Bleacher Report - Articles by Nathaniel Snow

Most Ironic Sports Names

Nathaniel Snow — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:17:00 -0400

I am an avid reader of Sports blogs and lists, but all of the other blogs out there keep posting the same 20 ridiculous sports names over and over again. Sure, Rusty Kuntz is hilarious the first time I heard it... but not so much the 50th. This is not one of those raunchy, lame Sports names lists. I have searched for the most ironic sports names out there, and this is what I found:

NASCAR

Scott Speed.

With a name like Speed, he was born to be a race car driver. Speed started his racing career on the F1 circuit but has more recently been driving Red Bull cars in both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series. The only way his name could be better is if his parents named him 'Racer'; get it? Speed, Racer... OK so it's lame, but not for a race-car driver.

Honorable Mention: Michael Waltrip.

Major League Baseball

Roland "Rollie" Fingers.

This Hall of Fame pitcher has easily the best name of anyone to ever take the mound, not to mention the most memorable mustache. With a name like Fingers, he was either destined to become a famous Pitcher or a not so famous Painter...

Honorable Mention: Seth Schwindenhammer.

WNBA

Sheryl Swoopes.

Swoopes was the first woman signed into the newly formed WNBA, and it was probably because her name sounds like 'nothing but net'. Regarded by most pundits as the female Michael Jordan, Swoopes holds three Olympic Gold medals.

Honorable Mention: Swin Cash.

National Football League

Mike Quick.

Quick is the perfect name for any athlete that needs to run away from his opponents as fast as he can, and this is more true in Football than most American sports. The only sports better than this for Mike would have been Track & Field... but more on that later.

Honorable Mention: Mac Speedie.

National Hockey League

Lindy Ruff.

While his first name is rather weak, his last name does justice to the type of game that Ruff played.  He gained a reputation as a player for his toughness, character and hard work on the ice. On May 10, 1980 in a playoff game against the New York Islanders, opposing goaltender Billy Smith struck Ruff with his stick as he passed in front of his net. Ruff got up, skated back to the goaltender and tackled him.

Honorable Mention: Radek Bonk.

Other

Usain Bolt.

Officially the fastest man in the World, until someone runs faster than him, Bolt was blessed with a great name to go with his blazing speed. The Jamaican sprinter set records in the 100m, 200m, and 4 X 100m relay at the 2008 Summer Games in China. Bolt was the second man to win gold in all three events, but he became the first to set World Records at a single Games.

Honorable Mention: Tiger Woods.

This is just a small list of great sports names, feel free to leave a comment with your favorite Ironic Sports names and I may include them in a later Snow on Sports post.

5 Great Red Sox Commercials

Nathaniel Snow — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:36:00 -0400

I have been a Red Sox fan since I was born in 1983, and while most of those teams were great disappointments there were plenty of great media to amuse and entertain. These are 5 great Red Sox commercials I chose.

Funny Red Sox MasterCard Commercial
This is a commercial aired after the Sox won the 2004 World Series. It features a hilarious cameo from Denis Leary, a very vocal Boston sports fan.

Nike Red Sox World Series commercial - 2004
This is a cool commercial. It tracks the entire 86 years the Sox went without a World Series title. I really like this one, but it is more heart-warming than amusing.

YANKEES VS. RED SOX ESPN SPEC COMMERCIAL

This is a funny commercial focused on the Sox/Yankees rivalry that has become sports legend. I don't like the portrayal of the Sox fan much, but it is still pretty funny.

Ortiz Rocks Yankee Hat

This is a hilarious ESPN commercial featuring Jorge Posada, David Ortiz, and Wally the Green Monster.

ESPN Sportscenter Commercial - Roger Clemens Fastball

An old school ESPN commercial featuring the Rocket. This is back when people outside of Texas still liked Roger Clemens.

Leave a comment with your favorite Red Sox commercial of all time to see them with your name in an October Snow on Sports post!!!

MLB All-Star Game Festivities: Just an Idea

Nathaniel Snow — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:52:00 -0400

With the MLB All-Star Break half over, and the immense hype about the home-run derby upon us, here are a few things I believe could improve MLB's All-Star Festivities.

