All done

Kane thats completes a good book and my blogs hope its good and that you have a good vaca

Chapter 10:In Their Own Words

In our day and age we see our athletes as either cry babies or assholes in the media. It’s been awhile since we have seen an athlete like Muhammad Ali who is not afraid to speck his mind. Athletes now are too concerned with how big there rims are or when their rap CD is coming out or what team will give them the most money. With all the bad publicity that we see in the sports page. Its hard to see the good positive things that some athletes do for society. There are some diamonds in the ruff of the sports world who have fought the norms of society. The reasons most athletes don’t use there voice for good is because they think like us and think there voice won’t be heard. Another reason that athletes don’t help society is they don’t want to be look at as out castes by the sports world. Two athletes that were highlighted in this chapter that stood out to me. Although these athletes are one that stand up for the good of the world they also keep up some sort of popularity in the sports world.
Etan Tomas a power forward for the Washington Wizards plays aggressive basketball but has words are even more aggressive. Etan writes poems that have meaning behind them with topics ranging from the war to death penalty. It talks about how Etan was just doing this poems in small coffee houses. Etan has expanded his crowd base and has a published book of them. Because of Ethan topics many people have turned heads to realize that things in our country are turning bad. The other athlete that is highlighted in this chapter is Sheryl Swoopes who has openly come out as being gay. The fact that Swoopes came out was a controversy because of how easy it was for her to come out. If it had to be a man from the NBA the story would have been all over the news. When we see female athletes the stereotype of America is that they are gay so when she acme out it wasn’t a big shock to America. It shows that we do have athletes that aren’t afraid to come to the public with issues that they believe in.

Chapter 9:The Way It Was, the Way it is

In one of the last chapters of the book, the author uses his book as a platform to interview a man who wrote a book that put the MLB up in arms. Jim Bouton, who wrote the book Foul balls, highlighted many things that weren’t suppose to be leaked to the masses. For this publication, Jim was banned from baseball in a Pete Rose fashion. Jim Bouton is not a scrub from the past “ a former twenty game winner and All-star from the New York Yankees.” Why is Major League Baseball so fast to ban a player from the game they gave to for so long. I know this is not what the chapter is about in a way but I feel like this is my time to speak on this topic. We have Pete Rose and now I’m learning about Jim Bouton, two of the best baseball players that baseball has ever seen. So in return we ban them for things like writing books and gambling on sports. I have seen new players who have injected things to enhance their performance. We live in a time where an athlete can be questioned about a murder or raping a young girl in Colorado and still be able to play. Even worse we leave players on rosters while they are in jail for underground animal fighting. Why do we let athletes who have been labeled as thugs to continue their play in professional sports? I know that what I’m talking about is not really what this chapter is talking about. When the Jim Bouton incident was brought up it sparked something in me. I just don’t understand about our modern day sports code of conducts. I am a fan of all the athletes involved in these incidents that I have refereed to above but none the less I think these athletes should have been punished a little more strictly. I see our athletes of today as people who think they can do anything without punishment. This creates a society that is unjust and is why a lot of people look at athletes as cocky.

Chapter 8:The Uses of Sports: How People in Power Exploit the Games

We have seen sports across the globe go political or have an aspect that has nothing to do with the sport influence the sport. One incident comes to mind about an action that happened right here in the United States. The Arizona Cardinals, Pat Tilllman, left the team and the sport to go over and fight a war we are still fighting. While overseas, a tragic event occurred. Pat Tillman was killed in the line of fire. This is at least what the Tillman family was told. Tillman was kill by his own side, by friendly fire and the government tried to hide it from the media. The “soldiers” that shot Tillman tried their best to hide the accident because they had killed an Americas hero. They burned his body armor and uniform to get rid of any evidence that he was shot by his own men. This brought up many raised eyebrows. It made many people think if this pro athlete can put his life on the line why can’t I? This courageous act is one that will never be forgotten not only in the sports world but in the history books as well.
Things of this nature, although heroic, must be looked at closely so things are not lost in translation. We try so hard to show our young people the right thing to do. Mr. Tillman was doing just that but then our government does the opposite and hides something from his family. Tillman did something for his country even though he was against the war he went and put his body on the line. Instead of honoring Tillman and owning up to mistakes, we disgrace what he did for the country. Instead, like cowards, we hide a mistake that the government made. We see our pro sports athletes as heroes on the field but when they become heroes to our country they become a true role model. According to the author, Bush is what I have been taught in Sports in Society as a jocksniffer but has not gotten lovely review from most athletes, Tillman included.

Chapter 7: Barry Bonds Gonna Git Your Mana: When Steroids Arrack!

