Crisis or Opportunity

The Bad

Well the events that have transpired have certainly affected the world, but how are they to affect baseball? Here in Japan the Koshien (National High School Championship) was hugely downsized to a much smaller tournament with only a fraction of the usual teams. Then there are all the cancelled tournaments, leagues and teams that naturally supply the players for all countries in all sports. Most of these will be gutted as so many will not take up the sport to the necessary commitment level needed after the crisis is over. We could have some large changes internationally. As all nations struggle forth with forming future development of top teams and players around the world. I am going to project that some lower ranked nations in the world could rise as many first world nations sporting pastime suffer as players are kept home by scared soccer moms. Many young boys and their parents will prefer little Johnny playing computer games over doing sports outside without masks. Some rightly point out that this will lead to much more falsely named computers “sport games”, that you and I know are not sports at all. Health, self-discipline, fortitude and social interaction will suffer.

I, for one, will not go that way with any grandchildren in my future, as it will lead to laziness and focusing problems at the minimum, as many are pointing to the problems with too much computer time, as alluded to in Mr. Kardaras’s book (Glow Kids by Nicholas Kardaras, Ph.D.).

Also to mention is the clear ability to allow for even more corruption into those computer sport games much easier. One doesn’t have to look too far to see how the music industry has stars now that do not compose their own songs, write their lyrics, do their own choreograph, nor even choose their clothes or any of the artistic aspects of their presentation. They are handled.

Here in Japan even the members of these pop groups are a revolving door of ever changing young people, as the corporations add and subtract members based on contracts and payoffs, that often reminds one of an assembly line. As we know from past history with Milli Vanilli, some of the pop groups don’t even “sing” their own songs, so that they only offer for a short time some looks it would seem as these stars come and go based on polls. For how long this has gone on I would suggest reading Weird Scenes inside the Canyon by David McGowan.

Can you image this if it were to come to computer sports, as any corruption would increase in leaps and bounds? So for the sake of your children, the game and the future of people’s soul don’t let your children grow up to be pop sport computer game stars!

 

The Good

Yet what is not so obvious for the good side of these changes now is the clear opportunity for anyone who continues to practice smartly and completely will have an easier way to playing at all higher levels. So many players are motivated by the team, coaches, or group- and not themselves to train hard enough. Self-motivated players, and or parental supported player combinations, will progress as if the crisis had not happened, but with fewer people in the way in a “big” way.

The new life given to professional baseball scouts for the national teams or professional levels will now find their abilities one again coming into demand, as these scouts will be able to easily go to limited games and tournaments to gauge the talent. Some old fashion gumshoe scouting will be needed to find the future gems. “Money Ball” will take a backseat for some time, as the stats will not be there to trump expertise, as stats will be too narrow.

In my son & I’s case our long history of working around obstacles has left us unaffected by the crisis. We have not lost a step at all in our training, and our choice of a young adult private team, over our university one, has allowed us to not miss much in the way of team workouts either, as most universities have closed down all sporting activity.

So to those still with their eye on the ball, the odds just got better for your sons and daughters to get to higher levels, as most drop out of the competition. School programs will be devastated and will not allow for athletes the easier high profile way up. In this way farm teams will increase more in importance, even as many are farm club teams are closed down in the economic crisis.

As the Chinese character for crisis is also the character for opportunity (as you can see in the picture of this article), you have the chance to turn this game around. Use this situation as an opportunity and get back to work in isolation to beat those who are prone to not being self-motivated, or who were not prepared for the economic crisis that has been there for anyone paying attention for a long long time.

I hope for all of you in this economic crisis the best of luck and hope you weather this storm, but if you can go for the gold and silver in both economic and sports you are bound to come out ahead in more ways than just sports.

The next article here on this blog will be out dealing with Rafe’s move to the Skyhawks Baseball team. Hope to hear from you all.