Archive for the ‘Sports figures’ Category
Updates on Past Blogs: Kratz out, Capuano finishes season.
Today I wanted to write a quick update about what’s going on with some of those who’ve been featured in my past blog entries.
First and best, Calumet County District Attorney Ken Kratz is now the former DA of Calumet County as he has resigned. As I’d previously written — and hoped would happen — Governor Jim Doyle (D-WI), who used to be the Attorney General of the state of Wisconsin before he was elected as Governor, had started the process to formally remove Kratz from office, which put an enormous amount of pressure on Kratz to resign. Doyle had said in this article from 9/21/2010 (http://www.htrnews.com/article/20100921/MAN0101/309220021/Wisconsin-Gov-Jim-Doyle-sees-Calumet-County-DA-Ken-Kratz-sexting-case-as-very-serious-issue-), which was widely covered by Wisconsin newspapers:
An outraged Doyle said Monday he would start the process to consider removing Calumet County District Attorney Ken Kratz and that he hopes to make a decision in a month. At a news conference five days after The Associated Press broke the story, Doyle said any prosecutor who would have behaved that way on his watch would have faced repercussions.
“I consider this to be a very, very, very serious issue,” said Doyle, a former district attorney and attorney general who leaves the governor’s office in January.
“It’s one that personally strikes to a lot of things I have worked very hard on in my career: crime victims’ rights and domestic violence. It troubles me deeply that somebody turns to the criminal justice system for help and receives the kinds of texts we have seen.”
And Gov. Doyle delivered, as Kratz, as of today, has resigned his position as DA. Kratz’s resignation was covered widely as well; one account of it is here at this link:
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20101004/GPG0101/101004091/1207&located=rss
Kratz’s resignation was quiet and done via press release, which stated:
“It is with deep sadness and regret that I announce my resignation as Calumet County district attorney, effective immediately,” Kratz wrote in a statement. “I have lost the confidence of the people I represent due primarily to personal issues which have now affected my professional career.”
I am very happy that Kratz is gone, and hope the people of Calumet County will now rest a bit easier with Kratz’s resignation.
Next, Brewers pitcher Chris Capuano completed his comeback season; as previous blogs have reported, left-hander Capuano came back this year from his second “Tommy John” ligament replacement surgery in his left arm and pitched effectively, going 4-4 with a 3.95 ERA in 66 innings, starting nine games and appearing in 24. The rest of his statistics are available many places, but I prefer FanGraphs.com, an excellent baseball resource site for the serious fan; here’s that link:
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1701&position=P
Capuano started his final game last Saturday and struggled against the Cincinnati Reds, giving up three runs, ten hits and a walk in 3 2/3 innings. After the game, a 7-4 loss (Capuano did not lose the game due to the Brewers offense tying the game at 4-4 in the seventh inning), Capuano said:
“It was a battle,” said Capuano. “It was one of those games when even when I had them hitting my pitch, they found holes. They hit a couple of balls hard.
“They never took the pressure off me, never really allowed me to settle into a groove. As a pitcher, you’re aware of the pace of the game (3 hours, 39 minutes). I was saying, ‘Let me have a clean inning. Let me move this game along a little bit.’ ”
But as Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporter Tom Haudricourt said at this article (http://www.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/104209094.html):
Capuano wasn’t going to let the shaky outing tarnish the comeback season he enjoyed after sitting out two years following a second Tommy John elbow surgery.
He quoted Capuano, who said:
“Physically, I’m feeling great,” said Capuano, who is eligible for free agency. “That’s everything that I hoped for out of this year. I had an uphill battle today. They’re a good team; they have a good offense.
“I don’t know what to expect (on the market). I’m glad now I can take a rest from throwing. I really haven’t stopped throwing since this rehab program began.”
I’m very, very proud of Chris Capuano, and I’m glad the Brewers re-signed him to a minor league deal last year. Capuano is an outstanding example of patience, resilience and endurance, and I truly hope the Brewers re-sign him for next season as he’s shown he can still be an effective major league pitcher.
Persistence Pays Off, Part II — Chris Capuano Wins Again. Also Ben Sheets Surgery Update.
This past week hasn’t been much fun; I celebrated my birthday while dealing with a nasty sinus infection, and thus my blog was inactive during that time as I hadn’t much to write about — or at any rate, what I would’ve tried to write wouldn’t have made much sense due to feeling so terrible.
