Sports & the Heroic

By Marvin Leibstone

SPORTS & THE HEROIC is an ode to all American 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, this slim volume 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477103715

Marvin Leibstone

Marvin Leibstone is the author of two previously published books, Sports & The Heroic (Random House-Xlibris), which connects spiritual content to the committed and better athletes much-practiced and tempered skills; and, Guardian, Down (Tattered Cover Press), of two short novels and three short stories re. war and politics, based on the authors experiences as an army officer (his war: Vietnam) and as a journalist covering national security issues from Washington, D.C. and abroad. The author has been Publisher and Editor of World Affairs Notebook (worldaffairsnotbook.blogspot.com) since 2014.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Marvin Leibstone.

Library of Congress Control Number:         2012907589

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4771-0384-5

                Softcover        978-1-4771-0370-8

                Ebook              978-1-4771-0371-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

114725

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

For Gail, my wife

& Best Friend,

With all my Love

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

M ANY THANKS TO my loving wife, Gail, for her constant support during my writing of this book, without which it may never have reached fruition. I am also indebted to Gail for her most worthy editorial assistance from start to finish. Also, expressions of gratitude to the XLIBRIS staff for their publication advice and support.

Author’s Note:

Sports & The Heroic is a hybrid, in that fiction shares space with non-fiction. Here, then, is a reminder to readers that any characters within the fiction segments of the following pages seeming to resemble persons living or deceased is purely coincidental; the book’s fictional characters were created by the author to illuminate truths noted in the book’s mostly non-fiction segments.

In every confrontation, render what is just; from every impression, extract what is true.

Marcus Aurelius

CHAPTER ONE

1.

U NDER AN OCTOBER sky is a large baseball stadium surrounded by darkened city streets, then by softly lit roads leading to rows of single family dwellings.

Distant and west from the separated houses lay the foothills of a great mountain range. The high peaks and ridges of this north-south range have turned white from several hours of windblown snow.

Bright and glowing, the baseball stadium could be mistaken for a lonely planet by an airship’s observers.

But the blimp’s watchers are seated in front of television screens showing a tall, thin man wearing a team uniform and a batter’s helmet.

Approaching home plate, the man is about to experience a last opportunity to swing wood as a professional athlete.

HE’S played for three franchises across eighteen seasons. His current batting average is .272, his all time batting average, .288, which is good considering that most ballplayers retire with batting averages far under .300.

Years back, he fantasized surpassing Ted Williams’.344 lifetime batting average and the .406 that Williams put on the board in 1941. Now he’s praying for that dream to kick in, for his swing and power to be as good as anything that the kid from San Diego and later, Boston had sent forth, our batter praying for that right pitch to come from the husky and bearded left-handed hurler winding up—a long arm, ferocity yet control.

NO way could he have dreamed the situation: bottom of the ninth and game seven of a World Series, a tie-breaker, each team holding three wins, his team behind, 6-5.

The tension that he feels is being felt in both dugouts and by more than 45,000 fans in the stadium, energized by an umpire’s count against the batter: three balls, two strikes.

The next pitch could walk our hitter and send in the tying run, or the batter could strike out and shift the WS over to talk show craziness and the history books.

Or, if the desired pitch is thrown and our batter swats the ball for a double and two runs batted in, his team will be the victor, the world’s very best—until next year, that is, but then, who knows?

Better, of course, would be a grand slam walk-off homer, his team winning 9-6, the batter a hero to be remembered, Lord of the baseball wars.

It’s an amazing cutter, traveling 96 miles per hour.

The right hand batter swings beautifully—short stride, grace and strength from the hips and the rear leg, terrific follow through, the bat quickly above his left and muscular shoulder.

The umpire shouts, Strike three, and then whispers to the batter, "You are gone, fella!"

FANS supporting the winning team stand and cheer, and as the victorious players gather for their leaps, hugs and high fives between home plate and the pitcher’s mound, the retiring ballplayer experiences gushes of anger and of sorrow.

Tears leave his eyes as he throws a Louisville bat and black helmet swiftly to the ground, where both lay still.

The sky above is purple and black, and drops of cold rain are striking the ground. It’s a dark moment for the ex-batter moving toward a bare dugout, head bowed.

An elderly hitting coach is at the entrance to the dugout, the white hair beneath the bill of his cap glued by sweat to his high forehead. He’s much shorter than the batter who struck out.

