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Show JAMES VLASICH GUEST SPORTS COMMENTARY - - ~· National pastime, greed, still alive It was the warmest winter I ever spent. Oh, I kow it was August and September, but it felt like the off-season because, of course, there was no baseball. There was no joy in Mudville or any other Major League city. No peanuts and no Cracker Jacks. Most shockingly, there will be no champion this year. The Fall Classic took a classic fall. Through it all I kept thinking- am I still in this world? Baseball fans around the country are still befuddled by the whole mess. Many have simply lost interest. The national pastim e is still alive, only now it's called greed. We saw a ll of this co ming in the 1980s. The r e ago n administration ushered in an era of money for m oney's sake that hadn' t been seen in almost a century, and it still continues today. It has reached down into the very core of our culture and destroyed the very game that identifies us. Of cou rse it's not just baseball that has been ruined, i ts all sports. No longer a release from the pressures and failures of our daily life, s ad ly, i t has become m e rely a refl ectio n o f o ur p ro blem s . Pic k up any s po rts section, you can read about fi nan cial squa bbl es, drug abuse, misdem ea nor s, fights, and bloated egos. Those non baseball fa ns who think this couldn't happen to their sport should take notice. Already t heir is the t h reat of no Hockey season, and football and basketball players are protesting t heir salary caps. Is t here a solu t ion to baseball's p roblems? Mos t assuredly! Since players and owners are in the same business, why ar en't they on the same side? Like any ot her business, they should be working together to prom ote t heir product. Instead, they dump on i t. In order to restore the game to its previous stature in American life, t he commissioner's office m ust be revived. all of the games problems can be t raced to the demise of its last official leader-Fay Vincent. When the owners forced him out, the " best interest of baseball " went w ith h im. An unbiased arbitrator must return if the two sides are ever going to be able to reach common g round . M y ca ndida t e ? That 's ea s y- Ji mm y Ca rte r . Unappreciated as a presiden t, America's most fa m ous pean ul fa rm er has beco me the world's most renown media tor. If he can smooth out problems in such diverse areas as Korea and Haiti, surely he coul d m end fe nces between the m illionaires and and billionaires of basebal l. What, if any, good has come out of all of this? Unbelievably, t here is a bit of a silver lining. For one thi ng, the demise of the sport at the major league level has foc used the spotligh t on the m inor league ga me. Attendance at the lower levels has surpassed records t hat were es tablished in th e baseball boom that followed t he Second World War. The new Sal t Lake Buzz set a Pacifi c Coast League record of over 71 3,000 that w as established by the San Fra ncisco Seals in 1946. lf you havn't seen the new ballpark at 13t h South and Main Street, you're missing a state-of-the-a rt complex. For that matter, Cashman Field in Las Vegas is closer and offers a wonderful place to watch the game. What you'll find in t hese parks is the con test in its purest pro for ms- no multiyear contracts, no exorbitant ticket prices, and no labor problems. If you can' t make it to those distant places, do wha t I did-go see a local game. T his might be at the high school level, li ttle league or jus t T -ball jmy fa vori te). For the last three yea rs, I watched my daugh ters Brooke and Ming play the game as I did in my Youth . The result for them was m ixed-two championships fo llowed by a w inless season. You couldn't put a price on the lesso ns they lea rn ed . They kno w t hat life has its joys a nd defeats. Mo re im po rtan tl y, they kn ow th at no matter wha t happens, you must keep on. When things go t bad this summer, th ey n eve r m issed a pra cti ce, a nd t h ey n ever quit. I ho pe som eday they realize that l was more proud of t hem in defeat t han in victory. Because of them, the game continued in my heart. For when it's all said and done, it's not the owners or the players that really matter. In some ways, its not even the fans. It's t he game! IT 'S THE GAME! Grantland Rice, America's preeminent sportswri ter of the first half of t he 20th century, said it best: Play ball m eans something more than runs, Or pitches thudding into gloves! Remember through the summer suns, This is the game your country loves. fim Vlasicb is a Professor of History, teaches a class on sports in American History, and is the author of "A legend for the legendary· The Origin of the Baseball Hall of Fame." Trainers keep 'Birds on track By MIKE FLAVIN JOU RNAL SPORTS WRITER Wilson and M end ini have high expectatio ns for t he team. Mendini says, "T his year's team has better overall talent than last year." Wilson says he en joys h is job. " I have a great job I get paid to help players and watch sports ." Millions of people love to w atch sports, but very few know what goes on behind the training room doors to prepare the athletes for competitio n. Mendini and Wilson know, and although few fans can really appreciate what they do, the players on SU's football team know that w i thout the trainers, they're in hot water, instead of soothing ice. Football is a game known for hard tackles, strong talented players with m any athletic abilities, and, t he trainers? Well, perhaps the game is no t exactly known for its trainers, but maybe it should be . The trainers are the unsung heroes of football teams acro ss the country. They are the m en and women that keep players healthy and enable them to play week after w eek. Thirty-nine-year-old Ricky Mendini is the head trainer for the Thunderbird gridders and is in his second year with the program. Mendini cam e to Cedar City fro m New Mexico State where he was head trainer for eigh t years. H e chose SUU for a better place to raise his family and for a change in scenery. His office looks a lot like an emergency room as student trainers rushed to get players ready for t heir afternoon practice. Each day, players sit with their legs dangling in coolers of ice, wh ile endless lines of players wait for their wrists, an kles and other areas to be taped. Injuries can vary fro m serious to min imal, bu t so meho w the staff keeps t heir cool and Head Trainer for SU's foo tball team Ricky Mendini (1) and m anages to get everyone A ssistant Trainer Kyle Wilson work on gridder Garett Moon. to practice on time. Mendini believes th ere are three ph ases to his job. T he first, he says, is the prevention of injuries. Second is the recognitio n o f injuries and, t hird, the t reatm en t and rehabilitation of i njuries. H e says he likes his m ethods to be safe and to get t he players in playing condition as soon as possible. H e decided to be an athletic trainer after his involvem en t in track w hile in college. He also wanted to stay in volved i n the sporting world and to help people. Assis tant trainer Kyle Wilson has been with the Thunderbirds a combined eight yearsfive as a player and three as an assistant tra iner . Wilson was hurt a lot as a player wh ich sparked an interest in being a trainer. Along with deal ing wi th inj uries he is the strength coach for the squad. W ilson went fro m a player at SUU, to a studen t trainer, to a ph ysical t herapist in California, t hen on to Alabam a to work on his master's degree. W hile in Alabam a he was picked as a trainer for t he '91 Senior Bowl, w hich is a game comprised of t he top collegiate players in the country. Wilson described the current players as bigger and s tronger than in his day, with tougher competition. Mendini and Wilson, along with the s ixteen student intern trainers, work many hou rs of overtime without pay in an effort to keep the team in top form. Mendini credits t he student trainers with being a very big part of the team. "Without the student trainers, Kyle and I w ouldn't be able to help all 200-250 Shona Curtis stretches out one of the athletes, 11 he says. Thunderbirds during Saturday's game. |