We need *more* crying in baseball

My comment is from looking at video of Wilmer Flores here, where he became understandably upset, to the point of tears, when he learned (or thought he did) he was going to be traded. Lets face it, the Mets are an organization he has been with since he was (16) years old and to be forced to up and move from what you knew since you were (literally) a kid is traumatic.

I for one was heartened to see this as far too often we see professional athletes taking their "fame" for granted and not seemingly giving a care to the very thing they are supposed to love. It is clear Flores does.

This goes for referees (of all sports) too. I wish people would take the time and emote as officials. Show you are human and share how you feel (within some bounds) to the players and spectators. Empathy, happiness, anger, even sadness ... it's all fair game.

Try it some time, you may be pleasantly surprised at the reactions you get.

All that said, the scene from A League of Their Own is classic. It also is not lost on me the umpire tried to help the manager there ... to which he was rebuked most ... hilariously. Explicit language warning. =)

It's the people, not the rules

I caught an interesting article from Mike Woitalla in Soccer America titled, Put refs and coaches in the same room. Similar in venue to what we discussed last week with He Blinded Me With Science!, this discussion too was from the US Youth Soccer gathering in Philadelphia. The .pdf of the slide deck can be found here.

In the ether, the points have some merit. While I am sure that some actual polling went behind the conclusions, I have to believe the sample size was so small and the focus so narrow that the actual results are not quite on point or at least so general to be not helpful to anyone specific.

Don't get me wrong, they are worth reading as again, each has merit, at least at the highest level of abstraction. Also, the title is a good idea unto itself as well ... provided they are the right referees and coaches. At the professional level this is an absolute necessity, but even there, with the right people. Can we really imagine the outcome of placing a group of young, youth referees in a room with a bunch of older coaches? Are the issues all rules and regulations, or is there something else at play here?

Do we really think that if we take Peter Walton's advise from this article and have referees be more demonstrative in signaling fouls that the types of issues hurled on referees, such as abuse, will end?

How about inconsistency? Do we as referees always want to be consistent regarding fouls all the time for the same reason? I hope not as any number of situations may cause us to intentionally stray from this course of action.

Two very concrete points I really like are (a) make players and coaches take a referee class and exam. This sadly was recently removed from anyone who was getting their "A" license and to the best of my knowledge the certification requires no actual referee classroom work or experience. (b) Is to require coaches to referee a set of matches to feel what it is like to referee.

Some have commented this is not very practical and I disagree strongly. With these (2) steps you could make at least coaches feel empathy for these young youth referees which is what I believe is the intent behind "getting in the same room."

I think we keep forgetting, it is not about the silly rule book or how it is executed in the majority of the youth soccer games across the planet ... it's about the people and how we choose to manage each other. I believe humility and empathy are far more important than demonstrative signals and consistency.

Don't believe me? Try using NFL type signals the next time out and see the reaction you get.

Don't Dig In

So here is an excellent lesson that I have learned in the past and was reminded of last night.

If you make a mistake, correct it, and move on.

From my post yesterday "Nice to see it happens everywhere, not just in MLS as some opine", while my underlying point was sound (it was an opinion), I made a second point based on fact that I screwed up on. (Special thanks to Ian for pointing out that MU WON their match 3 - 0, not lost as I had indicated, and again my apologies to Sir Alex.)

I screwed up, and instead of hiding it (real easy in the blogging world) I wanted to openly correct it. Same is true inside the field.

It is fairly easy to not correct a decision (like a throw in) and take it and go on from there. There are (2) reasons why IMHO this correction is critical:

1. It gets the underlying issue correct. For fundamental fairness this is critical. Clearly we are there to administer decisions inside the field the way they are supposed to go. Now I am not talking about making a judgement call, I am talking about the black and white decisions that we all have blown now and again. We need to get these right if at all possible.
2. It demonstrates to the players that we are human. As humans we make mistakes and it's okay to remind players and coaches of that too. Now that said, it is a fine line and one can not certainly go through a match apologizing, but if there is a genuine issue we should.

A note on mechanics here ... if we do reverse a decision (lets saw a throw in) we need to give the teams time to react to the change. As a referee, do not be a "12th man" by allowing a quick throw or kick to give an advantage to the initially wronged team. This restart needs to be ceremonial in nature and may incur additional wrath. It will however be no where near the wrath faced if we sit idly by and allow the mistake to stand in the first place.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

Welcome to the pros

Check out this post from Not Running A Hospital.

Who says being a pro is all that. Not me.

This picture, to me, reflects more of the reality of being "in the show" than any hyped movie or commercial.

No power still ... and it will be a while ... but while we wait ...

Check out this post from JAFO: After the Batteries Die, because boy howdy, they are dead after 4 days without power =)

After the batteries die

Ah, the good old days. I remember a time when soccer was played with the most minimal equipment. In fact, that is the primary reason for its world-wide success: you can play it anywhere with nothing but a small object that serves as a ball. It did not have to be a ball either, it could be something as simple as a ball of rags or small stone, or a stuffed leather pouch as was commonly used over two millennia ago in Asia when the game was taking shape. In medieval times they used a human head as the ball. No shoes; no shinguards: no problem!

OK, so maybe I do not personally remember using a human head as a ball, but I certainly remember the time before shinguards became mandatory. In my early days, I played goalkeeper without them, and even without gloves. The only item of "protective" gear I wore was a soft knit hat on my head, and that was to keep my ears from freezing in the cold weather. (Later, FIFA outlawed them because players were using them as a helmet of sorts, and playing too aggressively. I have to admit that I did take to wearing the hat on some very warm days too for that reason.)

Now things are different. We need equipment. And for the referees, we need even more equipment than the players! How could that be?! From the flipping coin to the final whistle, we are handling equipment that we can do without. If you truly are a student of the game's history, you may realize that none of this stuff was necessary in the beginning. Red and yellow cards were only developed a scant 50 years ago. Even the indispensible whistle has only been around for a little more than a century. How was it that this game was played for over 2000 years without a whistle!!

We are now entering the era of spray paint and the battery-operated device. Beepers flags and wireless radios are tools of any well-equipped professional referee, and no doubt coming to a field near you. Will goal-line lasers or balls embedded with micro-chips be far behind?

Is this a good thing for our game? Is it no longer possible for an officiating crew to manage a game without electronic tools to communicate with each other? And if this is such a good idea, should the players also wear them so they can also talk to each other and receive real-time instruction from their coaches?

Don't get me wrong - I think some of the new equipment is good for the game. Certainly the use of a standard sized air-filled sphere instead of a human head made for more accurate passing. As for most of the rest of the advancements since then, I am not so sure.

And when it comes to refereeing, I lament the encroachment of technology. It is a simple game, certainly we can manage it as such. Sure, there may be an occasional mistake by the refereeing crew, but isn't that a part of the game? Don't the players make mistakes too? Aren't humans flawed and don't we celebrate that? Isn't that why a game is played in the first place?