I thought I had seen it all.

I once saw a coach argue with a fifteen-year-old umpire over a missed call at home plate. There’s nothing so unusual about this except the argument went on for close to a half-hour. It also became more heated as it continued. This was after a pre-game chat about how parents were getting harder to control at our games. Oh Yeah, this happened at a third-grade girl’s softball game. It was a house league game, not even travel ball.

I thought I had seen it all.

I once had a basketball referee tell me my team was going to forfeit the game if I didn’t remove a disruptive parent from the gym. Apparently, he had been yelling at the teenage girl ref about what he perceived was her missed calls that were costing our team the game. When he was told he had to leave and why, he threw a fit and pouted until his wife finally told him to go. Oh yeah, this was at a sixth-grade girl’s basketball game.

I thought I had seen it all.

I once had a mother tell me that I needed to give her daughter more playing time than usual because scouts were coming to check out her game. When I played her the same amount of time as usual and also the same as the other players, mom had some choice and not so lovely words for me. Oh yeah, there were no scouts in attendance because this was at a seventh-grade girl’s house league basketball game.

I can tell many more stories like this, but I think you get the point. I coached ten of my daughter’s youth softball and basketball teams. There were enough incidents that I’ve lost track of all of them. Back then I never understood how people who were normal, rational and friendly humans could lose it over something that was set up to be a fun activity for their child. When and why did it become so serious? Didn’t they realize their child was not going to become the next Michael Jordan? Didn’t they realize there were no scholarships awarded at any of these games?

The reason for this rambling diatribe is there has been another incident in the news. The person in the photo at the top is Kristi Moore (no relation). She has been umpiring games for ten years. At a game, last Saturday, Kristi’s calls didn’t sit right with one of the mothers. Kiara Thomas constantly harassed the umpire and was asked to leave due to her profanity. Thomas then waited for Moore in the parking lot. She confronted the umpire and punched her in the face, leaving Moore with the bruise you see in the picture.

Kiara Thomas was arrested, charged with assault and fined more than four hundred dollars. Oh yeah, all this over a twelve-year-old girl’s softball game.

The sad thing is I was neither shocked nor surprised to see this. This behavior has been constant since parents decided it was better to have their children play organized sports instead of letting them head to the local park where they would hang out and play games with their friends. The sad thing is it will continue to occur. The sad and tragic thing is someone will be hurt even worse than what happened to Kristi Moore last weekend. It’s only a matter of time….and most likely sooner than later.

I thought I had seen it all.

Related post: What’s the matter with kids’ sports parents?

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Over the last five years, I’ve seen a considerable uptick in breathing exercises.

There are more yoga and meditation classes than ever before. We have apps like “Calm” and “Headspace.” Business people are switching from coffee to “30-minutes of breathwork,” followed by a nude cannonball into Lake Michigan.

All of this got me thinking:

How did we go so long without breathing?

I’m being honest here. I don’t think I heard about breathing until I was old enough to vote.

The only thing that ever came close was the occasional hippie substitute teacher who introduced the “Take a deep breath, count to ten,” method or the choir teacher suggesting, “Breathe from the diaphragm.”

Yeah, you lost us at “breathe…“

We had no language for breathing. “Inhale” is what we did to a burger. “Exhale” was only used after a near-death experience.

For example:

After the car stopped sliding on the ice, we could finally EXHALE… And get back to INHALING our Big Macs.

I’m struggling to find the exact medical journal, but the dominant belief in the 1990s was our lungs functioned like a bike tire or a bank account; meaning you could legitimately run out of breath. Get the wind knocked out of you. When songwriters wrote things like, “I’ll love you till my final breath,” or“Take My Breath Away” they weren’t being poetic. That was certified medical language.

We exhaled sparingly because who knew how many breaths we had left?

So, back to the earlier question, how did we survive all these years without breathing?

Either:

A) Breathing is overrated (I feel like that’s gonna be a hard case to make)

or

B) We must have developed some sort of adaptation like fish with gills.

I ran in circles trying to figure this out. Couldn’t make any sense of it. But then, right in my moment of peak frustration and exhaustion, I let out a heavy sigh. Even though my lips were still closed, I exhaled enough air to fill a small inner tube.

That’s when it hit me: The most effective breathing exercise ever created is not even a breathing exercise. It’s the heavy sigh.

The heavy sigh sounds like air going out of a bike tire. The duration can last anywhere from three seconds to four days. I think I’ve lost two pounds of air before during the heavy sigh.

