When I turned fourteen my mother took me to the local Hill Sports sporting goods store. She told me that I could pick out whatever baseball mitt I wanted, and my eyes immediately shot to the top shelf where all of the most expensive baseball mitts were on display. I had been researching the best leathers, styles, and sizes of mitts for a few weeks and I knew the exact one I wanted the moment my gaze landed on it. The Nokona AMG 1150, a.k.a. "The American Glove". Not daring to take any of the tags off for a few weeks, I began to break in the mitt exactly how I wanted it to work. I drilled a hole into an old baseball and stuck the longest screwdriver my dad had right into it so that I could start pounding and softening the leather. I had the nicest glove leather conditioner I could find and spread the sweet smelling ointment over ever bit of the surface of the glove. Next, I would place two baseballs in a specific spot and let it sit all night. In the morning I would wake up, wipe off the excess leather treatment, and start the process over again. Now, almost eight years later, I still have the perfect mitt.
Have you ever bought what looked like a big box of candy (my preference would be something like Milk Duds or Skittles) and walked out of the store with your mouth watering only to find that this “big” box just holds a little tiny bag of that favorite candy you just paid for? Disappointment, frustration, anger, even a loss of appetite. This is how I feel when I clear an evening to watch the NBA All-Star Game. There are a few things that are fundamentally wrong with this game and the advertisement that is surrounding it. There is something even more wrong with the people who pay so much to go and worship a group of athletes who half-try in a competition against the “best in the world”. But, if you were one of the players in this game, and there was next to nothing to gain for winning, and everything to lose if you get hurt, who could blame you for not playing hard and putting on a good display of effort and skill. And how many players have fallen off the...
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