Extend the Festivities. Stuffing the All-Star Break into what amounts to nothing more than a long weekend is unnecessary. If the event was extended to encompass an entire week, with the addition of some new exciting challenges (see two), it would give the players involved a better chance to recover from any All-Star event they participate in.
Add other skills events. Sure, we all know that "chicks dig the long-ball," and all that... but given a week to schedule events, the MLB could expand on the success of the All-Star Futures and Celebrity Softball games, and even on the Home-Run Derby with events like:

Fastest Base-Stealer. End the debate once and for all and declare the league's fastest. Bring back Henderson?
Outfielder Accuracy. Let's see who can throw frozen ropes through every target. Ichiro's event?
AL v. NL Double-Play Challenge. This is the only questionable addition. Involving base runners could make this a dangerous event; but not including them sounds boring. Maybe only the player from the plate tries to beat it out at first... I'm sure there is a way for this event to work.

These are only a few ideas that could improve on the failing success of MLB's All-Star Events. All of which could draw attention away from the steroid-tainted spectacle that is the Home-Run Derby.

Johan Santana gets Slammed by Felix Hernandez

Nathaniel Snow — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 05:06:34 -0400

As a fan of an American League team, I find it extremely interesting when we are involved in inter-league play for the simple reason that I want to see pitchers hit. This disparity between leagues has always bothered me, and the other day I was rewarded with what I believe is a main point for eliminating DH.

Johan Santana is a two-time Cy Young award winner. He has faced over 5,000 position players in his short, storied career. In that time he has only allowed a single grand-slam. He has been called one of the most dominant pitchers of his time.

Felix Hernandez had only been to the plate eight times before facing Santana, and had only managed one hit. He stunned many fans of the game, though, when he stepped into the batters box and proceeded take the Met's Santana out of the yard, blasting his first career home-run (a grand-slam at that) out of Shea Stadium.

I believe that this is the reason that pitchers should be batting all the time. I apologize to guys like David Ortiz, who could be out of a job if the DH is abolished, but I believe this would make the two leagues more level in terms of production and talent.

And it is just much more exciting to see two pitchers face off in that way, giving pitchers a real chance to help their own cause, as it were.

An Evening with Bill Belichick

Nathaniel Snow — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:32:00 -0400

When it was announced that the mastermind behind the New England Patriots' dynasty, Bill Belichick, was the next featured speaker in the Salem State College serie s, I knew that I had to be there.

After realizing that the tickets had sold out quicker than any speaker before, or so it seemed, I had to join the majority of students that had missed out on what should be a once in a lifetime experience.

However, as Sports Editor at The Salem State Log, I was fortunate enough to find my way into the lecture, in the top balcony with the rest of the local media. In accordance with Coach Belichick's contract, there were only local credentials in attendance. This wasn't the only thing Belichick had termed into his deal. Photography was only allowed for the first five minutes of the lecture, and only from your seat.

The capacity crowd at Rockett Arena was first greeted by new president of Salem State College, Patricia Maguire Meservey, Ph.D., R.N. She proclaimed that she 'deeply treasures' her new position as president of the college, and received a loud cheer from the crowd upon mentioning the Patriots' prefect 16-0 season.

Following the president was a short video collage of the Patriots and coach Belichick accompanied by Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir". The video covered all the major accomplishments of coach Belichick's career, which are numerous.

Bill Belichick is a 33-year veteran of the NFL, and is the only coach in NFL history to win three Super Bowl titles in a four-year span. In 2007, Belichick led the Patriots to the fourth perfect (no losses or ties) regular season in the NFL's 88-year history, and the first since the NFL established a 16-game schedule in 1978.

He has led the Patriots to the Super Bowl four times in the last seven seasons, and he has produced five straight AFC East titles and six division championships in the last seven seasons.

Belichick's Patriots own the all-time NFL records for consecutive total victories, 21 from 2003-04, consecutive regular-season victories, 19 from 2006-07, and consecutive playoff victories, 10 from 2001-05. Belichick owns the second-best postseason record in NFL history, 15-4, and is the winningest NFL head coach since 2001 at 100-29.

Belichick has spent more seasons in the league than any other current NFL head coach, and in that time, he has been a part of five Super Bowl championship teams. His overall record of 105-40 with the Patriots gives him the most victories, and the best winning percentage, of any head coach in franchise history.