There’s a big difference between the sigh and the heavy sigh. A sigh leaks out of the mouth. The heavy sigh forces its way out involving the lips, the chest, the shoulders, the lower back. I’m pretty sure even the kidneys get involved.

The heavy sigh reveals just how much air is stored in my body. It’s a stunning amount. I feel like I’m a couple of shots of helium away from being a hot air balloon.

The heavy sigh is its own language, communicating more effectively than words. It’s versatile! The heavy sigh can mean anything from, “I’m frustrated,” to, “I’m super annoyed right now,” to a cryptic, passive-aggressive message like, “I thought you were going to put the dishes away, but I guess I’ll do it for you.” People can hear a heavy sigh off in the distance and immediately think to themselves, “Crap, I was supposed to do the dishes, wasn’t I?”

I have nothing against all the new-age breathing exercises. Nothing at all. But it seems like the modern goal is to reach a state of work-life balance zen and have this constant equilibrium as a result of the breathwork. I don’t know if that’s realistic…

The heavy sigh, on the other hand, allows us to go, go, go. We can push as hard as humanly possible letting the stress, frustrations, and pet peeves pile up because, whenever we’re about ready to pop, just turn a couple of valves. Let some air out of the tires.

So, next time you’re feeling stressed out, ditch the yoga class. No need for a special app. Or some fancy breathwork regimen. Nope. Just take a deep breath. Keep your lips together. And then force out one big heavy sigh.

There you go. You should be all set on breathing for another 10-12 years.

What is Medium Rare? Well, this post is a pretty good snapshot. I describe it as philosophy and life advice cooked “medium rare.” The goal is more about making you laugh than making up self-help advice.

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Appreciate you stopping by the blog! Shoud have a new post up in 2-3 weeks (or whenever our 7-month-old baby’s sleep schedule allows).

Here’s a beer that I bought myself, just so I could try it, and maybe write about it.

Back in 2015, Headquarters Beercade had a series of #BrewAndA interviews through Twitter, with various brewers and beer media people. In my interview, I discussed what parts of the Chicago metro still needed a new brewer, and I noted that Joliet may be the biggest city in the US with no local beermakers. Happy to say I had also mentioned Hyde Park as a brewery. I’m happy to say that since then, both Elder Brewing and MyGrain Brewing Co. have opened right downtown. I had also mentioned that Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood was something of a brewery desert, too. Jolly Pumpkin kind of filled that niche, but they’ve been “temporarily closed,” doing carryout food and beer, since COVID came down.

To the matter at hand: MyGrain Brewing makes its home at 50 E. Jefferson St., in a building that was once part of Joliet’s Union Station. It’s also just down the street from DuPage Medical Group Field, where the minor league Joliet Jailbirds play baseball. My observation, accurate or nit, is that Joliet does not try to hide its history with some of the toughest prisons in the state, if mot the country. Both the Old Joliet Prison and Stateville Prison have closed down, but found new life as haunted house attractions. And so it should be noted that when the Northern League Joliet Jackhammers were bought out, the new management renamed the team the Slammers, with a jailbird as their mascot. Now some residents may not care for this association, the same way many Chicagoans are tired of hearing about Al Capone. But this one of the great baseball team names, along with the Florence, KY Y’Alls, the Rocket City Trash Pandas, the former Las Vegas 51s, and the Albuquerque Isotopes.

Well, I’m doing a lot of buildup for a beer that’s really the only one by MyGrain that exemplifies this attitude: Stateville Stout. It’s a slightly stronger stout, at 7.4%, described on the web page as “A sweeter addition to our lineup, Stateville Stout is brewed with Dutch chocolate malts and just a touch of hops, then finished off with Lactose to give it that extra kick of sweetness. Who says a trip up to Stateville has to be bitter?”

I know. Looks like someone’s friends posing as Bonnie and Clyde…

And yes, the introduction to this review runs longer than the review itself possibly could. Sometimes I have an idea in my head that I just need to get out.

Well, poured into an English style glass, I got pretty close to a Guinness-style cascade. Nice brown bubbles then feed a puffy head. The chocolate is kind of light on the nose.

The glass just invited me to slurp through the foam and start tasting. Malts are there, but not overdone. No excess roastiness. That lets it offer that Dutch chocolate impression. Just a nice, dark beer with a well-done note of cocoa and sweetness from lactose.

This beer is in limited distribution if you can’t make it to MyGrain. I found a 4-pack at the Meijer store just over the county line in Bolingbrook. But once I get a hold of more of MyGrains brews, I just might add them here.