But last night, I had another epiphany, and thus, a second blog post about Brewers left-handed pitcher Chris Capuano. Capuano, as you might recall, has returned to the major leagues after having a second “Tommy John” ligament replacement surgery performed in mid-2008. His rehabilitation was extensive, and without a whole lot of faith in himself, along with a great deal of hard work rehabilitating his surgically-repaired left arm, he’d never have returned to pitch again, period — much less in the majors.
But he has, and he has pitched for the most part with amazing efficiency — or to be less unnecessarily wordy, he’s been very good indeed, one of the best pitchers the Brewers have had during this lost season of 2010.
Last evening, Capuano came in after Yovani Gallardo — the Brewers’ best starting pitcher, and their supposed “ace” of the staff thereby — gave up six earned runs (ERs) in only three and one third innings pitched. He left the bases loaded, too, meaning if those runners had scored, nine runs would’ve been charged to Gallardo.
So what did Capuano do? He mopped up the damage, that’s what. He got out of the fourth inning with none of Gallardo’s runs scoring — and pitched 3 2/3 innings of scoreless baseball. Eleven men up, and eleven men down — no hits, only one walk, and one double-play ball which wiped the walk off the board.
This was Chris Capuano’s first win at Miller Park since May of 2007. And in it, he also went one for two in hitting — getting his first hit in the bigs since 2007. See this post about the game, although it did not stress enough to my mind the magnitude of Chris Capuano’s second win:
http://www.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/101197154.html
At any rate, you probably see where, if Chris Capuano were a different sort of person, all that rehab might’ve put him off from returning to baseball. You can also see that Chris Capuano, fortunately for the Brewers, has more dedication, drive and determination than most people — because it’s incredibly difficult to recuperate from one “Tommy John” surgical procedure to pitch well. It’s even more difficult to recover from two.
Chris Capuano’s stats for the season are now two wins, two losses. He’s started two games, winning one, losing one. He has a 3.86 ERA in 28 innings pitched, with 8 walks, 27 strikeouts (Ks), and has given up three home runs. These may not seem like outstanding stats, but consider how hard this man has worked — then consider the Brewers staff pitching ERA average of 4.90, and the fact that only Yovani Gallardo, Zach Braddock, Kameron Loe and John Axford have lower ERAs on the entire Brewers staff of thirteen pitchers.
Chris Capuano is now thirty-two years old. He’s recovered from two surgeries that are life-altering for pitchers; usually, if a pitcher works hard and is fortunate, he can recover from one such procedure. Only rarely has a pitcher recovered from two on the same arm — and Chris Capuano is, if not the first, possibly the second pitcher in the majors to have returned from two “Tommy John” surgeries.
I mention this because another of my favorite players, former Brewers pitcher Ben Sheets, recently had a surgery so extensive that it was reported by Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (Web site www.sfgate.com) as a “surgery (that) involved every structure in the elbow — both tendons and the ligament — ” that Slusser was:
“amazed he was pitching with that kind of damage, and he wasn’t getting shelled; he was adequate. That’s extraordinary. There was basically nothing working in his elbow.”
The rest of Slusser’s blog from 8/11/10 is available here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/athletics/detail?entry_id=69876
Sheets, like Capuano, is thirty-two years old. He’ll be nearly thirty-four (and that only because he has a July birthday) if — and when — he can attempt a comeback. His surgery has been called the “most extensive” in the history of baseball — this headline at NBC Sports Hardball Talk on 8/11/2010 says it all:
Ben Sheets just had the most massive surgery in the history of pitching
Or how about this headline from the Contra Costa Times of 8/11/2010 —
A’s update: Pitcher Ben Sheets faces long odds after undergoing Tommy John surgery
http://www.contracostatimes.com/sports/ci_15749396?source=rss&nclick_check=1
This article points out that Sheets is looking at nearly a two-year rehab cycle to rehab his surgically repaired right elbow, complete with both tendons and the “Tommy John” ligament replacement surgery. And he’s a pitcher, unlike Capuano, who’s always relied on his plus-fastball and his plus-curveball (meaning he throws high heat, really fast, over 90 mph fastballs with serious movement on them, and the curveball he has moves so much that it’s not only hard to hit, it’s hard to catch, besides) to win in major league ball, whereas Capuano was always a control pitcher. These surgeries do take a toll on the arm and they do lower the velocity on the fastball for most pitchers; it will be harder for Sheets to be effective in the majors afterward even if his rehab goes successfully. (As I sincerely hope it will.)
