For as long as I can remember, I’ve been nuts about baseball statistics. From my earliest days collecting cards to the point where I could afford to purchase the Baseball Encyclopedia, I have studied the hitting stats of the stars in an effort to determine, position by position, which was the best.
Last night, Holly and I went to see ‘Moneyball’, which is a movie based on the premise that baseball players should be selected utilizing specific and non-traditional hitting statistics rather than the traditional method of evaluating their talent by how many runs they drove in, their batting average and the bases they’d stolen. In 2002 following the loss of three superstars, Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A’s, rebuilt that team using this kind of system. He met with great resistance from his scouting and coaching staff who were more traditionalist, and revolutionized the baseball world when, after signing unheralded players for relatively little dollars, built a team that, at one point in the season, won an American League record of 20 straight games. Beane was offered $12.5 million to take the helm of the Boston Red Sox the next season and though he refused the offer, the Red Sox adopted his system and two years later won the World Series…their first since 1918. Anyway, I thought it was a good movie and one that even a non-baseball person…like Holly…could enjoy.
We followed the movie with a trip to Aladdin’s where I had a lamb pita and lentil soup…not completely Paleo…but not fat-laden either. I’d done a 35-minute run earlier in the day and had no pain in my left calf…instead it shifted to my right…though it wasn’t bad enough to stop me. I returned home and adjusted the bike to a harder gear before climbing aboard for a 45-minute ride. I managed to get my heart rate closer to 120 with this adjustment, which is closer to the kind of effort I put in when riding outdoors.
Finally, I can report that I’ve gone three days without a dizzy spell. Surely it is too early to think that I’m cured, but a very positive development. I must admit that I’m having a difficult time trying to find an ear, nose and throat doc that can see me anytime in this decade, though. If the ER thought it was so important that I see someone in the week following my incident, why did they recommend a practice that won’t be taking new appointments for two months?
Run Duration: 35 minutes. Bike Duration: 45 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 140 running and 120 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 550 running and 625.
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