COVID-19 has robbed our young athletes of joys they can never get back

@fenwaysouth  We agree that education is the big picture/key.  It seems that we might disagree somewhat on what meaningful/quality education actually consists of. We also agree there are very few jobs available in baseball and athletics.  If getting kids ready for jobs in baseball and athletics is what you extracted from my post, then I failed miserably in articulating my point.

I've been in hiring management for 15+ years now and few are actually bringing skills that can make immediately impacts, if ever.  Countless kids are spending $100K+ for degrees in things like criminal justice and quickly finding out that there are only a dozen "CSI-style" jobs in most cities.  So they come to me and we train them in things they never learned in 4 years of college.  And we do a good job at that.  Where these kids are wholly UNSKILLED, are things like working well with conflicting personalities, dedication, loyalty, integrity, overcoming adversity, problems-solving skills, coping with failure, deductive reasoning, accountability, etc.  Xs and Os can be taught at any point and are done so fairly easily.  A central component to most classroom "learning" is little more than temporary memorization.  The skills I just listed above are an absolute bear to teach and few are getting exposure to them despite massive amounts of time and money pouring into our universities.

@Iowamom23 posted:

Sure. Because no other COVID link has ever had a political reaction.

The thing is several of the political reactions are of the cancel culture nature. The article is about what kids lost versus the thrills the writer had as a high school athlete. Then some posters felt the need to compare the relevance of high school sports to war, death and education. It doesn’t change the kids missed out and it’s too bad. The writer even discounted his perspective relative to the big picture.

@fenwaysouth posted:

Per @TPM What is more important is the lost education. You dont need sports to compete against the world stage, you need educated individuals. So many lost out this year, there are dozens if not millions of poor households in America that dont have wi fi. How did they expect them to learn. And they lived in places that couldnt give a crap about them.  I think you might find those places with higher youth cases of suicide and crime.

Danj,

I will respectfully disagree with you.  In short, lost education means lost employable skills in a global market place.  Our country continues to fall behind in education and technical skills around the world.   Baseball and athletics employ very talented few in the world.  Education is the big picture.

I am so glad that you get it. 

IMO in order for most people to succeed in life they need to be educated AND they need to know how to compete. It takes both. That’s the beauty of playing team sports in college. It’s a metaphor for life and prepares student athletes for the challenges and the pitfalls of life. There are plenty of educated people who don’t know how to compete and underachieve in life. The misrepresentation of the Covid19 virus, and the bad decisions made because of misinformation, have badly hurt student athletes by taking away BOTH the ability to compete AND the opportunity to learn in a classroom. Both are damaging.

@fenwaysouth you get the Cadillac El Dorado @RJM you get the steak knives.... everyone else, You’re Fired!

#ABC

#CiFC

😂😂😂

@Shoveit4Ks posted:

@fenwaysouth you get the Cadillac El Dorado @RJM you get the steak knives.... everyone else, You’re Fired!

#ABC

#CiFC

😂😂😂

A lifeline for those who get this.

Sadly ABC is spring sports at the Ivies

Don't get the initials, shove it 4ks, but that is one of the great scenes ever.

If anyone hasn't seen it here it is, and if you have seen it, watch again.  Great late Friday entertainment.   7+ minutes. Mature audiences: Language

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrhSLf0I-HM

#CiFC = Cellular Intrinsic Fiber Cementum?

This is fun, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_vSirIJEsY

@adbono posted:

IMO in order for most people to succeed in life they need to be educated AND they need to know how to compete. It takes both. That’s the beauty of playing team sports in college. It’s a metaphor for life and prepares student athletes for the challenges and the pitfalls of life. There are plenty of educated people who don’t know how to compete and underachieve in life. The misrepresentation of the Covid19 virus, and the bad decisions made because of misinformation, have badly hurt student athletes by taking away BOTH the ability to compete AND the opportunity to learn in a classroom. Both are damaging.

Have to say, there are plenty of successful people who did not play college sports.  However, if what baseball teaches is how to deal with life's curveballs, then I'd say that this group of kids has been thrown a fat one.  How will they deal with it?   Will it make them stronger and better, or will they feel sorry for themselves for the rest of their lives?  Seems to me that that's the big question, and I don't know the answer, even among my own kids.

Laying political blame is not going to help anyone come out of this better.  That's making excuses.  You have to ask, "how are you going to use the time that you thought would turn out differently?"

And, I've got 3 kids who have all been impacted in different ways.  But, HS sports are being played this year.