Sheets ended his season with a 4.53 ERA, a 4-9 record (a bit deceptive; the A’s didn’t give Sheets much in the way of run support), and a walks plus hits per inning (WHIP) rating of 1.39, the highest in his career. But as Ms. Slusser said, basically nothing was working in Sheets’ elbow; it’s amazing Sheets struck out 84 guys while walking 43 in 119 1/3 innings, considering that datum.
At any rate, Chris Capuano was always known to Brewers fans as a “workout warrior” while Ben Sheets was considered, at best, to be a guy who would rather pitch than do running, stretching, weight training, or anything else pitchers are supposed to do these days to keep themselves in shape. This perception of Sheets by Brewers fans is probably less than accurate, especially considering Sheets’ recovery from his surgery after the 2008 season for a torn labrum (a different elbow ailment) took all of 2009 to rehab. So it’s obvious Sheets can and will rehabilitate serious injuries — the main question here is, can he do it twice, as has Capuano? And can he do it at an advanced age for any pitcher, much less a power pitcher like Ben Sheets?
Granted, Capuano (who’s now 32) was able to come back from two serious surgeries. But it took him nearly two years the second time, and he had to swallow a great deal of pride, no doubt, when he signed a minor league deal with the Brewers in ’09 (he was in the low minors, mostly rehabilitating, toward the end of August last year), then again in ’10.
Chris Capuano has shown that it’s possible for someone with a strong will and a strong gift to win out over a recalcitrant body. I hope Ben Sheets will be able to do the same; I hope his body will let him. I do know that Sheets should be well aware of Capuano and the struggles Capuano had returning to the majors, because Sheets and Capuano were teammates for many years, though were never known to be close friends.
At any rate, the lesson here for writers, or for anyone at all, is the same as my first post about Chris Capuano — persist. Keep trying. Don’t give up. Don’t lose hope. Or if you do, shake it off and keep trying some more. Because that is literally the only way — the only way — to win.
Narrative fail: why Lauren Froderman from SYTYCD is no “sex bomb.”
Full disclosure: I have watched the reality TV program “So You Think You Can Dance” for several years now — since season two. Which is why I believe an attempted framing of the narrative failed this season.
Lauren Froderman is eighteen years of age, a recent high school graduate, and is from Phoenix, Arizona. She also is the season seven winner of “So You Think You Can Dance,” and was extolled as “a perfect female dancer” time and time again by Mia Michaels, choreographer and judge. She also was told again and again by Nigel Lythgoe, executive producer and judge, and Adam Shankman, well-known producer and judge, that she had “become a woman” on the show and was the epitome of sexiness when she danced. She also was told that she was the “best female dancer” they’ve “ever had on the show” time and time again.
Um, excuse me. No. She. Wasn’t.
Look. I’ve watched SYTYCD every season since Benji Schwimmer’s year and win (season two), and I know what dancers have been through there. Alison Holker, one of this year’s All-Stars (dancers from previous seasons who did not win, but impressed the judges, and were brought back to dance with this season’s eleven finalists), was probably the best all-around female dancer they’ve ever had — and she was in season two’s cast. Other excellent female dancers have included Heidi Groskreutz (season two), Lacey Schwimmer, younger sister of Benji (season three), Chelsie Hightower (season four), Katee Shean (season five), and this season’s Ashley Galvan. All of them, without fail, were more mature as dancers than Lauren Froderman, and projected more sexuality and sass, perhaps because nearly all of them were older than Lauren Froderman.
This doesn’t mean Lauren Froderman can’t dance. She can. She’s very good, but she’s also rather juvenile — she has almost no figure because she’s so young and she’s danced herself to under two percent body fat, no doubt — and she looks like she’s maybe fourteen years of age no matter how much makeup they put on the poor girl.
