Baseball DIY

This week in Major League Baseball proved time and again that professional baseball players are "people just like you and me" after all. That is to say, of course, that they occasionally just blatantly screw up. The Angels' Francisco Rodriguez dropped a return throw from the catcher to allow the winning run to score in Thursday's game against the A's; Arizona's Luis Terrero fell for the hidden-ball trick (as have I) in Wednesday's game against the Marlins; and let's not forget the absolutely, mind-bogglingly horrendous defense played by the Kansas City Royals in their loss to the Indians Tuesday night.

...which leads me to my own screw-up. For the past eight months, I have kept excellent track of my time in the gym using a handy-dandy thing called a "notebook." Every day since December 30, 2004, is logged either with a detailed account of my workout or a simple "off." This morning I arrived at the gym to find my notebook missing from my gymbag. It had not been returned to the lost-and-found as it had been a few times before. This was instructive, though; just like you can't always rely on someone else to catch a pop-up that bounces off your glove, you can't expect someone else to fix your problems for you.

So, in effect, the past eight months' worth of information is lost to me, and I will have to start from scratch. I intend to learn from this mistake and go forward with my mind fully involved in everything that I do.

I'd advise all MLB players to do the same. When I screw up, I blog about it. When they screw up, it's on Sportscenter.