, but it was there, enough that I actually have to wipe off machines when I'm done with them.

And when I got off the bike yesterday, my legs actually felt tired, and my knees were a little sore last night. But in its own way, it felt good.

Maybe I'm getting somewhere with this.

 

Floating, then crashing

Every year, I get that year's "The Best American Sports Writing" book for Christmas, and I just started reading the 2013 version this morning. Because several of the pieces each year are from Sports Illustrated, I will have read them before I see the book, but there are plenty of other stories I would have never read otherwise, such as "The Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever" by Michael J. Mooney in D Magazine about Bill Fong's pursuit of a perfect 900 bowling series, three 300 games.

(I won't spoil it, although the subhead of the story pretty much does, but it is an amazing story, and only somewhat about bowling. The quotes are from the story.)

"Most people think perfection in bowling is a 300 game, but it isn’t. Any reasonably good recreational bowler can get lucky one night and roll 12 consecutive strikes. If you count all the bowling alleys all over America, somebody somewhere bowls a 300 every night." ... 

... "Timing is everything. When your timing is right, when your arms, legs, and torso all move in rhythm toward the lane, you have better balance. When you’re balanced, you’re also more accurate."

On one night, I was almost that reasonably good recreational bowler.

From the time I first took up the game, I was capable of runs where I bowled brilliantly, dating back to the time I was a preteen and had a great series to help my team win a state Elks tournament. When I was in college, I went out for a night of open bowling with my friends in which I went strike, spare, spare, nine strikes in a row.

After a long time away from the game, I joined a Friday night league thanks to my uncle, who recruited my brother and I. My brother didn't last long, but I bowled in it for three years, until the league disbanded.

I actually wasn't a really good fit. With an average between 160 and 175, I was one of the better bowlers in the league, but it was a league that was more about having fun, and my competitiveness, and temper that often came along with it, made people uncomfortable at times. (That's on me, by the way, not them. They were all nice people, and I could have stood to chill out a bit more.)

On one otherwise unremarkable Friday night, I threw a strike in the first frame of the first game, then another, and another, until I had thrown nine in a row. Time and the tendency to exaggerate that comes with it may have affected my memory, but I don't even think there were any cheap ones in there. As I recall, I rolled the ball cleanly over the first arrow on the left side (I'm left-handed) and the ball took a perfect path to the 1-2 pocket to blow out all the pins.

Everything ... my approach, arm swing, release, follow-through ... was ... well, perfect.

The 10th ball came off my hand like it was going to be another pile-driver, but one lone pin refused to fall. I don't remember if it was a 7 or a 10 pin, but I'm inclined to think it was the 10 because I picked it up (7-pins always gave me trouble) before throwing one last strike for a 279.

Aside from the mild disappointment over not throwing a perfect game -- and really, how disappointed can you be? -- it felt pretty awesome.

"By contrast, if your timing is off, your balance is off, and you don’t hit your targets."

After a few minutes between games, and a lot of high-fives, we started the second game, and I began with two more strikes.

Then something weird happened.

Pretty much anybody can bowl. To be a good once-a-week league bowler, which I was, is a little harder. Being a top league bowler is a lot harder. And being a pro bowler is really, really hard.

I bowled juniors with a guy who was a phenomenal bowler, whose father owned the bowling alley (and once had a nice run on the local televised bowling competition himself) and who was on the lanes constantly. As good as he was, when he made a run at the pro tour, he went nowhere.

At each step along the way, the difference is consistency, the ability to throw the ball the same way and make it do the same thing over and over. A lot of it is practice, which you can't get bowling once a week. For 12 frames, I had stumbled on the difference between the good bowler and the great one.

And in frame 13 it all fell apart. My mechanics failed me for the first time all night, so I missed the mark and didn't even hit the headpin. Weirder still was the cheering after my first poor shot of the night. Just by coincidence, that was the moment they announced my 279 to the rest of the lanes, so everyone was cheering.

It was nice. It was also my last good moment of the night.

For a guy like Bill Fong, an 800 is a really good night. For me, a 600 was. It mean averaging 200 over three games, and while I wasn't nearly consistent enough to throw three 200s, I did have several 600 series, mostly by bowling well two games and going out of my mind in the third.

Yet after a 279, a 600 should have been pretty easy. All I had to do was average 160 (actually 160.5) over the last two games, and my average was 170 or so, meaning two mediocre games would get me to 600.

But I couldn't even do that. My game fell completely apart. What was so easy for a game plus a little more became nearly impossible.

I have no idea where it came from, and I have no idea where it went. But while it was there, it was pretty amazing.

If you tell me not to watch, I won't

Yes, yes and yes from Jeff Gluck on one of NASCAR's standing problems.

