SUPPORT YOUR SOX

The Boston Red Sox are struggling right now. There is no other way to put it. The current standing have them in last place in the AL East, 7.5 games back from first place Tampa and 7 games back from second place Baltimore. That’s right, I said Baltimore.  Looking for a silver lining? The Yankees are in second to last, but the Red Sox are still 4 games back from them.

SUPPORT YOUR SOX

I know that it is May, and that we have yet to even have a quarter of a season, but as things stand right now, on May 10, The Red Sox are struggling.  The most apparent reason is pitching, and specifically starting pitching. The Red Sox best record pitcher is Clay Buchholz, who has a record of 3 – 1, however taking a look beyond his win-loss record shows that Buchholz has the worst ERA in all of baseball amongst starting pitchers with a 9.09 ERA. He is also receiving the best run support of all the Red Sox starting pitchers. The other 2 of the “big three”, Beckett and Lester have also struggled, but they have both struggled beyond just their statistics. Lester, who was given the start on opening day and as such earned the right to call himself the Ace of the staff, has been like a child on the mound, complaining to umpires about not getting calls, which is a sign of passion and desire, yet he then allows these perceived bad decision to affect his next pitch and often gets consumed with the decisions.

SUPPORT YOUR SOX

And then there is Josh Beckett, who before the season began was a hot topic, with his new manager criticizing the amount of time he takes between pitches when he was an analyst on ESPN. Then Beckett becomes the face of the chicken and beer scandal (only because John Lackey went to get Tommy Johns surgey), and even voiced his displeasure at the fact that someone in the club house spoke to the media, as if the notion of being a rat is worse than drinking beer and eating fried chicken. We should expect more from professional athletes whose team needed just 1 more win to get into the playoffs. But let’s move past everything that happened last season in September and even in the off season.  This season Becket has been up and down, but his last start, on April 29^th against the Chicago White Sox, Beckett threw 126 pitches, and actually pitched pretty well allowing just three earned runs on six hits, walking three and striking out eight. With this stellar performance, his next start should have been one where he would be on fire, with momentum on his side and the Fenway faithful backing his every pitch.  This start should have been on May 5^th at Fenway against the Baltimore Orioles, yet Aaron Cook made that start, got injured and the Sox went on to lose 8 – 0.

SUPPORT YOUR SOX

Beckett complained of a sore lat muscle, and was alleged to feel disgruntled about having to pitch 126 pitches again the White Sox. So he told the staff that he would be unable to make his last start. Then yesterday (May 9^th) reports surface that Beckett was seen with Clay Buchholz playing golf on their off day. These reports have yet to be confirmed, but IF, and I repeat IF they are true, then the Red Sox need to look no further than this for reasons why the pitching staff are struggling. Player’s do not feel connected with the ball club, or they would have the respect and foresight to see that playing golf with a sore lat muscle is not the best use of down time to recover for a start just 2 days later.

SUPPORT YOUR SOX

Of course, the Red Sox have lots of other reasons as to why they are struggling. They have been missing Jacoby Ellsbury, Andrew Bailey and Carl Crawford for virtually all of this season through injury.  Their bullpen, which has been great out of necessity, took some time in figuring out who would be taking which role. Much debate was had over whether or not Daniel Bard should be moved back from the starting rotation to the bullpen, but it was to be just a onetime visit during a road trip in Minnesota.  Alfredo Aceves has become the closer, and surprisingly strong performances from unlikely pitchers Scott Atchinson and Clayton Mortensen has meant that when the starting pitchers only managed a 4 or 5 inning outing, there was often still a chance to win.

SUPPORT YOUR SOX

Then there is the problem of the bats. The Red Sox expects their big bats to deliver, and none have been more disappointing than Adrian Gonzales, highlighted by his 0 for 8 performance against the Baltimore Orioles in an 17 inning marathon that saw him strike out when facing Orioles designated hitter Chris Davis. Youkillis has also struggled with both a slow start and a subsequent stint on the DL. However there have been some bright sparks; Big Papi, the Red Sox DH, has been on fire, and the emergence of Will Middlebrooks has been a boost of young enthusiasm the likes of which are usually reserved for the captain elect Dustin Pedroia.

SUPPORT YOUR SOX

Boston is a tough sports town, and when the chips are down, Bostonians are not shy in voicing their opinions, which is a fantastic thing. However, from a psychology perspective, I am launching a new campaign – the “SUPPORT YOUR SOX” campaign. The Boston Red Sox, YOUR Boston Red Sox, MY Boston Red Sox are still a good baseball club, and still have some of the best talent in the Majors. We are in a rut, but we need to get behind our Sox.  So please, join me in tweeting #Supportyoursox, share this blog post to the Red Sox nations, and call into WEEI and tell them to Support Your Sox. We have a long way to go this season, but with support from the Red Sox Nation, the Red Sox can get back to doing what they do best – playing ball and winning games! SUPPORT YOUR SOX!

SUPPORT YOUR SOX

The Make-Up of Perfection

Phillip Humber, the 29 year old right handed pitcher for the Chicago White Sox became the 21st pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball to pitch a perfect game. For those unfamiliar with the game of baseball, a perfect game is when a pitcher records 27 consecutive outs in one game without surrendering a hit or a walk.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Humber can be described as a young journeyman, having been drafted by the New York Mets, and playing for the Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals and currently for the Chicago White Sox. He will now be forever inscribed in baseball folklore. His feat of throwing a perfect game is remarkable, and the fact that he is only one of 21 people do achieve this goes to show that it takes more than just being a good pitcher. There is something deeper to making this dream come true, and perhaps it might be something that lays deep inside an individuals psyche.

