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"We stay away from Napa kids when we recruit," the community college baseball coach said. "They're soft."
One coach wouldn't be able to prove his belief correct in all cases.
"Oh, the Napa girls have skill, but they don't want to leave the valley and play basketball over here," one East Bay assistant college basketball coach said. "For every one who comes over here and plays well, two or three leave because they ... it's hard to explain ... they're soft."
Two coaches from two different colleges agreed that Napa Valley high school athletes are soft. It didn't take much to get the coaches to explain that they understood that youngsters who grow up in comfort and socio-economic safety of the valley would naturally feel entitled to a certain, more gentle way of being coached.
"They learn to play ball and play for different reasons than kids from inner-city areas, I think," one of the coaches said. "That doesn't make them bad kids. They just expect to be treated a certain way. I get it. I just can't expect a kid who feels entitled to playing time or even a roster spot to play for us."
Kids who grow up in the projects of Solano or Contra Costa counties are looking for a way out and, right or wrong, they usually think sports provides the best path. Those kids can't be soft and survive.
Don't believe it? OK. Go to a high school basketball game at Fairfield or Vallejo high schools. Now, go to a game at Napa, Vintage or Justin-Siena. See if you notice any difference.
My son played baseball for Justin-Siena this past spring. He mentioned that "people in the stands don't really get into the games." Then, we went to watch Rodriguez High's baseball team play in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III championship game. Instead of a small group of parents and boosters like that which followed Justin, Rodriguez filled have the Sacramento City College baseball stadium with loud, excited fans who hung on every pitch.
Wait. The intent here is not to conclude that Napa Valley athletes are self-entitled and too soft to succeed. Not at all.
A portion of the elite level athletes in the Napa Valley are, indeed, soft. They don't want to go take on the basketball or baseball worlds in most cases. There's nothing wrong with that, unless they expect to succeed as collegiate basketball or baseball players.
Napa Valley football players are far from soft. There's a disconnect between the self-entitled, soft athletes many outside Napa see in most sports and the gritty, determined football talent that comes from the Napa Valley. Napa's John Boyett stars at the University of Oregon. Undersized Jake Croxdale has built a career for himself against long odds at Sacramento State. They're just two kids who leap immediately to mind.
Two baseball players left the Napa Valley and are succeeding in places where there's no room for being soft. UC Davis sophomore CJ Blom and University of Michigan sophomore Ben Ballentine have bright baseball futures ahead of them. They're succeeding at big-time sports schools when their peers couldn't even get recruited outside the Napa Valley -- save for the kids who stream to Santa Rosa Junior College.
Guess what?
Blom and Ballentine were starters and stars for Napa High's traditionally powerful football team. Blom was an all-league lineman. Ballentine was a tall, gifted receiver. They carried the grit and determination needed to star as a Napa High football player and carried into another sport. Blom, in fact, had planned to play college football, but had such a brilliant senior baseball season that he changed his mind and is a key to the UC Davis baseball future.
Blom is a 6-foot-4, 230-pound chemistry major at UC Davis. Chemistry majors are rarely soft.
Blom pitched in 14 games, with three starts, as a freshman. He really didn't pitch a great deal in high school because Napa High had two good starters in Ballentine and Steven Nagy. When Blom had to pitch regularly in the playoffs as a senior, he was magnificent. So, he just scraped the tip of the iceberg on the mound as a college freshman.
Then, Blom became a full-time position player as a sophomore. He batted .345 in 22 games with a .379 slugging percentage and a .441 on-base percentage. Guys who pitch one year, hit the next and can probably do both just fine in college can't be soft.
CJ Blom .345 22 games 29 at-bats 10 hits 1 2B 4RBI .379 slug .441 OBP 6-4 230 lefty sophomore chemistry major
Ballentine led Michigan with a 3-1 record in 18 starts this spring. It's ironic that a pitcher from football-crazy Napa would wind up pitching in the football-crazy Big Ten Conference.
Ballentine, who is a 6-foot-7 righty, made 18 appearances. He struck out 46 and walked 21 with a 4.91 ERA. He made consistent progress after making 11 appearances as a freshman. His victories came over Notre Dame and Penn State after striking out three in two innings against powerful Texas Tech. The pitcher is enrolled in the university's School of Kinesiology as a physical education major.
Blom and Ballentine aren't the only athletes who disprove the general theory that Napa Valley kids are soft. Heck, there are dozens of kids coaches named whose college performances show that, perhaps, growing up playing in the valley did leave them too soft to compete elsewhere.
As is usually the case, two things can be equally true. Napa Valley basketball and baseball players can fall short in the area of desire, work ethic and toughness. However, CJ Blom and Ben Ballentine prove that Napa Valley athletes can succeed anywhere if they really work at it.
It must be the football.
That doesn't sound like the effort of a kid coaches would consider soft.
Showing posts with label Baseball Hall of Fame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baseball Hall of Fame. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Bonds, Clemens should meet the press together
Roger Clemens' perjury hearing was declared a mistrial, giving him and Barry Bonds one last chance to save themselves from baseball purgatory.
We all can agree that Clemens and Bonds are guilty, in the court of public opinion, of using performance enhancing drugs. They did so better than any of the hundreds and hundreds of baseball players who turned a 10-year period into the Steroids Era. Bonds set the all-time home run record in his 40s. Clemens bounced back from his career stalling in his early 30s to a dominant run with the New York Yankees and Houston Astros at ages well beyond those when fastball pitchers typically dominate.
