ALL SPORTS (Recent Days)

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“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

IT’s been an amazing several weeks: the NBA Finals; the French Open (tennis), the U.S. Open (golf); Boxing champion Manny Pacquiao, defeated; European soccer into high gear; NFL training open and QB great Peyton Manning of the Denver Broncos demonstrating as much prowess as ever; the mighty horse “I’ll Have Another” not having “another;” Olympic trials underway and Track & Field looking good for other than Usain Bolt; and, to the dark side, the Colorado Rockies losing 10 of 11 games.  . .  but dominant among team sports, for America anyway, are the Miami Heat/Oklahoma City games for the year’s NBA championship title, which is why this site will post it’s usual Tuesday column on Wednesday, June, 20, after the latest game of the best of seven series.

Meanwhile, readers may want to consider a look at SPORTS & THE HEROIC, a good read if you want a sense of why sports needs to be a dominant segment of our lives, either as athletes or fans. This new book by Marvin Leibstone, Editor & Publisher of this website, can be ordered on line from barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com, from the book’s publishing house, xlibris.com, or by calling 888-795-4274 ext. 7879, or by obtaining it at a local book store, esp. Barnes & Noble, where if not in stock it can be ordered and shipped to a home or office .  .  .  SPORTS & THE HEROIC is an ode to all sports, illuminating that which can be derived from them for the good life. Of real events, facts and portrayals of well-known athletes, plus segments that are fiction, the slim volume (154 pages) pulls no punches, describing the good and the dreadfully awful that make up sports in our time, yet reminding us that sports, as a whole can empower the very best that any of us has to offer in a complex world . . . Available in hard cover, paperback or as download for Kindle or Nook.

FROM FRIDAY’S POSTING (June 15)

MLB:  A Pop Quiz, with answers---

• Which MLB team has delivered the most home runs since the beginning of the 2012 MLB season?  Answer:  The Colorado Rockies, with 78, as of Thursday, June 14. Next highest is the Texas Rangers, with 49, yet the Rangers are in first place of the American League-West, while the Rockies are in fourth place of the National League-West.
• Which NL team leads other NL teams this year re. number of grand slam home runs, and which is tied with the NYY this year for most grand slam homers within either league (five, as of Wednesday, June 13).  Answer:  The Colorado Rockies. 
• Which NL team has the best winning percentage during interleague play since 2006? Answer: The Colorado Rockies, 56 wins/45 losses.
• Which NL team has pounded out the most extra-base hits since the start of the 2012 MLB season? Answer: The Colorado Rockies, with 207, as of June 13. Second best, the St. Louis Cardinals, with194.
• Which MLB team has scored the most runs during “first innings” of 2012 games played, to date? Answer: The Colorado Rockies, with 64. Next highest, the Texas Rangers, with 51.
• Who are the players holding second and third place in the NL this year for most extra-base, thus far? Answer: Carlos Gonzalez, followed by Michael Cuddyer, both of the Colorado Rockies.
• Who is the NL player with the most “doubles” for the 2012 season, to date? Answer: Michael Cuddyer, of the Colorado Rockies.
• Which NL player has the highest total of bases reached since the 2012 season began? Answer: Carlos Gonzalez, of the Colorado Rockies, with 142.
• Which NL player batting third in a line-up game-after-game has the most RBI’s during the current season, as of June 13? Answer: Carlos Gonzalez, of the Colorado Rockies.
• Which MLB player recently surpassed the great NYY, Mickey Mantle, with regard to most career extra-base hits and most RBI’s from them? Answer: Colorado Rockies first baseman, Todd Helton.

So, the above being so, how come the Colorado Rockies dropped to fourth place so rapidly in the NL-West, falling to a 24/38 record and being below .500? In fact, the Rockies are at .393, one of only two MLB teams beneath .400, ranked 14th of the 16 teams within the NL?

Digging deeper, the Rockies just lost two series. That’s six of seven straight losses, the team’s worst losing streak of the year, after six games were lost in a row in May.

There isn’t a single cause behind the Rockies losses, instead there are many, and only one or two can be labeled as being extremely heavy-handed, more than, say, 50 percent of the team’s negatives. For instance, as mentioned on this page on Tuesday, the Rockies starter rotation is weak and there aren’t enough good Rockies relievers to keep a lid on the bleeding that’s caused by eh weak pitching in early innings. The Rockies have one of the worst 2012 ERA’s in the MLB as of yesterday, it’s above 6.0.

Moreover, the Rockies offense is mercurial, hot for a period, then cold, and when hot and filling the bases and sending up home runs it’s rarely enough to offset the high number of runs allowed the opposition by the Rockies starters and relievers.

Too, the team is new and mostly young, not of the line-up that functioned in April, they seem, also as mentioned on Tuesday, as “a work in progress,” not used to playing together, a problem worsened by players being moved to and from field positions as if engaged in musical chairs.

But it’s time for the Rockies to be fully in the present, not in the past, it’s important now for the team to be thinking less about why it’s been losing and to be thinking only about what it takes to win (focusing on the negative keeps it in the team’s collective mind). And with 62 games already over, the team ought to be strategizing for where winning will count the most, e.g., of the season’s remaining games, 42 will be against teams within the NL-W, Colorado’s division. If the Rockies can win the lion’s share of these 42 challenges, the team could rise within the NL-W; and, with at least 30 wins against other NL and AL teams the Rockies could finish the 2012 season without carrying the burden of remorse.

The Rockies may be at a point where all that can be asked is that each player be the best that he can be afield and at the plate, “no more language needed.”

In view of the answers to the above quiz, the Rockies still own skill and power. With that skillfulness and strength applied, and each player continuing to do his best, the Rockies could finish 2012 with heads held high, “to heck with the final numbers!”

END/ml