"NASCAR can use gimmicks to make for a better show, but what would really get fans' attention is to have drivers racing door-to-door at 200 mph, lap after lap.
After all, isn't that why people plop down on the couch on a Sunday afternoon? It's about seeing the moments that are promoted so often in NASCAR's TV ads and highlight packages. It's about rubbing fenders or making a daring pass for the lead, about tempers and, yes, even the occasional crash." ...

..."To get people to tune in with the same passion they once did, NASCAR has to become appointment viewing again. It has to be must-see TV, not like the NBA where only the last five minutes seem to matter."

Substitute "last 20 laps" for "last five minutes," and you have the essence of the problem, and those last 20 laps aren't always the most-exciting thing in the world, either. I'm hoping the new Chase format helps in that regard, but what about the rest of the race?

Sometime this season, and it won't take long, a driver will be taken out in an early accident. He or she will be released from the infield care center to a waiting interviewer, and will say something along the lines of the following:

"It's really a shame. The (team name/sponsor name/car brand here) was really fast today, it's just too bad that (other driver involved in crash) doesn't realize that there's no need to race that hard this early. You're not going to win the race in lap (number of early lap here)."

He may not have been the first to espouse this philosophy, but I attribute it to Mark Martin, who for years dutifully pulled over if he was challenged at the beginning of the race, because "there's no point holding up the faster car now" and "to finish first, first you must finish."

And now every driver seems to have that attitude.

But I have an idea..

I don't know if you can force drivers to race harder from green to checkers, but you can keep them from telling the viewing public that there's no point in watching 95 percent of the event, especially when it's a four-hour event on a Sunday afternoon when there are a lot of other things people could be doing.

After all, you don't see LeBron James telling Doris Burke "Well, Doris, we're going to go about half-speed for 40 to 45 minutes or so -- gotta make sure you don't pull those hamstrings -- and then we'll go hard at the end" before a Miami Heat game, do you?

So when I become Supreme Ruler of the Sports World (which I swear will be a blog post someday), where I make all the rules by fiat, any driver who complains about someone racing too hard will work for free that weekend. If that's not enough, take points away. If that's not enough, take a win away.

And if it's a Sprint Cup driver dabbling in Nationwide or the trucks who complains that those drivers don't understand how to race ... well, they don't have to be there, and they won't.

Seriously, how stupid is it to tell the people who consume your product that most of it isn't worth consuming?

Almost as stupid as trying to sell a car on the premise that it will rat you out to your wife.

Why Michael Sam being gay matters ... at least for now

In all the talk last night about Michael Sam coming out as gay, I saw this on the Twitter machine last night.

Okay....so Mizzou's Michael Sam announced he's gay. No offense meant to anyone, but I just don't care. He's gay; so what?
— Derek Ciapala (@dciapala) February 10, 2014

It's entirely possible he's saying "so what" because Sam's sexuality is truly irrelevant to him, and if so, great. As I replied, although I didn't get a response in return.

@dciapala If that was everyone's attitude, it would be worth saying "so what" over.
— LastHonestSportsFan (@LastHonestSport) February 10, 2014

But I can't help but think that a lot of comments in this vein (and I saw several) were of the "DON'T MAKE ME TALK ABOUT GAY PEOPLE! SHOVED DOWN MY THROAT! AAAAAAHHHH!" variety.

I never heard of Michael Sam until late yesterday afternoon, when I realized that by then it was pointless to try and avoid Olympic spoilers and checked out my Twitter. I read that in spite of his gaudy stats at Missouri, he was a mid- to late-round prospect at best before the announcement, that he could be the classic "tweener" -- too small to play defensive end, not agile enough to play linebacker.

In a perfect world, his sexuality wouldn't matter. If a team thinks he'll help them, they'll draft him. If he's good enough to stick, he'll stick. If he's a good guy in the locker room, his teammates will respect him, even if they don't agree with how he lives his life. (Throw that many people together for that long, and there are going to be lots of disagreements about a lot of things, but things tend to work themselves out most of the time. Why should sexuality be any different?)

But we don't live in a perfect world. We live in a world where:

• in many parts of the country, you can be fired for being gay. (I'll go with the Snopes definition and not the simple "You can be fired for being gay in 29 states.")
• same-sex marriage is only legal in 17 states and the District of Columbia, and that has all come within the past 10 years.
• suspending someone for homophobic remarks is compared to rolling the tanks into Tiananmen Square.
• because it's still a topic of discussion whether Jason Collins is still unemployed because he's gay or Chris Kluwe doesn't have a job in the NFL because of his gay-right stance, even though it's not unreasonable to think there are other factors.
• NFL personnel men can say Sam's draft stock has already gone down because presence would "chemically imbalance an NFL locker room and meeting room." Mind you, these are men who could knowingly draft players with positive drug tests or criminal arrests in the hopes that they'll get on the straight-and-narrow and the understanding they may not. Meanwhile, Michael Sam isn't going to get any more gay ... or any less gay, for that matter. He is who he is.