I've avoided this site for 6 months.  I'll probably avoid it indefinitely after this, but expect that I may be banned and my post taken down.

First, I have several family members and close friends that have served in our military and I respect them all.  Any life lost is tragic and please correct this if I'm wrong, but I think we lost about 60,000 soldiers in Vietnam between 1954 and 1975.   I don't think you can directly compare the two, Covid and Vietnam, but we lost  about an extra 70,000 people under the age of 54 in 2020, and that doesn't include any of the numbers over in 2021 so far.

I got Covid shortly  after I stopped posting here about 6-7 months ago.  Covid made me the sickest that I've ever been, and I am in shape, and I don't mean in shape for 50, I mean really in shape, Jack LaLanne type shape.  I have zero pre-existing conditions and never missed a day of work or school due to illness in my previous 50 years.  Covid kicked my ass and if I was a little older, it would have been a real battle for survival.

As I have done in most my other posts on this matter, I want to review real data from 2020.  The hardest hit groups in the wake of Covid, by percentage increase in deaths, looks like this.

Notice that the hardest hit groups, by increased percentage of deaths, are between the ages of 15 and 44.  Very few people in these age groups actually died of Covid, why are they the biggest percentage increase?  Well, because of the things more intelligent, thoughtful people warned about.  But the "dangerously stupid" chose to listen to a political narrative instead of facts.  They paid attention to rantings of sensationalized, for profit news, instead of checking for themselves.  Substance abuse, depression, suicide, etc. in the wake of "anti-social" distancing, business closures, school shutdowns, and general despair, these were the plagues brought on by the "dangerously stupid", not Covid.

In order to gain political power, the "dangerously stupid" were recruited to ignore the real data, and become willing accomplices in robbing young people of their education, their socialization, and irreparably damaging their future.  But worse than that, we now know the "dangerously stupid" increased young peoples' death rates more than any other age groups' rate.  The "dangerously stupid" took out more young people in one year than Covid by itself ever could have, and more young than the entire Vietnam war did over 21 years if you really want to talk about tragedy.

So, to the "dangerously stupid" on this site, and I think you at least suspect who you are, maybe take some solace in knowing there are at least another 80 million of you out there.

Coming on the site and calling posters dangerously stupid should get you suspended or banned. This is not a site for name calling. Especially since it’s throwing gas on a fire that has mostly smoldered on the site.

@RJM posted:

Coming on the site and calling posters dangerously stupid should get you suspended or banned. This is not a site for name calling. Especially since it’s throwing gas on a fire that has mostly smoldered on the site.

There has been much worse said in past threads

my son is just finishing a quarantine, he has been forced to miss the last 2 weeks of practice due to a close contact. The interesting thing is that he had Covid over the holidays and is not required to quarantine by the CDC, actually the CDC actually clearly states that he is not subject to quarantine or testing. his school on the other hand doesn't agree...they have made a determination that 60 days is the safe number. So he has spent the last 10 days in a school imposed exile for no reason other then the administrator is a scared (they probably came from an Ivy or Centennial conference school) and now that he is schedule to get parole one of his roommates has tested positive!! I can't wait till the geniuses get their arms wrapped around this one.

I can just see it, the kid is going to spend 20 plus days in quarantine for no reason other then stupidity because the science only matters when organizations of authority decide it does. In the real world they would get sued and lose but that won't save his ball season. on the good side it will save me the donation I make every to the school every year, they have a better chance of the campus being hit by an asteroid then me continuing that.

Last night I told him point blank there is are reasons people are self employed and one of the big ones is so you can tell organizations like our schools, some corporates entities and unreasonable clients to go pound sand!

Edit - as of 930 AM he received anther 10 days quarantine. I hate academia as if I didn't before now it is worse.

I think there's argument to be made that most of us have been dangerously stupid.  The 2 dominant political parties in our country rushed to politicize the pandemic.  That was mistake #1, but that falls squarely on the two parties and the media (both of them).  Mistake #2 was when the majority of us 332 million bought 100% into one of the 2 parties' stances - hook, line and sinker - and completely dismissed most of what the other side was saying as garbage/lies.  Because no way the "truth" and best path forward could reside right down the middle, right?

