Matt Sedensky writes about surfers & sharks (I remember discussing this issue with abalone divers when I lived in California….).
KAHANA, Hawaii ? Sam George can’t believe the audacity of surfers who seem to return to the water as soon as the blood of a shark attack dissipates ? even though he’s one of them.
“Once the blood cleared and the paramedics got off the beach, I’m as silly as the rest,” said George, San Clemente-based editor of Surfer magazine.
Michael Lewis pens a fascinating article on Billy Fitzgerald, the longtime baseball coach at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. Fitgerald has coached many exemplary student/athletes. Recently, some of them got together to fund the school’s gym renovation in his name.
Lewis’s article explores the friction between a coach trying to get the most out of student/athlete’s and parents who want to protect their children.
”The parents’ willingness to intercede on the kids’ behalf, to take the kids’ side, to protect the kid, in a not healthy way — there’s much more of that each year,” he said. ”It’s true in sports, it’s true in the classroom. And it’s only going to get worse.” – Scott McLeod, Newman’s headmaster.
Wishoops.net has excellent coverage of this weekends WIAA boys basketball tournament (box scores and video clips).
“Are we going to be replaced by a computer or what?” one veteran baseball scout told The Los Angeles Times last week.
Selena Roberts has a timely look at Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A’s. Beane has made the Oakland A’s winners, despite a very low payroll and competitors with piles of cash (money is not the secret to success).
But what the swipes reveal is how threatening an alternate view is to baseball’s theology.
It’s a threat to inept owners ? and/or a certain baseball commissioner ? who have used their small-market woes as habitual excuses for futility. It’s a threat to Yankeesque teams who spend millions to assemble constellations only to be increasingly grounded by teams of cohesive humans. It’s a threat to romanticized scouts whose legends are built on a 5 percent success rate.
“Everyone thought they had it figured out a long time ago,” said Scott Hatteberg, the A’s first baseman. “Now you have these young guys coming in to mess with it.”
San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club has an interesting interview with Beane and writer Michael Lewis regarding last year’s excellent book, Moneyball.