Now, did she work hard enough to win SYTYCD? Of course she did. SYTYCD is brutal, as shown by the fact that two dancers this season came up with severe injuries (Alex Wong, Ashley Galvan) and two more had injuries which, while not season-ending, didn’t help them (Lauren Froderman was injured two or three weeks from the end with a concussion and severe dehydration but danced anyway, while Billy Bell had to take a week off due to a knee problem).
Lauren Froderman is as deserving as anyone who survived this year’s SYCYTD ; the problem is, why was it that there were no female dancers available who were up to the weight of Alison Holker, Lacey Schwimmer, et. al.? And why was it, with the exception of Alex Wong and Billy Bell, that so few male dancers were up to the weight of past male contestants such as Travis Wall (runner-up, season 2), Danny Tidwell (runner-up, season 3), Will Wingfield (season four), or Ade Obayomi (season five), one of this year’s All-Stars?
The main problem I had with this year’s SYTYCD was the blatant manipulation by the judges Lythgoe, Michaels and Shankman. We knew from the first they wanted Alex Wong, which didn’t bother me so much as he was excellent; then after he was injured, they hitched their wagon to Kent Boyd, who was charming and likable but also extremely young at eighteen years of age, but they obviously were also rooting for Lauren — especially as she was the only female contestant left standing around the top seven dancer mark.
I don’t mind rooting, but I do mind blatant favoritism, and it gets old to hear “you are everything,” as Michaels said over and over again. Because when that’s all a judge can say, it means someone isn’t doing their job to give constructive critiques to help these young dancers — it means instead that someone is attempting to frame the narrative.
At any rate, Lauren Froderman is a very good, highly competent dancer. She’s not great at ballroom, but she was good at everything, and was exceptional in her own specialty, contemporary dancing. (AKA “fall, roll, fall, flail.” That’s all it looks like to the uninitiated.) She didn’t need the judges to tell her she was the sexiest woman who ever walked, or need the judges to tell her that her butt was the best part of the season (this happened again and again) — all she needed was for the judges to praise her dancing for its consistency, not all that other stuff.
I consider what judges Lythgoe, Michaels and Shankman did in extolling thin-as-a-board Lauren Froderman as the epitome of female sexuality a failure to frame the narrative, because while Lauren Froderman was a deserving winner, she did not exude sexuality or maturity as a dancer — she’s far too young for any of that — and the judges telling her that she did was a major disservice to the poor girl.
One final thought on this subject. Season Three’s winner was a gal named Sabra Johnson, who was spunky and cute and a good dancer in a wide variety of styles. But she hasn’t made a mark on the dance world since then, partly because she probably won too early in her development. It’s possible Sabra listened to the hype, which was similar to the hype Lauren has been dealing with for the past several weeks — it’s also possible that Sabra’s development as an artist stopped because the competition messed with her head. (As a former competitive musician, I understand this aspect.) I can only hope that Lauren will realize as she matures that SYTYCD is only part of her life, part of her eventual career, and come to a more realistic self-image: that of an outstanding dancer, but one on the spunky and cute side rather than a “sex bomb” like Anya Garnis (yet another of this season’s All-Stars, from season four).
— Note: Dancers are athletes. Even Gatorade has recognized this. Which is why this post ended up in sports figures and sports marketing as well as the others.
Framing Your Own Narrative — or, why LeBron James’ “The Decision” ESPN Program Failed.
We writers know all about the dangers of framing our own narrative. Sometimes, our best assumptions regarding plot, characters and story just do not work. And that is exactly why LeBron James needed a writer/editor in his entourage, to keep him from making his disastrous mistake in coming up with his recent one-hour ESPN special entitled “The Decision.”
As most know, LeBron James is a highly paid athlete. He is from Ohio, and he’d played for his hometown NBA team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, since he was drafted out of high school. He is now twenty-five, and he’s been told for years how good he is, how kind and generous he is, and how he may even be the best player the NBA has ever had. (A debatable assumption, one I do not agree with.) And he’s been highly marketable, even likable — the best liked player in the NBA in many senses, someone who had fans throughout the country and possibly even the world due to his play on the court and his generous nature outside of basketball.
So perhaps it’s more understandable that LeBron James would think it was OK to announce his decision on where he’s going to play basketball next year on national television in a live special that was aired on ESPN. All the revenue from his one-hour program was given to charity, something James and his people requested and ESPN agreed to do. James was even allowed to pick his own interviewer, Jim Gray, something unprecedented in the history of sports journalism to the best of my knowledge.