It seems most people today TRULY believe that our country's problem is the OTHER party.  They believe it with every bone in their body.  Death, taxes, and the other party is TRULY out of their minds.  It's as factual to us as 2+2 equaling 4.  My side is right and the other is wrong.  Period.  End of story.  It's been my belief for quite some time that our country's biggest problem is our division.  Neither party is going away.  No matter how much we believe eliminating the other would "fix" everything, it's wholly unrealistic/impossible.  Yet we're all running as fast as we can AWAY from anything that will combat our division.  Here's the "truth" that almost no one will like or be comfortable with - had we taken half of what the left wanted and half of what the right wanted, I'd argue that our country would have weathered the pandemic far better than we have.  It would still be riddled with flaws, but it would be infinitely closer to a holistic/comprehensive approach.  Me, personally, I feel that anyone who sees absolutely zero merit in the other sides' arguments...   that's who is dangerously stupid.

@old_school posted:

my son is just finishing a quarantine, he has been forced to miss the last 2 weeks of practice due to a close contact. The interesting thing is that he had Covid over the holidays and is not required to quarantine by the CDC, actually the CDC actually clearly states that he is not subject to quarantine or testing. his school on the other hand doesn't agree...they have made a determination that 60 days is the safe number. So he has spent the last 10 days in a school imposed exile for no reason other then the administrator is a scared (they probably came from an Ivy or Centennial conference school) and now that he is schedule to get parole one of his roommates has tested positive!! I can't wait till the geniuses get their arms wrapped around this one.

I can just see it, the kid is going to spend 20 plus days in quarantine for no reason other then stupidity because the science only matters when organizations of authority decide it does. In the real world they would get sued and lose but that won't save his ball season. on the good side it will save me the donation I make every to the school every year, they have a better chance of the campus being hit by an asteroid then me continuing that.

Last night I told him point blank there is are reasons people are self employed and one of the big ones is so you can tell organizations like our schools, some corporates entities and unreasonable clients to go pound sand!

Edit - as of 930 AM he received anther 10 days quarantine. I hate academia as if I didn't before now it is worse.

I hear you..my son got a bad chipotle bowl, something he eats 1-2 times a day, spent a night next to the toilet unable to keep anything down and has effectively been quarantined for a week...no covid, no positive tests (tested daily)...1 bowl of food that had some bacteria in it and viola...he missed several games and bullpens. The whole time he is fine with it to a degree because he doesn’t want to the THE guy to get any of the big leaguers sick but at the same time wants the ability to compete.

@DanJ posted:

I think there's argument to be made that most of us have been dangerously stupid.  The 2 dominant political parties in our country rushed to politicize the pandemic.  That was mistake #1, but that falls squarely on the two parties and the media (both of them).  Mistake #2 was when the majority of us 332 million bought 100% into one of the 2 parties' stances - hook, line and sinker - and completely dismissed most of what the other side was saying as garbage/lies.  Because no way the "truth" and best path forward could reside right down the middle, right?

It seems most people today TRULY believe that our country's problem is the OTHER party.  They believe it with every bone in their body.  Death, taxes, and the other party is TRULY out of their minds.  It's as factual to us as 2+2 equaling 4.  My side is right and the other is wrong.  Period.  End of story.  It's been my belief for quite some time that our country's biggest problem is our division.  Neither party is going away.  No matter how much we believe eliminating the other would "fix" everything, it's wholly unrealistic/impossible.  Yet we're all running as fast as we can AWAY from anything that will combat our division.  Here's the "truth" that almost no one will like or be comfortable with - had we taken half of what the left wanted and half of what the right wanted, I'd argue that our country would have weathered the pandemic far better than we have.  It would still be riddled with flaws, but it would be infinitely closer to a holistic/comprehensive approach.  Me, personally, I feel that anyone who sees absolutely zero merit in the other sides' arguments...   that's who is dangerously stupid.

It’s not the political parties fault. It’s the people’s fault. Too many people have forsaken religion for politics. Politics is the new religion. People tend to cling to their religion. Therefore, in the current state a person’s political party can’t be wrong or their belief system is wrong.

I never used to know or ask what people’s politics are or how they voted. Now they tell you without being asked.

I’m of x nationality and y religion pride has been replaced I’m a Republican or a Democrat.

@old_school posted:

Edit - as of 930 AM he received anther 10 days quarantine. I hate academia as if I didn't before now it is worse.

Have you contacted the NCAA?  Who I think follows CDC guidelines.

My understanding is that if a player has had covid within a 90 or 120 day period, he does not have to quarantine if exposed.  After that period, he has to begin taking required tests again.

I don't know if that is for all divisions.

Just a suggestion.

@RJM I’m of x nationality and y religion pride has been replaced I’m a Republican or a Democrat.