We can’t take away that our athletes use steroids. By now we all have figured out that baseball and track and an array of other sports have dabbled in steroids. In America, we treat them like a villain or like the 60’s movie The Blob, like they’re taking over the world. We just look at these players who use the product as bad men but maybe we should look at why they’re using them. We don’t see a line between use and abuse we just see the athlete that uses them as a bad person. The most heard about person in this field of controversy is Mr. Homerun, Barry Bonds. The author of the book thinks Barry bashing is too much and that the player is the best in the last 50 years. The book states Barry’s stats ,which don’t get me wrong, are impressive, but as far as I’m concerned are tainted. I am a fan of baseball, Red Sox, and everything that surrounds the sports (except the Yankees). When a player takes something that may not be hurtful to their body but is banned by the league I’m not a fan of that.
The time of me blogging this chapter is very ironic with the Mitchell report being plastered every where in the news. This report was not printed to get players in trouble, in fact the man who wrote it didn’t want the players to get reprimanded. But for a report to come out to point out so many players by name was a huge thing to show how common it is to use this substance in baseball. I think that this report will make Major League Baseball officials tighten their belt and crack down on the players. If the league doesn’t do something I know the fans will insist that something should be done. The steroid epidemic has taken over the sport which is too bad for the people who love the sport especially young kids who look up to these athletes. I think that more research should be done on the effects of steroids to really see if it negatively effects an athlete. It seems that if players want to put themselves on the line as well as their career then we should look to see if it will really do bad things to their body.

Chapter 6: The Olympics: Gold, Guns, and Graft

Sports have so many cultural ties to them that it’s hard sometime to just view the sport. The year 1968 was a year of many controversies that shook up the sport world. One being that the world famous boxer Muhammad Ali was stripped of his title for resisting the draft. This was a time when war was a very strong subject in America and Ali was at the top of his game. Also a time when Bill Russell, of the at the time championship Boston Celtics, was harassed. These actions question his city and made him say “he’s a Celtic not a Boston Celtic.” This is also a time when the Tigers won the World Series in their home city and riots were full blown. The most important thing to occur in the sports world was an event that took place at the 68 Olympics. A civil group OPHR Olympic Project for Human Rights made a stand at the medal podium. They demonstrated unity by putting their fist in the air to try to unite the world again. This was a pivotal moment for the Olympics that a statue is erected to memorialize this moment in sports. Many fear that the statue will not have value other then a piece of art. People think that the action depicted in the statue should be taught more and explained. A lot of what happened at the Olympics seems very political. I almost think they should leave the leaders of the world out of the games and just let the athletes compete. It got so bad that the Mexican ,military rounded up peaceful student protesters and massacred them just for speaking there mind. I think its good that the figures we see on our television are takings stands for thing they believe in. this give an opportunity to show out young people that you don’t have to be in things to get money and other perks.

Chapter 5: The NBA and the Two Souls of Hip-Hop

The connection of hip hop and basketball is a great one. There are many basket ball player that rap (Kobe, Iverson Shaq). On the otherhand there are many rappers that play basketball (bow wow, master p ) the list goes on and on. The league was full of older guys witout the generation of Hip-Hop. The NBA started to get young players who were rooted in this music culture. With Hip- Hop on the rise, it was having an influence on these young player coming into the league. In return, the league started to be come Hip Hop itself. Everything about the players today is Hip Hop from the language they use ( slang) to the clothes. We have players not caring that they are suspended because they want to work on there music career (Ron Artest). With the flip we have rappers who are owners (Jay-z) as well as spokes people for the sport. The league has done some things to try to prevent this look from entering the NBA. NBA officials have instituted a dress code to class the player up a little bit while entering and leaving games. Another way of keeping this Hip-Hop style out of the NBA was to institute that high school players must complete a year of college. This was to take the young, who is most closely connected to this hip hop culture, out the game. This image that the NBA is trying to convey is to make the player look like the fan who buys tickets.
This image change is one I think is not the best thing for the league. America loves sports so why are we always trying make every think so corporate? It’s bad enough that tickets sales are so high that Joe Schmo can’t buy them. When the fans can buy tickets, most of the seats are sold to corporate sponsors. We went from Dad and son or family or a group of friends going to games to the suit and tie guy who go because they can. Now we are taking the player personality and making them carbon copy’s of each other. We need to just let players play the game and let them be them outside the game.

chapter 4: the 2006 World Cup: The Politics of Play Personified

In 2006 the World Cup stormed the world in more than one way. Many controversies were brought up when the cup came to the world. The ideas of racism and threats of terrorism were emphasized. France, Britain and Germany were doing their part in keeping middle east countries way from the games. With one in particular, Iran from traveling through the European Union to attend the games. Another country that took and active role in trying to prevent Iran from the games was Italy. They formally asked FIFA to exclude Iran and any other rouge states from the games. With this action, it induced the European Union to present a letter to FIFA to exclude Iran. Many were upset over this due to the fact that United States was not looked at. United States also had there nuclear program in the works as well and two controversies with other countries. With all of these controversies it seemed that people were forgetting that there is a sport behind all of it. Soccer in the United States is just a sport among many and at the bottom of the list. Everywhere around the world countries use soccer as a political foreground. They use this stage to present ideas and show conflict among other countries. The coach for the Iranian team made this point clear when he said “I would rather people built a clear wall between sport and politics.” This is a great thing that all countries should emphasize. When we have all these controversies in our sports and fighting comes out it’s a poor message to send to the younger generations. We see the world cup as just another sporting event while the rest of the world sees it as a political stage.