Note that LeBron James, at this point, had not announced his decision, which is why the program became entitled “The Decision.” (I know it’s basic, but humor me, please.) And James figured that no one would get upset with him when he announced that he was going to play for the Miami Heat alongside Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh (Wade is a perennial All-Star and Bosh is just under that caliber) — James only saw what he wanted to see, and nothing more. His plot, story and characters were all laid out — and yet what was the outcome?
As ESPN ombudsman and former NBC Sports executive Don Ohlmeyer put it here http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=ohlmeyer_don&id=5397113 :
It was billed without irony as “The Decision.” But for those who thought ESPN could agree to televise live LeBron James’ announcement that he was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat — ultimately served up with ample hype in the form of an awkward, uncomfortable, staged one-hour network special — and still be free from public controversy, it might as well have been called “The Delusion.”
As has been well documented, Team LeBron proposed the exclusive special to ESPN with the following conditions: (1) Veteran broadcaster Jim Gray, who has no current association with ESPN, would host the segment in which James announced his plans; (2) The network would yield the hour of advertising inventory to be sold by James’ team with the proceeds directed to the Boys & Girls Club of America; (3) The network would produce the entire show and pay for all production costs.
And Ohlmeyer’s column goes on to quote many journalists who were very upset at James’s action (along with ESPN’s questionable ethics in televising it), some of whom I’m going to quote below:
• David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun: “ESPN led the way Thursday night in some of the most debased sports coverage I can remember seeing. The hype was shameless, the lack of perspective colossal.”
• David Barron, Houston Chronicle: “LeBron James hijacked ESPN, selling the network on an hour-long glorified infomercial preceded by three hours of breathless hype and numbing repetition.”
• Tom Hoffarth, Los Angeles Daily News: “The truth is, how does anyone believe anything else ESPN reports about James from this point forward?”
Now, obviously, this isn’t what James had expected. Nor was it what most of the people at ESPN had expected, with the possible exception of Mr. Ohlmeyer (who, if he’d been asked, would’ve given an immediate thumbs-down to the whole charade). But it’s what James should’ve expected!
Listen. Cleveland is an economically devastated area. They don’t have too much to cheer about, and being able to cheer for a native son who happens to be an exceptionally gifted at the game of basketball playing for the Cavaliers was one of the most hopeful things many Ohioans had to look forward to, bar none.
What James did in framing his own narrative is to forget about the external factors going on all around him — the bleak hopelessness. The utter despair. The futility of an area that has a 9.5% unemployment rate as of June 2010 according to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, the most recent statistics available.
Note by any objective standard, by someone who wasn’t surrounded by “Yes Men,” this narrative — someone who’d grown up in Akron, OH, leaving his hometown team for the bright lights and big city of Miami, FL — would be a non-starter. And by any objective standard, James’ decision would’ve been made quietly and privately as most NBA player decisions are (no one really cared where former Milwaukee Bucks guard Luke Ridenour went, for example, though Ridenour was an essential cog in the Milwaukee Bucks’ surprising playoff run earlier this year)**, which means some of the criticism being leveled at James now wouldn’t have happened.
I’m sure it’s not really fun for LeBron James, a man with an enormous ego, to hear from NBA analyst and Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, this (from http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5391478):
“There would have been something honorable about staying in Cleveland and trying to win it as ‘The Man’ … LeBron, if he would’ve in Cleveland, and if he could’ve got a championship there, it would have been over the top for his legacy, just one in Cleveland. No matter how many he wins in Miami, it clearly is Dwyane Wade’s team.”
Or, how about this from Earvin “Magic” Johnson, a Lakers standout for many years, and also a Hall of Famer, who said this to Bloomberg News reporter Barry Rothbard:
Basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson said he never would have joined with Larry Bird to win a championship the way LeBron James is teaming with Dwyane Wade(notes). […]
“We didn’t think about it cause that’s not what we were about,” said Johnson, whose Michigan State squad beat Bird’s Indiana State team in the 1979 National Collegiate Athletic Association championship. “From college, I was trying to figure out how to beat Larry Bird.”
