WHY THE BAD NEWS BEARS TAUGHT US WINNING

I can't ignore this story, and it's not a Yankee story but instead a sports story and I'm warning you now, it may be the most demented thing I've ever read.

The New York Department of Health is considering a plan that will label childhood games like tag and wiffleball "dangerous to children". I'm sorry, I didn't realize I fell asleep last night and woke up today and Pansy land. What are we doing to our children? Read the story HERE.

When I played tee ball back in 1980, we used real baseballs. A lot of kids got hurt, so over time, I think around the mid-90's, they changed to soft baseballs so the kids didn't get hurt as much. Ok, I'm on board with that. It makes sense to me. Then over time, they switch to the real baseball. Fine.

But what I don't get on board with are ties. Again, back in the day, we kept score when we played tee ball and that continued that on to Little League. At the end of the game, we knew who won and who lost. Today, we don't keep score. Today, we tie. "Everyone wins" is the mentality. That teaches children nothing. When we played years ago, we were taught to try harder, to work toward a goal, a trophy, a ribbon and a victory. In this day and age, everyone gets a trophy. One dad even told me "It's about the fundamentals. Wins don't matter." Really? So when my son goes out into the corporate world and loses a big account to another guy who was more aggressive, I should just chalk it up as fundamentals? Are you kidding me? Look, if the Bad News Bears taught us anything, it was that there is was a goal in, for example, playing baseball. You play as a team, you win as a team and sometimes, you lose at a team. Even at the end the Bears film, they did their best and Buttermaker, who knew his bench players sucked, put them in the game anyway because winning is a human instinct and you may not be the best, but you try your best and one of these times, you WILL win it all. And when you do, you get "that feeling." And when you get "that feeling" you want to do it again and again and again. No 7 years old kids these days know what "that feeling" truly feels like these days because when the game's over, the score is 27-27 and every kid batted each inning, and every kid scores. That's bull, is it not?

So, back to my point. Labeling games likes kickball, wiffleball, and tag as dangerous to children is just the latest bunch of crap. Kids needs to run around, interact and most of all, they need to be kids and sometimes, even those games give them "that feeling". It's true, competition and goals have been lost in our youth. All I'm saying is we need to get that back or all of our kids are going to grow up using pacifiers until they're 4 and when the real games happen for them at 13, they'll be 0-15 but expecting that trophy.

Hey, and this makes my point even more. You want to know what "that feeling" is? How about the Blue Jays' Travis Snider tonight. Bases loaded against the New York Yankees in the 6th inning and he strikes out and cracks the bat in half over his leg. I bet he was hungry for a win. He obvious once had "that feeling."

So, that's my point. Ties and fingerpainting are no way to raise our children, but it's a sure good way to get their ass kicked.

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