I'll take it even one step further.  It's now even less "I'm a Democrat" or "I'm a Republican" and more "I'm not some crazy right-wing nut" or "I'm not some crazy left-wing nut."  I find it borderline hilarious (or super sad and utterly pathetic) that most of us TRULY believe the other half is crazy.  Like legitimately out of their minds.  Very few are willing to entertain the notion that we've both lost our minds.  Or at the very least, both lost our way.  Until there is consensus on that, it's foolish to believe improvement is possible.  Either we're all crazy or none of us are.

Danj ... My best friend (also each other’s best man) grew up with a teacher mother and parole officer father. Both his wife and he are in the social work field. Given the parents were union members in the 20th century and his background I wouldn’t expect him to be anything but a Democrat. But understanding his background and family background helps me understand where he’s coming from.

In turn, where my father was a corporate executive, my mother did PR for the oil industry and I started my own successful business and sold it he knows where I’m coming from. When we get to the wall and know there’s no sense going any further we back off.

The first step to sanity would be people turning off Fox, OAN, CNN and MSNBC. I watch infrequently to see what they’re selling regarding important events. These are not news networks. They’re propaganda machines for their respective parties. They don’t tell the truth. They offer up political spin. They promote the part of the story that promotes their truth. They’re designed to fire up viewers and piss them off about the other side. The same goes for talk radio.

I would welcome actual news with no spin and sadly it doesn’t exist.

@RJM I would say those networks are all entertainment now targeting a specific demographic. It is hard to find any actual news these days. I don't think I've watched an actual "news" story in 3 or 4 months. I'm a much happier person because of it.

@baseballhs posted:

I would welcome actual news with no spin and sadly it doesn’t exist.

I watched WGN News Nation one night. It’s supposed to be straight news. It appeared to be. The thing is there isn’t as much news as the cable news stations invent. In most cases the daily news is mostly boring.

I get most of my news from a Flipboard news aggregator. I get both sides from Fox the MSNBC and everything in between. The key to information is confirming it. Confirmation is not finding the exact same report on a second source. Confirmation is a second view. Even so, people are swayed by their political bias.

I don’t believe anyone who didn’t miss a paycheck should be receiving checks from the government. Some people do.

@RJM posted:

I watched WGN News Nation one night. It’s supposed to be straight news. It appeared to be. The thing is there isn’t as much news as the cable news stations invent. In most cases the daily news is mostly boring.

I get most of my news from a Flipboard news aggregator. I get both sides from Fox the MSNBC and everything in between. The key to information is confirming it. Confirmation is not finding the exact same report on a second source. Confirmation is a second view. Even so, people are swayed by their political bias.

I don’t believe anyone who didn’t miss a paycheck should be receiving checks from the government. Some people do.

There is a reason the news shows once lasted an hour on network TV, wedged between sitcoms and sports.  There just isn’t that much important information to recap in a 24 hour cycle.  When you have 24 hour networks dedicated to “news” you have to make 24 hours worth of content to fill the time.....aka spin, slant, commentate and sometimes just make shit up.  

These infotainment outlets should have to run a disclaimer when they editorialize facts, which is 99% of the time.  Frankly, I don’t get how anyone watches any of it from either side without feeling their intelligence is being assaulted.

Boy, it seems like there are an awful lot of people here who are seeing through the dense cloud of BS we're all forced to live in.  That's super encouraging to me at a time when I've seen little that gives me hope of coming together.  Leave it to baseball fans - the superior breed (hehehe) - to actually use their brains and think for themselves.

I've shared it here before, but I regularly (every day) read from about 5 "news" sources - CNN, MSNBC, USA Today, The Daily Wire and Fox News.  If a story appears on all 5, I label it as actual news.  Sadly, there are other real news stories in all 5 of those sources, but as others have said, they're intentionally omitted if it doesn't fit their preferred narrative.  I actually think that's a bigger problem than fake news and lies.  if you're only consuming news from one side, I promise you you're missing out on nearly half what is actually going on out there.  Sadly, too many will write off my comments by simply thinking "no, I'm not missing out on anything real; just lies that the OTHER side always tells."  It's this blind loyalty/sheep deal that so many Americans are infected with.  Many have turned to "fact checking" sites.  I tried that, but then I used my brain and quickly noticed what they were doing.  If you haven't done your research and used your brain with regard to fact checking sites, you're still infected.  I had a previous boss that always said "inspect, don't expect" and it couldn't be smarter than when applied to news and fact checking sources.

So based on your logic the first 5 or 6 weeks of New York nursing home scandal you didn’t consider it news? Maybe it was only 3 weeks but half of the outlets you listed did their damn best to bury it

Men (and Republicans) are more likely to over-react to national invasions:   Sept. 11....the War in Iraq.