This man is truly a football genius, but his humor is probably what makes him such a great coach. After a roaring ovation, coach Belichick commented on his apparent 'genius',

"I've been called a football genius, but I've also been called a moron by my kids; when I forget to take out the trash or I let the dogs off the leash...so that kind of goes both ways."

Coach Belichick also offered some kind words about the City of Salem.

"We just finished the college draft last weekend and it seems like, in those later rounds, your always looking for those gems; similar to what Salem is to the state of Massachusetts." Take that Mass. Belichick thinks Salem is better than you. At least that's what he told us.

Next, Coach Belichick reminded students to "Follow your heart, do what you love, and take a shot at it." He warned that years from now the things that you want most will only be yours if you get out there and make it happen. He says that you have to "Give it a chance to work out."

Then, Coach touched on the old cliché, "There's no 'i' in team; but there is an 'i' in win." The 'i', he says, stands for 'individuals'. He says "if you want to win, then every one has to do their job, and go out there and out perform the competition..."

In the Belichick dictionary, under 'Leadership', it reads 'Attitude'. Attitude is the number one quality of leadership according to coach Belichick. A leader does the following things:

1. He does his job.

2. He puts the team first.

3. He works hard.

4. He pays attention to the details, trying to get everything right.

A perfect mold for a perfect player, according to Belichick. Coach goes on to talk about Troy Brown and his leadership on the Patriots. He says that Troy is a quiet captain, but he just goes out there and 'does his job', a leader in Belichick's book.

The Coach admits that his weekly meetings with the captains, where they "talk about things that are important for winning," is the most helpful thing that he has done here in New England. Something that he admits he did not do while he was a coach for the Cleveland Browns.

These meetings allow him and his coaches to let the captains know what the coaching staff needs from the team, but it also allows the captains to let the coaches know what the team expects from them. The captains then convey what needs to be done to the rest of the team, acting as liaisons to the coaches who are too busy to meet with every player about every problem. This is just one of the ways that the organization tries to be better prepared to do the best job possible.

A funny moment with Coach Belichick followed. When speaking about discipline, he spoke about how sometimes you need to punish the whole team instead of punishing just one player to make a larger statement. "When a player goes out there and makes a mistake, the team can suffer from that mistake. Conversely, when a player goes out there and successfully executes a play, the whole team benefits from that."

He recalled a time on the practice field, when he was a defensive coordinator with the New York Giants, and the line continued jumping offsides. He started out by talking with the team, telling them how bad it was for the team to get the offsides calls. When that didn't work, he pulled guys out separately to tell them about it. He said he'd yell at 'em, and swear at 'em, and that didn't work either. Coach Belichick finally found his solution to the problem.

"If we jumped offsides, then the whole defense would just run a lap all the way around the field. And while they were running that lap, all the guys that didn't jump offsides were letting the guy who jumped know about it. And it really helped take care of the offsides problem, not that we don't jump offside, but I'll tell ya there's not a lot of it; and whenever it happens, they're running."

This was just the first comical story that coach Belichick would share with the crowd. Next, he recalled a time during training camp, where Matt Light kept asking for a night off for the team during August practices. Belichick says that he looked at Matt like "You gotta be kiddin' me!" which garners laughter from the crowd.

He believes that training camp is the time where you need to be working everyday, in order to be ready for the late-game situations. This is where you build your stamina. He jokes with Light though, and says "You don't get something for nothing." Belichick challenged Matt Light, having him stand down field and catch a punt. If he catches it, then they get the night off; if he misses it then they will double the number of sprints they have to do that day.

"To make a long story short, there was a lot of team building that went on in that next minute or so," he said, "Troy Brown was showing him how to shield the sun from his eyes, and Kevin Faulk was teaching him about rotation. Well, Light caught it." This was met with another booming applause from the crowd, but this story wasn't over yet.

Next year, Vince Wilfork was the one who had to catch the punt. He caught it. So this past year, Wilfork was made to do it again; but this time he had to hold a football in his hand and catch the punt.

"We won 18 straight games last year," Belichick said, "but when Wilfork caught that punt, that was one of the high points of the entire season." Even pros like the New England Patriots know how to have fun.

Belichick went on to say, "When you are in charge of a group of people, like a team, first thing you do is put down some ground rules. And if they don't do it, then you immediately know that this guy is not part of the team, and that this guy is going to be a problem."

