We Scrimmage

My 5th grade team of ninjas have a basketball scrimmage at 1PM. Some team that contacted me through a forum.

Prediction: They will either be -

All 6 ft tall with mad skills, or

A team of put-together kids that resemble a rec team, or

Somewhere in between

Real (league) games supposed to start in two weeks. So we have to be ready.

P.S. - OSSS made Middle School Team.

Halftime

Ughhhh, Nickelback is on now at halftime.

Kill me now.

Happy T-Day

Happy Thanksgiving to all the acolytes.

Enjoy your turkey, your family, your friends.

Already today SoulSlam can see it is the day of the sideline reporter on football. Gonna be a long one.

SoulSlam is cooking his turkey as we speak. Mine will undoubtedly look and taste better!

Winklevi

Watching TV last night I saw a commercial for pistachios starring the Winklevoss twins, aka Winklevi.

Let's get this out there. These guys are tools.

Let me see; come from a very rich family, attended Harvard and make a living rowing a boat, and another living suing facebook.

Why don't you two douchebags come on down here with the rest of us and see how it is?

Tool #1 and Tool #2 on a couch. Get a life, boys.

The Handicap Spot

A lot of things rile me up. But I think one of the biggest is the people who park in handicap spots with no right to do so.

We have a guy in town, let's call him A-Hole. He's retired. Used to be a cop. The kind of cop all the other cops hated. Now he drives around in his big truck. And parks in handicap spots.

Now, I used to see a "red" handicap tag hanging from his rear-view. Red meaning your temporarily handicapped, due to an injury or something. But that tag was in play for about 2 years. Now A-Hole parks in the spot, sans tag. So using my powers of deduction, he no longer has tag. But he is one of the entitled apparently.

And nothing seems to get done. Complain to local PD. Nada.

A-Hole.

Everybody Gets A Trophy

The above-named post is one of SoulSlam's pet peeves. Let me 'splain (kinda long, peeps).

Got word through the grapevine (that's the grapevine that has been around since time began - now called the GV) about a parent comment recently. Let's go backwards.

Like I said in a previous post, SoulSlam is coaching a 5th grade travel basketball team. Had tryouts in October. Now last season, due to the demise of an older team, our program had two teams of 4th graders playing travel, with 17 boys split up. 17 came out, we kept all 17. This year, it was made 100% clear that there would be one team. And a max of ten slots. It's basketball.

So tryouts roll around over two sessions to accommodate other sports schedules. And I get 10 boys total come out. Through the GV SoulSlam hears that a bunch of boys don't want to come down because they might get cut. Which would happen if we had more than 10. All of these boys play in a soccer program which has a no cut policy (to be fair, 3 boys who did come down also play soccer). Now, these boys are 10 and 11 years old, so I don't blame them for feeling like they do. But the parental units...

Look, SoulSlam go cut as a young man. OSSS (Oldest Son of SoulSlam) has been cut as a 7th grader for his MS hoops team. It happens. And as a father, I know what it feels like. A little anger and wonder why. But ultimately, it isn't the end of the world. And may make your child better. We all have heard that Air Jordan got cut in HS...and that didn't turn out too badly. It is nothing to feel ashamed about. And as SoulSlam types, OSSS has tried out as an 8th grader for the MS team again and finds out Monday if he made the cut. He's grown a year, in both stature and skill. Originally he wasn't going to tryout, which made me sad. I didn't want him not to try because he was unsuccessful last year. But he decided to give it a shot and, make it or not, I am incredibly proud of him for trying again.

Anyway, back to that GV. So a parent from my current team told somebody else that we should have kept two team again this year so all the boys (the soccer boys by the way) could still play together, and that we shouldn't cut boys. And truth be known, if a couple had come out they probably would have made roster in lieu of others. But they (parent and child)didn't take the chance and we will never know. And the comment? It's from somebody who thinks that Everybody Gets A Trophy is the way we should deal with today's youth. Which is wrong, IMHO.

As Nietsche said "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger."

True that. Out.

Live from Cooperstown

Sunday AM in Cooperstown, NY; home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Been here since Friday night and the trip back home starts in about 2 hours or so.

If you're a regular viewer to my blog, you undoubtedly know SoulSlam is a huge baseball fan. Majors, Minors, College, HS, Youth...I like watching and coaching the game. So it may come as a surprise to know that I have never been here. For whatever reason. So the opportunity to come here presented itself, so we packed up the wagon (actually the big SUV) and SoulSlam and the Sons of SoulSlam made the journey.

Hit the museum at 9AM when it opened on Saturday. Once inside the first thing that I could think of was how cool I got to share this with my boys. It was a little overwhelming for a minute or two. Then it was wall-to-wall baseball and history and legends and wonder. Only one word to describe this place:

AWESOME