Women (and Democrats) are more likely to over-react to bodily invasions (toxins, germs, radiation):  Covid....Lockdowns.

Personally, I strive for a centrist approximation of reality.

I've attached a Gallup poll from 6 mos. ago showing attitudes towards Covid,  by party and gender.

Two examples from the poll:

Worried about getting the coronavirus:

Dem women 80%

Rep men 20%

Ready to return to normal activities right now:

Dem women  3 %

Rep men  64%

@old_school  I am not going to get into specific examples.  What I meant was the only way to be 100% sure something is news  - without further research - is when an item appears on every news source and is reported on in similar ways.  But those items are quickly becoming extinct.  Anybody remember when an earthquake, a hurricane or a murder was just an earthquake, a hurricane or a murder?  Today we assign a political affiliation to them - immediately.  Tragedies like these could actually bring us together, if only for a short while.  Today, these and many more, divide us mere seconds after they've concluded.  We cannot help ourselves from instantly leveraging them to further argue for our political agenda.

@game7 To each their own, but I'd argue Republicans and Democrats are more likely to over-react.  Period.  Here's a litmus test.  Go find some independents or other non-Democrats/Republicans and count how many of them constantly over-react.  You won't need a calculator. 

@DanJ posted:

@old_school  I am not going to get into specific examples.  What I meant was the only way to be 100% sure something is news  - without further research - is when an item appears on every news source and is reported on in similar ways.  But those items are quickly becoming extinct.  Anybody remember when an earthquake, a hurricane or a murder was just an earthquake, a hurricane or a murder?  Today we assign a political affiliation to them - immediately.  Tragedies like these could actually bring us together, if only for a short while.  Today, these and many more, divide us mere seconds after they've concluded.  We cannot help ourselves from instantly leveraging them to further argue for our political agenda.

I get and kind of agree with you, I actually blame the media. Remember when a hurricane was a natural disaster that unfortunately have been happening since the planet has existed? Now is a weather event due to climate change caused by greedy oil companies...

Remember when people who broke into a country were called criminals not undocumented immigrants?

Remember when after you illegally came to a country and were allowed to stay and your kids were citizens because they were born here wasn't considered racist?

Remember when you didn't listen to commands from the police and you were deemed a dumb ass who deserved to be arrested not championed as drug addict trying to rebuild his life?

Remember when using your eyes and brain to realize there are serious differences between men and women was deemed as logical and not sexist?

Remember when being born to a sex was a reason to identify as it?

When simple things like these are controversial there is not going to be much in the way of agreement on most anything. I am not even taking a position on them just stating the obvious.

You guys see the Cardinals got Arenado?

@old_school With all due respect, I don't think you need to officially take a position to convince everyone you've taken a position.  Take a look over all your "remember whens" and you'll notice a clear trend.  One that doesn't deviate even once.  I can actually identify with a lot of what you've said, but it's important to recognize that bringing a completely one-sided approach like that is a total non-starter for those who carry different opinions than you do.  You're guaranteed to get nowhere before anything has even begun.

Seeking agreement is chasing a ghost.  I'll save you some time.  The other side is never going to agree with you.  You are never going to agree with them.  You're free to feel all you've said is obvious, but it doesn't change the reality of the situation.  It doesn't get us any closer to coming together.  It doesn't work the problem.  I think far too many people these days SINCERELY believe that if they hold out long enough and fight tooth and nail, that eventually 332 million people will all end up on the same page - the page they personally prefer and are 100% sure is "right."  I can't begin to tell you how ridiculous that is.  They're pinning their hopes to some bizarre miracle that will never come.  Hope is not a strategy.  No one seems to like it - even a little bit - but the only workable path forward is compromise.  And that means concessions - from everyone.  I am way passed being done dreaming of people waking up some day and agreeing with everything that I think is "right."

I’m a tree. If you disagree you’re a bigot!

@LuvMyKids posted:

You guys see the Cardinals got Arenado?

WTH do you think this is, Luv, a baseball discussion board?

Stick to political opinions and CoVid rants, please.

Can anyone tell me how to opt out of a thread!

Son pitched three innings last night and this was my view.  I never would have thought I would say I was glad I got to be there.  

Just in case random people find this page and think that it represents the entire membership on the site, I'd note that many have chosen to quarantine (ahem, ignore) this thread.

.... and some haven’t become hypersensitive in cancel culture and can differentiate the sarcasm and jokes.