There is going to be a first openly gay NFL player, whether or not Sam sticks. And it will be a big deal with the attendant media circus when it happens ... but it will go away.

And there will always be people who don't like homosexuals, even if there 100 Michael Sams, just like there will always be people who don't like blacks or Hispanics or feminists or whomever.

But eventually, maybe we'll reach the day when being gay is something most people say "so what" over.

Bob Costas vs. Vladimir Putin ... I know who I'm picking

Last night, when NBC decided to kill some time between slopestyle qualifying runs and team figure skating short programs in its day-before-the-Opening-Ceremonies Olympic coverage -- a time clearly chosen for maximum ratings value, no doubt -- by airing a piece and discussion about Russian President Vladimir Putin, I wrote this on the Twitter machine:

Now Costas is talking about Putin. How long before "STICK TO SPORTS!" #Olympics #Sochi2014
— LastHonestSportsFan (@LastHonestSport) February 7, 2014

 I was not disappointed. Interspersed among the comments about Costas' eye malady, were comments such as these:

Bob Costas should stick to sports, not geo-politics. I know it overlaps at the moment, but Nbc olympic coverage simply isn't the venue.
— Michael Plumb (@ThePlumbline89) February 7, 2014

Bob costas already talking politics during the olympics. They literally started like 5 minutes ago. #SochiProblems
— Colin Bowen (@CeeBeaux) February 7, 2014

Good start for NBC's Olympics coverage, though I wish they'd figure out that I don't care about Bob Costas's opinions on world politics.
— Eric Goodwin (@diagonalfish) February 7, 2014

Surprise, Surprise. Bob Costas gets into politics while covering a sporting event. Costas gonna be Costas
— Justin Niedermier (@J_Niedermier42) February 7, 2014

@NBCOlympics Focus on ATHLETES, not POLITICS! Tell Bob Costas to keep his damn opinions to himself. It's about the ATHLETES.
— Sara Foster (@msbsbl) February 7, 2014

Without a doubt, these are Putin's games, a personal showcase for a man who may not be a great friend to the democratic ideals our nation holds dear, as this piece by noted left-wing loon Sen. John McCain reminds us. And let us not forget, regardless of what you think of Edward Snowden, Putin is also letting someone the United States has charged with espionage live in Russia.

But this is the guy Bob Costas isn't allowed to talk about, because he has shown unacceptable signs of liberalism in the past.



Or is Putin OK because on top of everything else, he also appears to be a raging homophobe?

Bob Costas makes me sick with his pro-gay anti-gun pro-leftist agenda. Way to bring politics into the #Olympics2014 NBC sucks!
— MaximumFreedom (@LausDeo1791) February 7, 2014

At least someone gets it.

Here's some irony. All these right-wing folks on Twitter blasting Bob Costas's politics are basically defending Putin's Russia.
— Brooklyn Quarterly (@BklynQly) February 7, 2014

Early thoughts on NASCAR's potential new Chase

One of these cars would likely make the Chase under any format. The other... maybe not so much.

Word is that NASCAR is contemplating some major changes to its Chase format, with the major points being as follows:

• The Chase expands from 12 to 16 drivers, with the field being the top 16 full-time drivers who won in the first 26 races. If fewer than 16 drivers win (last year, 12 did, including part-timer Brian Vickers and Tony Stewart, who would have missed the Chase due to injury), it would be race winners and then the drivers highest in points.
• Eliminations of the lowest four Chase drivers after the third, sixth and ninth races.
• A winner-take-all final race between the top four drivers at Homestead, with the driver who scored the most points being the champion.

Unlike the majority of the commenters on the story linked above, as first glimpse I think I like the idea. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about any reseeding that leaves drivers with the same number of points, particularly for the finale, but that's what you'd need to have for a true playoff system, and always having four contenders for the title at Homestead should be exciting. 

(By the way, angry commenter folks, the reason why the "stick-and-ball" sports have elimination-style playoffs that sometimes mean the best team over the course of a season doesn't win the championship is because they work and people like them. If you don't think so, what will millions of people be doing this Sunday, two Sundays after that and most of March?)

Anything that encourages harder racing is good -- Other than drivers not racing for the first half to three-quarters of the race, and complaining about those who do, my biggest complaint about NASCAR drivers is when they have a chance for a win, but don't go for it because they don't want to jeopardize a "good points day" by taking a risk. 

But a system that means winning a race means making the Chase, there's more incentive to take those risks. Then once the Chase starts, drivers will have to do whatever is necessary in order to make the cut every three races. In the words of the late Jim Valvano, it's "survive and advance."