Belichick says that everyone should have the attitude that Randy Moss brought to New England. He came to the head coach and said to him, "Just tell me what I gotta do." Belichick called it the 'Randy Moss Attitude'. So that's what it is from now on, add it to the Belichick dictionary.

The coach went on to talk about how football has changed in his long time with the game. He talked about the different changes in formations and technology that have taken place during his career. 'It's like that in every other job too," he reminds the crowd, "the landscape is going to change." He says that learning to change and adapt is vital to making it in the work place, as well as on the football field.

Next, coach Belichick spoke about a specific play that had received a lot of coverage the past season. It was a double-reverse pass ran against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Brady laterally passed the ball to Moss, who dropped it (which he was not supposed to do) and picked it up and laterally passed it back to Brady, who found Jabar Gaffney deep into the Steelers' end zone.

"We initially put that play in against the Ravens," coach said, "so we called it 'raven.'" He finished tapping his shoulder to emphasize how clearly things need to be stated in the football world. He says that they had been working on this play in practice, and it had been going pretty well, but they realized that the play would work better if they flipped it over.

So they practiced it until they had it right, and when they ran it in a game, it worked just as they had planned. 'Practice makes perfect,' is the idea here.

This is where the evening got monumental. Coach Belichick began to break down practice and game films with the crowd at Salem State. "I know this is a little unconventional. Not like what President Clinton or President Bush or all those guys did," he claimed.

He started with some punt-coverage formations. A "picket fence" move that he describes is supposed to trap the ball deep in the zone, before it gets to the goal line. He shows this play a few times through in practice films, then he shows it during game situations against the Redskins, the Chargers, and the Jets, where it is clear that practicing the play makes it easier and more likely to happen during a game.

"Practice preparation become game reality."

The next video cues up, showing a bunch of large men jogging slowly around a football practice field. "Tell me what you think happened here," Belichick says, evoking more laughter from the crowd. Then he showed the clips of Light and Wilfork catching the punts at training camp; the catch by Wilfork with the ball in his hand created the loudest cheer, and the biggest celebration from the Patriots on the practice film. This was priceless stuff for a fan of the organization.

Next, he showed the "raven" play. He started breaking it down in the game film, rewinding constantly with his hand-held remote to make sure everyone sees what he is talking about. It went like this.

"Moss drops back, so it's a lateral, and Gaffney lined up right here is gunna go down and fake like he is going to block. See, this adds a lot of draw to the play when Moss drops it. We were planning on having him run around right over here for a little but and then throw it back but it all happened too fast. Nice perfect throw (from Moss to Brady)." Followed by loud applause from the crowd when Gaffney caught Brady's touchdown bomb.

Then Coach Belichick went back to practice, noting that they had been practicing the play from the other side of the field. The Patriots' defense covers the play well the whole time, making Brady find other options than Gaffney's deep out. "Because the defense has seen it too many times," says Belichick.

Finally, coach Belichick runs the Steelers tape again, with the final result of Jabar Gaffney striding into the end zone in front of the trash-talking Anthony Smith, who had "guaranteed" a victory over the Patriots and he wasn't sorry he had. "There's our boy Smitty," joked Coach Belichick, showing that he does take some offense to the trash talk that goes on in the game.

After this, coach Belichick mentioned Super Bowl XXXVI, where the Patriots team chose to be announced as a team. Which has become common practice for both teams in the Super Bowl.

To end the evening, Belichick fielded six questions that were previously submitted by Salem State students and one from faculty/staff. They went as follows:

1) Who is the most talented athlete you have ever worked with? Why?—Lawrence Taylor. "Coming out of college, at North Carolina, he could run the 40 in 4.6. That's really good for a guy his size." Brady would have to be the best football player though.

2) After things didn't work out in Cleveland, were you ever worried that people might think of you as a defensive coordinator not a head coach?—"I didn't get into football to be a head coach. I just love coaching."

3) How much of your success is attributed to you knowing someone rather than knowing something; in other words, how does "it's not what you know, it's who you know" pertain to your career?—Belichick agrees with this statement. "Relationships that are based on respect are going to be the most meaningful to you."

4) What was the purpose of drafting Jerod Mayo in the first round of this years NFL Draft, and coach please don't tell us that you couldn't pass on the Mayo?—"We just try to do what is best for our football team." Belichick refers to the incoming rookie as a "four-down player" who is very "versitle."