Virtually every other baseball player who was found to have used PEDs has found some level of acceptance in the baseball community. Once found out, the players offered non-specific apologies for vaguely acknowledging they did the wrong things. Fans forgive and, sometime, forget. The media bashes even those who apologize, then moves back to vilifying Bonds, Clemens and a few others who were never actually fingered despite clearly having shown the same level of performance as those who used. (Sammy Sosa, for instance, survived the Steroids Era unscathed, but ... hey, he was right there buffed up and bombing home runs out of the blue with Mark McGwire.)
Bonds and Clemens remain poster boys for all the evil associated with the Steroids Era. Bonds acknowledged he used PEDs, but insisted all the way through even his perjury trial that he had no idea he was using them. Clemens had his DNA and steroids residue on a syringe introduced as evidence in his perjury trial, yet he maintains he was framed and that he never used PEDs.
They were both among the greatest players of their generation before the Steroids Era even started. If Bonds had finished his career as something far less than the Ruthian home run hitter, he would still been ushered into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Clemens was as dominant as a starting pitcher can be for over a decade. He just stayed bigger and stronger, and threw harder, into his mid-40s because he used PEDs. (I know. I know. Nolan Ryan pitched and threw hard well into his mid-40s, too. You be the judge.)
Bonds and Clemens could be denied entrance to the Hall of Fame if they don't make amends with the media and the fans who insist they acknowledge their use of PEDs.
Here's an idea that should appeal to them both.
The two baseball legends should offer themselves, together, for a "60 Minutes" style interview with a respected member of the sports media. Bob Costas would be the best choice because he's most offended, still, by those players who used PEDs and broke baseball's storied records.
When Costas asks if they used PEDs, the two should admit that they did. If one starts to waver or stray from a short response, the other can step in and explain how hard it is to admit that they did the wrong thing. (And, no, they don't need to actually believe they did the wrong thing.)
When Costas asks why Clemens lied to Congress and Bonds lied to a grand jury, they can explain that they knew they'd let their fans down and that their teams had really come to rely on them. It's always effective to explain away questionable acts by blaming them on the pressure one felt. So, Bonds could say something like, "The Giants' organization had built a brand new ball park. The organization needed me to perform at the highest level to fill that stadium in every night. The pressure to do more and more overwhelmed my sense of right and wrong."
See how easy it is?
This is the last chance Bonds and Clemens have to ease back into baseball and, eventually, the Hall of Fame. Sadly, their egos are so large that they'll likely go to their graves claiming they didn't use performance enhancing drugs.
(Ted Sillanpaa can be reached at tsillanpaa1956@gmail.com.)
We all can agree that Clemens and Bonds are guilty, in the court of public opinion, of using performance enhancing drugs. They did so better than any of the hundreds and hundreds of baseball players who turned a 10-year period into the Steroids Era. Bonds set the all-time home run record in his 40s. Clemens bounced back from his career stalling in his early 30s to a dominant run with the New York Yankees and Houston Astros at ages well beyond those when fastball pitchers typically dominate.
Virtually every other baseball player who was found to have used PEDs has found some level of acceptance in the baseball community. Once found out, the players offered non-specific apologies for vaguely acknowledging they did the wrong things. Fans forgive and, sometime, forget. The media bashes even those who apologize, then moves back to vilifying Bonds, Clemens and a few others who were never actually fingered despite clearly having shown the same level of performance as those who used. (Sammy Sosa, for instance, survived the Steroids Era unscathed, but ... hey, he was right there buffed up and bombing home runs out of the blue with Mark McGwire.)
Bonds and Clemens remain poster boys for all the evil associated with the Steroids Era. Bonds acknowledged he used PEDs, but insisted all the way through even his perjury trial that he had no idea he was using them. Clemens had his DNA and steroids residue on a syringe introduced as evidence in his perjury trial, yet he maintains he was framed and that he never used PEDs.
They were both among the greatest players of their generation before the Steroids Era even started. If Bonds had finished his career as something far less than the Ruthian home run hitter, he would still been ushered into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Clemens was as dominant as a starting pitcher can be for over a decade. He just stayed bigger and stronger, and threw harder, into his mid-40s because he used PEDs. (I know. I know. Nolan Ryan pitched and threw hard well into his mid-40s, too. You be the judge.)
Bonds and Clemens could be denied entrance to the Hall of Fame if they don't make amends with the media and the fans who insist they acknowledge their use of PEDs.
Here's an idea that should appeal to them both.
The two baseball legends should offer themselves, together, for a "60 Minutes" style interview with a respected member of the sports media. Bob Costas would be the best choice because he's most offended, still, by those players who used PEDs and broke baseball's storied records.
When Costas asks if they used PEDs, the two should admit that they did. If one starts to waver or stray from a short response, the other can step in and explain how hard it is to admit that they did the wrong thing. (And, no, they don't need to actually believe they did the wrong thing.)
When Costas asks why Clemens lied to Congress and Bonds lied to a grand jury, they can explain that they knew they'd let their fans down and that their teams had really come to rely on them. It's always effective to explain away questionable acts by blaming them on the pressure one felt. So, Bonds could say something like, "The Giants' organization had built a brand new ball park. The organization needed me to perform at the highest level to fill that stadium in every night. The pressure to do more and more overwhelmed my sense of right and wrong."
See how easy it is?
This is the last chance Bonds and Clemens have to ease back into baseball and, eventually, the Hall of Fame. Sadly, their egos are so large that they'll likely go to their graves claiming they didn't use performance enhancing drugs.
(Ted Sillanpaa can be reached at tsillanpaa1956@gmail.com.)
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