Or how about Michael Jordan himself, who said this at http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5391478 :
“There’s no way, with hindsight, I would’ve ever called up Larry [Bird], called up Magic [Johnson] and said, ‘Hey, look, let’s get together and play on one team,'” Jordan said after playing in a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada. The interview aired on the NBC telecast of the event. “But that’s … things are different. I can’t say that’s a bad thing. It’s an opportunity these kids have today. In all honesty, I was trying to beat those guys.”
In other words, LeBron James’ attempt to frame the narrative failed with his own peers or at least those he truly wants, some day, to be among — Hall of Fame caliber players. They saw this as a sell-out, in short — they saw this as a player who’d proven he wasn’t enough to win with a good supporting cast around him take the easy way out and join a team with two other superstars in order to win a championship — something most of them would not have countenanced under any circumstances.
So we see what’s happened in retrospect: James’ “story” has taken a marked detour. From a beloved near-demigod playing for his hometown team, James has become a carpetbagging, narcissistic athlete who will do whatever he wants for fortune and glory — something which should be a cautionary tale to us all.
The moral of this tale, if there is one, would be for James to run his decisions by someone who is outside himself and outside his circle of “Yes Men,” for the same reason fiction writers have first readers. Because someone who could’ve told him, “No, you don’t do this if you want your fans to still love you,” and “No, you definitely don’t go on ESPN in order to announce you’re leaving economically depressed Cleveland for Miami” would’ve saved James an inordinate amount of grief.
—–
** Note: Ridenour went to the Minnesota Timberwolves this off-season, quietly and without fanfare.
Persistence Pays Off — How Writing Compares to Brewers Pitcher Chris Capuano
Talking about persistence — the refusal to give up and give in — may seem like an odd topic for a writer’s blog. Especially when compared to Milwaukee Brewers left-handed pitcher Chris Capuano’s personal experiences — that is, if you don’t know anything about Capuano, who came back from a second “Tommy John” ligament replacement surgery on his pitching arm and fought his way up to the major league level earlier this year.
But the two things have more in common than it might appear at first, because we writers need to refuse to give in to the small voice inside us that says, “You’ll never sell another thing. No one will ever read what you’re writing, so why bother?” And Chris Capuano needed to say to his small voice, “You know what? I don’t care how long I’ve been injured. I don’t care what you, small voice, are saying, because you are wrong — I’ll make it back to the big leagues, and I will win.”
Tonight Chris Capuano won for the first time in three-plus years. He did it because he overcame adversity and made his way back to the bigs, and then by refusing to give up on himself as he was only given one start back in June, then placed in the bullpen, seemingly to languish. But Capuano didn’t take no for an answer — in fact, he seemed pleased to be back in the majors, and was not worried by the length of time his comeback was taking.
We all could learn a great lesson from Chris Capuano. And that lesson is, persistence pays off. We just need to keep trying, because if we can just keep working away at our writing, slowly but surely, and trust enough in ourselves to know that it will matter in the end.
Here’s the story of tonight’s win:
And here’s a relevant (albeit lengthy) quote from that article, including some words from the hero of the day, Chris Capuano:
Starting in place of the injured Doug Davis, Capuano (1-1) notched his first win in the big leagues since he beat the Nationals at Miller Park on May 7, 2007. He would spend all of 2008 and 2009 recovering from his second career Tommy John surgery, a grueling elbow procedure from which some pitchers never return.
But there he was in the box score with a “W” next to his name for the first time since Ned Yost was the Brewers’ manager and Monday’s catcher, Jonathan Lucroy, was a Draft hopeful at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. Now 31 and married to his college sweetheart, Sarah, who was in the seats Monday night, Capuano allowed three hits over five innings. He struck out four and issued one walk, which led to Pittsburgh’s lone run.
“The winning and losing part of it becomes a lot less important when you’re faced with, ‘Am I going to be able to play again?'” Capuano said. “Going through a time like that, where you’re not sure if you’re going to be able to make it back, it really puts the bad stuff in perspective.
“So, coming into this year, I wasn’t really thinking about [the winless drought]. But tonight, pitching in the game and then coming out [to] watch the rest of the game, I surprised myself how much I was aware of it, how anxious I felt. And how good it felt for the team to get that win.”
We, as writers, need to believe in ourselves. And remember that no matter how long it takes, the only one who can take you out of the game is you.
Believe in yourself. Be like Chris Capuano. And live to write another day.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 