5) Does your uncanny ability to breakdown offenses stem from your patience on the golf course?—"Definitely not. You obviously haven't seen me golf."

6) Has the media ever tried to get you to say things that would compromise your image as a head coach?—Coach Belichick says that he meets with the media six times a week, "everyday but Thursday", and that he has "a lot of respect for what they do." He sees the media as the connection between the team and the fans.

7) What do you predict for the 2008-09 season?—"We just try and keep short-term focus." He says that there is no need to think about the future. Training camp comes first, and then they take it one game at a time.

That was the perfect way for coach Belichick to end this amazing and exciting evening with probably the smartest football mind ever involved in the game. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I am so grateful to have been there for it.

I would just like to thank Jim Glynn of College Relations at Salem State College for allowing me the credentials.

When winning just isn't good enough....

Nathaniel Snow — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:29:32 -0400

Statistics could be the end of the sports we know and love.

Everyone remembers the old cliché, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”

Kids have been spoon-fed this approach to athletics since gym class in elementary school or sooner—at least that’s how I remember it being at Witchcraft Heights right here in historic Salem.

It is old as the game itself—yet the games played by men apparently do not follow these timeless traditions that end all T-ball games in ties. When you reach a certain age, you learn the terms that can ruin sports for you, if you let the numbers get to you. Penalties, strikeouts, losses and wins—yes, even wins—are statistics that detract from the sanctity of the game being played.

Wins and losses are the beginning, and they are the numbers that will always drive the game. Maybe it is because we are told that they don’t matter that we put so much emphasis on them, but that is for psychologists to study and for this journalist to pretend to understand.

Losses, obviously, are the worst statistic in sports. If you or your team are not getting it done at game time, it shows in the loss column, plain and simple. What is an athlete supposed to do, though, when wins are not even good enough? NCAA athletes know what it feels like to win a game, but just not win by enough for it to matter. Talk about a depressing thought.

Wins are the gold standard in sports. They are the goals, the touchdowns, and the finish lines. But what if you found out that because you didn’t beat your opponent by a large enough margin, it actually hurt your ranking. This is the product of “power rankings” as well as “strength of schedule” rankings—both of which can cause games that looked like great wins at the time turn into a waste of time in the blink of an eye.

Expecting teams to achieve certain scores for it to count toward rankings detracts from the game itself, making it clearly all about winning—and winning big, no matter what. Athletics becomes much less about how you play the game—which takes away from the spirit of competition. Sure, everyone thinks its great when basketball teams run scores up to 100. Or do they?

The Hero Tradition

Does this really help sports? Or is it a path for its destruction? I have wondered if enough is enough, but soldout stadiums and skyrocketing contracts seem to leave no sign of things changing for the better anytime soon.

In 2006, Lincoln University set a Division III men’s basketball record when they defeated Ohio State-Marion 201-78. Lincoln’s Sami Wylie made an NCAA record 21 three-pointers in that game and scored 69 points. How does the coach not take this kid out when his team is up by 50 or 60?

And 21 three-pointers for 69 points? That only leaves six points scored from someplace closer than 19 feet, nine inches. NCAA men’s basketball has since voted to move the line back one foot (to 20 feet, nine inches) for the 2008-2009 season.

This is not even the all-time mark, though—that was set by then-Division II Troy with 258 points against DeVry, Ga., on Jan. 12, 1992.

258 points. Are they even celebrating when they scored basket 180? It is absurd. Wilt Chamberlin’s 100-point game against the Knicks on March 2, 1962 has to be partly to blame for kids playing college basketball like this. Everyone wants to be a hero.

Loyalist Leanings

In baseball today there is a culture of the “home run chase,” leaving us with overblown records by questionable athletes. Count me among the loyalists who will remember Hank Aaron as the Home Run King until every player in the MLB can be proven without a doubt to be free of performance enhancing drugs.

I’m not holding my breath for this breakthrough of epic proportions any time soon, though. The Texas Rangers scored a modern era (post-1900) 30 runs against the Baltimore Orioles in the first game of a doubleheader on Aug. 22, 2007.

In the first game of a doubleheader? I mean, come on, shouldn’t you be saving some of that run production for Game Two? Winning 30-3 is just insane, and sort of Bush League.