Hunching forward and lowering his head, the coach sighs, leans into the retired batter’s space and feels the radiating sadness. He frowns, spits the half-shell of a pistachio nut onto a patch of sand, then touches the back of the ex-batter’s neck, and says, Bro, I truly hate to sound like I’m talkin’ to a rookie, but baseball, it’s really only a game.

Thinking about what might have been, of what he alone failed to make happen, the batter faces this older man. Sniffling, and with cheeks wet and glistening, he responds, "No, no way, chief. It isn’t just a game, never has been, it’s a helluva lot more."

THAT disappointed hitter, owner of a failed last chance at the plate, could be any of hundreds of athletes retired from a game that’s always been more than a game, a domain of stories about the principles and values that many humans care about deeply—courage, truth, wisdom, the real meaning of winning, teamwork, strands of integrity within our personal and professional decisions, execution of sound leadership, the search for perfection via discipline and hard work.

Add persistence against the odds, the power of recovery, being given a second chance, sentiment, compassion, humility.

In other words, sports can mirror that which ought to happen in our lives and that which should not, allowing for heroism either in the moment, the duration, possibly across a lifetime, offering values that any of us can adopt for an always improving picture of who we are in the home, the workplace or wherever else our interests take us.

Of course, the pressure to win, to surpass one’s personal best, to leap over another person’s achievements, such requires mental and physical prowess taken to a far and often unexplored edge, along with the best morality straps that a person can hold to during his or her tenure as, the good athlete.

In sum, all sports yield examples of extraordinary ideas and of a magnificence that can defy description, something of the land of Awe, of individuals who learn to raise the bar on that which humans are capable of through steady commitment and performance attributes, setting new heights for a next generation to reach.

2.

WHETHER baseball record holder, basketball or football star, or soccer, hockey or volleyball phenom, a world tennis champion, titled boxer, martial arts expert, or a great matador; or Nascar or Formula One Grand Prix and Indy trophy winner; track and field wonder, super marathon runner, Olympic skier, a swimmer as good as Spitz or Phelps—all experience life’s higher principles and values as they search for excellence within their selected sport, some reaching hero status.

Several athletes have been poster figures for the values that they have displayed gallantly. For instance, when focusing on courage in sports you may sooner than later find yourself thinking about Jackie Robinson crossing Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947, helping the walls and fences to crumble and fall.

Robinson, after receiving death threats in the mail and by telephone, and even insults from the print and broadcast media, and experiencing racist remarks from the stands while afield, not only stood ground but reacted with amazing coolness, demonstrating extraordinary talent as an infielder and as a batter.

Or, you might think about climber, Aron Ralston, and remain in awe of his amazing courage, cutting off his arm to be free from the rock formation holding him hostage.

And how about upcoming heavyweight boxers who challenged Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis or Joe Frazier, when Ali and Louis and Frazier were in their prime?

You could next think about Katherine Switzer, who in 1967 became the first woman to complete the Boston Marathon.

Perhaps to your mind will come expert racing driver, Dana Patrica, defying the traditionally macho motor sports world, becoming the first woman to win the Indianapolis 500.

Consider track and field star, Marion Jones, facing humiliation and having to return her Olympic medals and go to jail after admitting publicly that she’d used prohibited drugs to enhance her powers, lending great seriousness to the application of punitive measures for athletes using prohibited substances to enhance their value—

Do the crime, do the time would apply to the swift and the strong who also cheat.

And how about female athlete, Mildred Babe Didrickson, defying cultural blocks, competing against and beating experienced athletes in track and field (two gold and silver at the 1932 Olympics), then winning at golf, basketball, other athletic endeavors, becoming America’s first successful multi-sport female athlete?

LONG before Jackie Robinson’s first day in the majors, a different kind of courage existed within another country’s national pastime.

Spain’s matadors Juan Belmonte and Manolete were proving that under extreme duress, courage can preserve a particular elegance. Their sport, bullfighting, has been cited as a metaphor for civility and grace (the matador) prevailing against a barbarism (the bull) that must be destroyed in ways that maintain civility and grace, that undergird the nobility of cool, of order negating chaos—a compilation of wisely maneuvered counterstrikes defeating meaningless first strike violence.

When shifting Manolete’s credo to team sports, underscored is the controlled violence that legendary National Football League coach, Vince Lombardi, described when defining football as a game allowing energy and power to build and maintain aggressively within established rules. No wonder so many analysts and football fans describe