Smaller teams (and Marcos Ambrose) should be thrilled -- David Ragan won at Talladega last year. Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500 in 2011. Regan Smith won the Southern 500 the same year. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes teams outside the top operations score a win, but they're not consistent enough over 26 races to make the Chase, even with the wild cards for race winners in recent years.

But under this format, they would have made the Chase, except for Bayne, who like Vickers was a part-timer. Now, a surprise win likely lands a team in the Chase, which could also mean more sponsorship for the teams who can convince businesses that they can win with more resources. Maybe the Wood Brothers even try to get enough funding for a full season, although it likely wouldn't be with Bayne, since he runs Sprint Cup races on loan from Roush Fenway Racing.

And Ambrose, who is decent on oval tracks but a serious contender on the road courses, with two wins at Watkins Glen, now has at least two great chances to make the Chase.

By that same token ...

Daytona and Talladega just got that much bigger -- If a surprise win is going to happen -- think Bayne, Ragan and even Smith at Talladega before he was judged to be below the out-of-bounds line -- it's most likely at one of the restrictor-plate tracks. 

After all, these drivers all had top 10 finishes at Daytona or Talladega last year: Smith, Danica Patrick (who for all her other problems, is fast on plate tracks), Michael McDowell, J.J. Yeley, Ragan, David Gilliland, Scott Speed, Aric Almirola, Casey Mears, Jamie McMurray, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Paul Menard.

At Daytona and Talladega, if you can be in the top 10, you can win it.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. should perhaps be concerned -- Dale Jr. has had a nice career resurgence the last two years with the (unfortunately, departing) Steve Letarte as his crew chief ... two Chase berths, a lot of top 10s, more top-five finishes and fewer races where he and the car are out to lunch and he rides around in the back all day.

But he has only won once, at Michigan in 2012.

Imagine the nightmare scenario under a new Chase format: Ragan, McMurray and Patrick (because it would be fun to see how the people who hate her for reasons they refuse to admit would react) take the restrictor-plate races and Ambrose and Martin Truex Jr. or A.J. Allmendinger win on the road courses.

That's five races, and doesn't even account for a result like Vickers (now a full-timer) at New Hampshire last year. If the guys who normally win races -- Johnson, Kenseth, Stewart, etc. -- get their wins, all of a sudden there aren't a lot of races left and the number of winners starts to get really close to 16.

Even if all those things don't happen, I'm not sure anyone would want to take their chances on fewer than 16 drivers winning and being one of the tops in points among non-winners.

So it would behoove Dale Jr. to put the 88 in Victory Lane as soon as he can.

The problem is TV and money, not just TV

"The view a fan gets at home should not be better than that of the fan in the worst seat in the ballpark." -- Baseball commissioner Ford Frick (quote from "Monday Night Mayhem" by Marc Gunther and Bill Carter)

Although I didn't specifically remember it coming from Frick until I looked it up, I thought of the quote almost immediately when I read Will Leitch's Sports on Earth piece about people not attending football games after a weekend in which three of the four NFL playoff games where threatened by blackouts.

Leitch writes:

"There are many reasons for this, most of them apparent: Games are too expensive to attend, it's often cold, the beer is lousy and overpriced, football games have a dramatically higher lout-to-normal-human ratio than any other sport (and perhaps any other recreational activity, with the possible exception of a Wall Street bachelor party). But the main reason, clearly, is television. Put aside expense, or possible proximity to this person. Football is a sport that is more fun to watch on television than it is in person, and I'm not even sure it's all that close."

I agree ... and I don't.

First of all, the TV-versus-at-the-game issue is not limited to football, and it's nothing new, as the Frick quote above points out. After all, he was baseball commissioner during the 1950s and 1960s.

With the possible exception of hockey because it can be hard to see the puck, despite Fox's best efforts, any sport is better on TV than it is in person and always has been. I remember when my father went to his first NASCAR race in Dover several years ago; he said one thing that took some getting used to was that he wouldn't be able to see a replay when an accident happened.

If you come across an old game on ESPN Classic, MLB Network or elsewhere, even those prehistoric broadcasts make for a better viewing experience than at the game itself. Since I was watching the "Studio 42 with Bob Costas" interview with Reggie Jackson this morning, I'll use his three-homer game in the 1977 World Series as an example.



With a few exceptions (perhaps the people in the right field stands), hardly anyone at Yankee Stadium that night had a better view of what happened that night than the folks watching on TV. But the people at the stadium where there, and they can brag on that for the rest of their lives.

I wrote about the concept of "being there" a little more than a year ago, but being at the ballpark, stadium, arena, rink, racetrack or pitch is the reason to go, even if nothing historic happens. It's about the experience.

The problem is that we may have reached a tipping point, that during a time when television can present the game in more and different ways to people in the comfort of their living rooms than ever before, the cost of being there has maybe, just maybe outstripped the allure of being there.