My major sporting league of choice, the National Hockey League, even had to address a drop in scoring (gasp!), which was being blamed on large goalie pads and the neutral zone trap. They made the pads smaller, so fans can see more goals! I couldn’t believe it.

I wonder if the NHL-record 16 goal game, won by those Montreal Canadiens against the Quebec Bulldogs way back in 1920, will be a record for much longer. The competition—and victory is a part of that competition—is what makes you keep scoring though.

Learn from The Great One

This feeling is embodied, to me at least, in a quote from “The Great One” Wayne Gretzky, in an interview with John Kreiser of NHL.com in 2001.

It’s important to know that this interview was commemorating Gretzky’s five-goal game on Dec. 30, 1981. It was the 39th game of the Edmonton Oilers season, and Gretzky’s 46th, 47th, 48th, 49th and 50th goals—goals that shattered Maurice “The Rocket” Richard’s record of 50 goals in 50 games.

Gretzky would go on to score 92 goals that season, a feat that has yet to be repeated, much less surpassed.

In the 20 years since Gretzky made hockey history, only two other players, Brett Hull (86 in 1990-1991) and Mario Lemieux (85 in 1988-1989) have come been within spitting distance of Gretzky’s mark. No one has even broken 70 goals in a season since 1992-1993, when Alexander Mogilny and Teemu Selanne each had 76.

With the current defense-first philosophy, no player had managed as many as 60 goals until the 2007-2008 season, Washington Capital forward Alexander Ovechkin has lit the lamp 62 times as of this writing. And Florida’s Pavel Bure won the first two Rocket Richard Trophies, given to the NHL’s top goal-scorer, in the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 seasons with 58 and 59 goals respectively.

And yet, after beating a storied NHL record, Gretzky said this in 1981: “It was a thrill to get 92 goals, but in some ways, I thought I let myself down by not getting 100. Maybe I should have pushed myself more.”

When being The Great One just isn’t good enough, and when winning just isn’t good enough, then there is something wrong with the game—or at least, the way it is being played in society today.

Women's College Softball team goes 0-25, learns sports greatest lesson...

Nathaniel Snow — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:48:03 -0400

The Rosemont College softball team just finished their season, unfortunately they failed to record a single victory finishing 0-25, and 0-20 in the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference, finishing dead last. Sadly, none of the Ramblers games made it past the 5-inning 'mercy rule'.

This season, as bad as it seems, isn't a far cry from the 1-23 season they posted just a year ago.

"I had to start with the basics: This is a ball. This is a glove. This is a bat," Ramblers coach Joe Long said in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer. "That first practice, I used rag balls and Wiffle balls and we still had girls jumping out of the way when I threw them a ball."

This isn't exactly a story of champions, but it is one of athletes who acted like champions. Rosemont, a 400-student, all-women, liberal-arts Catholic college nearly lost its program prior to this season when it graduated 4 seniors and 5 of its players didn't return for another season. The players who did stay played with heart and determination though.

"Quit? No, I never felt like quitting at all," said T ammy Do, 21, a junior from Philadelphia PA who was 0-11 as one of two pitchers on the squad.

"I couldn't be more proud." Karen Boyle, 19, a freshman infielder from Swarthmore PA, feels the same way. "It's hard to explain," Boyle said. "It has definitely made me stronger, and it helped make me realize that winning isn't everything."

"This was by far the best group of girls I've ever coached," Long said. "They stuck up for each other, and they never once got down on each other. I have never had a team bond like this. These kids have character."

This is really what sports should be all about. The games have become so much about winning, that this spectacle is hard to fathom for most sports fans, casual and die-hard alike.

But it did happen and it should be remembered as a lesson for the ages. It is the real-life example of "It's not whether you win or lose, its whether you have fun playing the game." And isn't that the lesson we should be teaching the young athletes today?

As for the Rosemont Ramblers hopes for next season, according to coach Long, "The goal for next year is to get past five innings." It's that simple, and it should be that easy for all athletes and coaches.

Maybe we should all endure a win-less season at some point in our lifetimes, it would surely make the victories that much sweeter.

This season did have a bright spot after all the losses though. The Ramblers, who only have 10 girls on their squad, were awarded the 2008 Pennsylvania Athletic Conference Softball Team Sportsmanship Award. A fitting recognition for a deserving team.