By David Anderson
How the Seattle Mariners can win the World Series.
I was giving some thought to an article I was thinking I’d write on the decisions we sometimes think maybe we ought to give more thought to before we make them – or not – when I got sidetracked by a friend on Facebook who posted a question that began “What if?”
That got me to thinking.
“What if I did put aluminum foil in the microwave?
“What if I ate the contents of the little packet marked ‘do not eat’ that you find in shoe boxes?”
These and a ton of other thought-provoking questions are asked in a book entitled “What if?” – over 70 head-scratchers that cover everything from “serious, fanciful, and well just plain odd.”
Odd like “What if you tied 150 helium balloons to your 10-pound Jack Russell Terrier? Would she float away?”
I think my kindergartner grandson should make that his science fair entry for next year. Problem is he doesn’t have a Terrier. His has an 82-pound Black Lab. More balloons I think.
Upon second thought, or maybe a third by now, what if instead of scientifically demonstrating that dogs can fly, he distributed bubble gum to all his classmates to determine whether the amount of time spent chewing affected the size of the bubble?
I’m thinking that if his peers get to vote on who wins that science fair, my grandson comes home with the blue ribbon.
At this point I would have put on my thinking cap for further thoughts along this line but turns out I’ve misplaced it. No matter though. I looked it up and turns out “thinking cap” is a term used “figuratively – there’s no suggestion that it refers to a real cap.”
I did find this though.
And this is big. We’re talking gi-hugic.
I think I know how the Seattle Mariners can win the pennant.
Now we’ve all seen baseball players chew . . . bubblegum, but imagine if every game, every player before entering the field had his game-ration supply of the pink stuff complete with the cartoon wrapper, the whole bit.
According to this past March 8th issue of the British Journal of Psychology, as reported in Newsmaxhealth.com, those who chewed gum in this study “had quicker reaction times and more accurate results than those who didn’t chew gum.” Not only that, but in the study that compared chewers vs. non-chewers while doing math problems, “as the end of the task approached,” mental agility and “accuracy actually increased.”
So if it works for doing math, why shouldn’t it work for the Mariners?
Quicker reactions to lay off the curves out of the strike zone; faster stealing bases; more accurate with their throws and – and this is big – in the waning innings with all the zeros on the scoreboard and the game on the line and another no-hitter performance by Hernandez at stake and The King’s Court most definitely in session – they’re peaking! Peaking! “As the end of the task approached” they’re peaking!
And all as a result of chewing bubble gum!
So here’s a thought.
Could somebody with access to the Mariner front office see that my grandson gets credit for this experiment? I mean think about it. What if? What if this year is The Year? What if the Mariners make it to the World Series? What if they win it? What if?
And what if they chewed the whole way?
A little credit where credit is due I’m thinking.