Chapter 3: Soccer: The Perilous Practice of Politcal Projection

Soccer in the rest of the world is a major sport unlike the USA. Certain things that are seen in soccer around the world we would never see in the American sports. In America we don’t really care about soccer. When the world cup comes around, which is the biggest thing in soccer, as a country we are just semi-enthusiastic. Everywhere else soccer is a very passionate sport between fans to the point where they can’t be seated next to each other. It is mentioned in the book that if soccer was to take off here in the states that the type of violence would be unmatched by what we already see overseas. It was stated that soccer is and always will be the game of the future in America. But personally I don’t see this happenings especially when our American football seems to be making steps towards the UK. It was shown that soccer is the number one youth sports. I think that our youth is bombarded with other sports by the time they get to high school which changes their mind. This is also reaffirmed when they don’t see much soccer on television or in the media
There is one group that tends to be drawn towards soccer, this would be women. Unlike the rest of the world where soccer is exclusively a men’s sports. Soccer seems to be the professional sport that takes more interest from women than in men here in America. Even though women’s soccer has gotten some attention in the past, today we barely ever hear of a women’s team. As soccer is the largest youth sport, women seem to stay with it through college because it is offered at over 88% of colleges. This women’s sport has made huge leaps and bounds in the world of sports compared to what it use to be. With all of these gains in the sport you still with never hear a name and immediately associate that name with women’s soccer. The author refers to a group of women who play on the US team. Most people would know maybe one name. In reality this would be like naming Bird, Magic, Jordon on the same team, who we all can recognize. Soccer in America is and probably always will be the step brother to the main four sports in America.

Chapter 2: Beisbol: How the Major Leagues Eat Their Young

This chapter is about how Major League Baseball has expanded into the Latin American countries. This is not a good thing as far as every one thinks. The people from the countries of these players are upset. Their were up set because these players were not getting treated the way they should of. In the book it states how so many Latin players have earned awards in the past couple years. To add to the supremacy of the Latin players, in the 2006 World Baseball Classic the Latin team was very successful. The American team fell to the better teams, like Asian and Latin America. It points out that the World Baseball Classic was pretty much set up for the USA to walk right though it. The USA team had weaker teams in there bracket and home field advantage the whole time. The team also didn’t have to face power houses like the Latin team till later in the tournament. This shows that the baseball community of the United States is very self center and controls a lot of what goes around the sport of baseball.
The chapter talks about a very inspirational player named Mario Encarnacion. Who was talked about being better than Baltimore Oriole’s superstar short stop Miguel Tejada. These two were friends and from the same country. Mario was found dead but was just a side bar in the United States sports pages this shows how unimportant even possible MLB players are to the MLB. What was talked about were the “baseball academies” that were taken place in the Dominican Republic that harvest young talent. These academies were the reason why the people of Dominican Republic were up set with the Major League Baseball system. These player in these academies are being signed for not even close to other players. A majority of the kids who enter these academies don’t ever see a major league or a minor league club. They tend to go back to their poor life style or go to another academy. This chapter showed the greed that the Major League Baseball system has, and its will to take advantage of others.

Chapter 1 Relearning Roberto Clemete (Welcome to the Terrordome)

In this chapter we learn about the struggle and the strives of Roberto Clemente. There are parts of this chapter that compare Clemente to Jackie Robinson. with in this part, controversy arises about retiring the number that both wore while in the league. Many supporters of Clemente want the number to be retired from every team in the league. Some want both names retired. While some supporters would like the number retired in just Clemente name. As of right now the league has only done this for one player and that player would be Jackie Robinson. Regardless of who the number would be retired under I see these two tremendous players as two of the biggest inspirations in baseball. Hispanics are playing one of the biggest roles in baseball today. This shows that even though Clemente was not the first Latino in the league. He defiantly was the first to create a name or a stander for Latinos in the league. Besides the whole battle for the number and who would have it officially retired under their name, Clemente did huge things for the civil rights movement in the Latino community. There is descriptive parts about what they experienced and what kind of treatment they received that the other members of the team didn’t. One thing that Clemente as well as his minority team mates experienced was what would happen if the spoke their mind. If they made waves about the discrimination that they would probably find them self’s out of the league. Clemente was one not to just let things happen to him. Clemente fought the system with everything he had. In this chapter you don't really hear much about his baseball career. What you do hear about are all the things that he did for the Hispanics and minorities for the sports of baseball.