Chill Sports

Baseball is a funny sport. “America’s Pastime” -- though perhaps merely in name nowadays -- is often bizarrely slow, filled with many archaic rules and countless more asinine “ unwritten rules ”, and is marketed poorly to the casual viewer year after year. Still, like America, many of those who grew up with and understand the MLB for the deeply flawed system that it is can’t ever seem to quit it. Baseball is a comfort food of sorts for sports fans like me who grew up with the game and find joy in its idiosyncrasies, despite being constantly reminded by friends how boring it is. Photo by: Gregory Fisher/USA Today Sports Of its many faults, though, perhaps the sport’s most baffling is that it is positively riddled with cheaters. And no one ever has any clue what to do about it. Why exactly Major League Baseball has had so many massive cheating scandals in its history is unclear. Maybe the game’s rules are so poorly written that bad actors can expose their loopholes too easily. Maybe the ...

In the world of professional sports, everyone who plays at the highest level is a near-superhuman athlete. To play a single minute -- hell, to even get a roster spot -- on a team in the NFL, NBA, NHL, or almost any league, you need to be in the 99th percentile of athletes in your position. Yes, there are exceptions , but this point still mostly holds. So what separates the good athletes from the truly great ones? What’s the difference between the “just fine” players (the Kirk Cousinses, Jimmy Garoppolos, and Ryan Tannehills of the world) and, say, Joe Montana? Largely, the answer lies in their mentality. No, your mental fortitude isn’t absolutely everything -- even if I had the most killer-instinct mindset imaginable, I’d wager Julio Jones would still have a better NFL career than me. However, between those already in the 99th percentile, how you study, prepare, and visualize success is often the deciding factor between having a solid career and having a Hall-of-Fame one. Perhaps mos...