I hadn't really heard of Humber before tonight, and I am sure that I am not alone in that fact, so it is hard for me to state which attributes he has that perhaps other great pitchers who have yet to join the elusive club of perfection don't, so I won't speculate. What I offer below is some attributes that perhaps Humber has, and utilizes better than others, which might have enabled him to become Mr. 21 (an awful nickname, that I am sure will not stick).

Support - It came as no surprise to me that Humber's first thanks was to his family. When you are a professional athlete, you need to have a family that understands that you might be gone for weeks at a time, in preparation for a large event or performing on the road. As a baseball player, you play 162 games a year, and half of those will be "on the road". In a large number of cases, a major league player may not live in the same city that he plays in.

This means that an athlete must be well supported by his family in order to give him the best chance to succeed. Yet Humber was also well supported by his second family; The Chicago White Sox. The look on the faces of the entire White Sox bench when the final out of the night was recorded was a look of shared joy, pride and happiness, as if they themselves had pitched the perfect game. Of course, the second group of people that Humber thanked were his team mates! Specifically he thanked his catcher AJ Pierzynski.

Faith - Even before Humber mentioned his wife and child, he spoke the words "God is so good". This speaks of a tremendous faith in god. Different to a Tim Tebow "My lord and savior Jesus Christ" type of faith. Humber is merely acknowledging his belief of god. We don't know which god Humber is referring to, just that he has belief.

So often we see professional athletes praying before and thanking god after a performance. Tebow of course brought this to the media spotlight with "Tebow-ing", yet athletes have been doing this for years. There are most certainly athletes who are not religious, and even those who straight up do not believe in god, and i am not suggesting that belief in god is a per-requisite for success. All I am commenting on is that Humber clearly has a strong belief in god, and in his mind, god helped him throw every single pitch of his perfect game.

Concentration/Focus - During his post game interview, Humber was clearly overwhelmed with what he had just achieved, yet when questioned about the first out in the 9th inning, he maintained that his focus was on not giving up the 4 run lead that the White Sox had, as opposed to ensuring that he made history. Even in the face of pitching a perfect game, Humber was only focused on doing his job. This could be described as being the true definition of perfection.

Bounce-back-ability - A phrase coined on a British soccer show called Soccer AM, Bounce-back-ability refers to the ability of an individual to come back from a significant bout of adversity. For Humber, this could of been his disappointing spells with his previous clubs, or even his recent Tommy Johns surgery, yet which ever way you look at Phillip Humber, he certainly has bounce-back-ability in abundance.

April 21st 2012 is a date that Phillip Humber, and baseball fans around the world will remember for a long time. Congratulations Phillip!

Photo Credit: Getty Images

 

I SUPPORT P90X and P90X2 and you should too! (Part 2)

In my last blog, I tried to give you some of my thoughts about P90X and even admitted to some of the many mistakes that I made in my first round of P90X. When I began my second round of P90X, I had that experience behind me and made a few major changes. 

The man himself - Tony Horton!

Change 1 - Plan Ahead! I not only decided to do P90X (again), but I made the commitment to go back to back with P90X and the brand new P90X2. This gave me a 6 month plan, and addressed the 91^st day problem that I referred to in my previous blog. 

Change 2 – No more “cheating”! I know that I wasn’t really cheating by using a chair to help with the pull ups, but the fact is that I could do 5 or 6 before I started the program without the chair, and with the use of the chair I was able to do 18 – 20. Towards the end of my first round, when I decided to take the chair away, that 18 – 20 number dropped drastically to 8 – 10, and this was motivationally demoralizing.  When I began round 2 of P90X, I didn’t use a chair, and by the end of the 90 days, I was happily banging out 20 pull ups, and always increasing the number throughout the 90 days.

Change 3 – Nutrition is my mission! Let me admit that I have a problem, bordering on having an addiction. I love chocolate and cookies (especially ones that my family brings over from the UK). When starting P90X, these things WILL slow you down, they definitely slowed me down. During my first round, I took no notice of the nutrition advice that came with the program, so when I decided to go for another round of P90X, I committed to sticking with the nutrition plan. This included incorporating protein shakes and/or bars into my daily routine. Take the time to take a good look at what you eat – it is only now that I realize that the reason I do not have that washboard 6 pack is because of my own poor choices of food.

With these changes in place, I pressed play, and continued to press play day after day for 90 days. But there was one more change that I made, and this would be the change that allowed me to not only complete the program, but also follow through on my 91^st day plan and beyond. I told anyone and everyone exactly what I was doing. This is the notion of having a support system in place, and for me, it made me accountable to all of the people who I had told. I told my wife, my family, my work colleagues, my facebook friends and I even tweeted to Tony Horton himself (I never did get a reply by the way Tony). Now of course, my real hope was that all of these people would come up to me and tell me that I was in great shape and ask me if I had been “working out”? Only for me to reply “working out? No, I have been P90Xing it!”

Results aside, by completing the exercise program, and actually sticking with it (yoga and all – but more on that in part 3), the feeling of satisfaction was just as important to me as the other benefits normally associated with exercise.

Have you ever wondered why so many people, and feel free to include yourself in this problem, are unable to complete an exercise program from start to finish? One of the biggest reasons for this is that they have no one to hold them accountable for their goals. This is why I told everyone I knew that I was doing P90X. Developing a strong or vast support system will ensure that someone will help you maintain your goals. No one can physically force you to work out, but having a support system will increase your chances of finishing what you start!

In part 3, I will share some of my thoughts about P90X2, and will also share with you some of my obscure observations about all the characters and interactions that went down in the P90X DVD’s. It’s not to be missed…Thanks for reaching, and remember that sports really are MENTAL!