THE OLYMPICS, 2012 // MLB: COLORADO ROCKIES & TEAM R&D

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

OLYMPICS, 2012---You don’t have to look far to find books about what sports can mean for the individual participant or fan, for a local community or for a nation. There’s The Meaning of Sports by Michael Mandelbaum, Sport and Philosophy by Drew A. Hyland, and recently published Sports & The Heroic, by Marvin Leibstone (Ed./Publ., this page), available from major book stores, from amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, XLIBRIS.com and other on-line outlets, each book suggesting that from sports we can derive numerous values for the good life.

Any person desirous of knowing what sports can mean for them personally, any individual planning on a career in sports, would do well examining the above-cited books that are essentially introductions to, and meditations on, the various aspects that comprise professional as well as amateur games.

Equally valuable as learning tools are the summer Olympics, held every four years, the 2012 London-held event starting this Friday.

Make no mistake, at the London Olympics will be many examples of great courage, integrity, development and maintenance of skills, teamwork, clarity of thought when under stress, handling defeat gracefully, compassion for others, and the powers of motivation, of discipline and focus---these virtues will be on full display until the Olympics closing ceremony, reminding viewers of what works best when one’s goal is to be one’s best, whether such has to do with a chosen sport or with any other endeavor, even if the latter is about starting a business, teaching at a public school, being a health care professional, a chef,  whatever!

We are reminded by the Olympics to “go for it” in ways that enhance not only one’s self-esteem but also that of the immediate environs in which we live. At the cutting edge of this year’s Olympiad examples will be Jamaican track star, Usain Bolt, hoping to be the first athlete winning the 100 and 200 meter heats under 10 and 20 seconds respectively, more so “consecutively,” having won the 100M and 200M events during the last Olympiad (Beijing, 2008). If it happens, it will be Bolt as a comeback runner, in that countryman, Yohan Black, beat Bolt in both races during this year’s Olympic trials.

So, too, will America’s Serena Williams and her yet to be chosen partner hope to bring home Olympic Gold in mixed tennis-doubles (held for the first time at an Olympiad since the late 1920’s---her partner could be U.S. men’s tennis star, Andy Roddick); and, Americans Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte will be pushing for Gold in multiple swim events, each athlete hoping to outperform the other.

Questions abound regarding Olympiad-2012 performances, for instance, Can the U.S. basketball team collect Gold for the fifth time within six Olympics? Will the U.S. Women’s Field Hockey Team be the next U.S. Dream Team by performing as it had against the world class Argentine club at the recent Pan American games? Will the U.S. women’s soccer team prevail over all others for a third Olympics entry and Gold? Can the U.S. men’s 4X100 meter relay swim team win Gold again, as it had at Beijing-2008? Can Kenyan-born U.S. citizen, Bernard Laygot, maintain his position as world record holder in the 1,500, 3,000 and 5,000 meter races? And, will women’s boxing remain an Olympic event, following its debut this year? Can the U.S. record breaking women-gymnasts, Jordan Wieber and Gabby Douglas, continue at high performance levels, staying ahead of the talented Russian and Chinese female gymnasts?

But no matter the outcomes at the London Olympics, shown will be the best of athletic grace, borne from dedication toward locating one’s self at the forward edges of the combined physical/mental/spiritual envelope, proving that sports and triviality have never joined, never will.

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MLB: The Colorado Rockies four-man starting rotation/roughly 65-75 pitches limitation makes sense along several levels. It helps to discipline and train starting hurlers for more strikeouts and fewer walks, forcing up what causes an opposing baseball team to lose games, that fast succession of “outs.” Also, if executed right the four-man/number of pitches limitation can reduce likelihood that pitchers will accrue injuries.

The R&D method also forces relievers to prepare for more successful innings, helping closers to have a winning game to preserve rather than have to reverse a score during one or two half-innings.

Overall, from the four-man experiment a team’s entire pitching staff can become skillfully routinized, cubbyholed into specific roles and missions, each starter able to excel at each. Not a bad thing if it’s the future that a manager and a GM are most concerned with, in that the results from the four-man experiment cannot arrive quickly, proven by the Colorado Rockies having adopted the method less than two months ago.

The Rockies four-man starter rotation improvements have been minor, the team’s starter-caused losses still much greater than wins, the collective starter ERA still above 5.0. Yet many of the Rockies losses have also been the result of a bull pen failing to build on the starter successes of early innings. Too, the Rockies line-up has been injury-infected, replacement players often unable to offset pitching weaknesses with a sufficient number of hits becoming runs.

A lesson, then, is that a four-man rotation experiment intended to bring on a quick and steady stream of team wins won’t have a chance in any ballpark if the team’s bull pen and batters cannot also experience significant enhancements. Though presently without this set of values, the Rockies ought to stay with the four-man rotation experiment if only to ready the team’s starter rotation for year 2013, preparation for which R&D for bull pen and line-up restoration should also be high on the Rockies 2013 agenda.

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