Outside Reading 12-16

So far in my book, The Last Best League, the Catham A's have had there first couple of practices and have gotten to know their teammates through team bonding times and team dinners and parties at the owners house. Lately the team had their first scrimmage which got rained out but was still a good test for the A's. This section I read wasn't about baseball as much as it was about the team and all the travel and scouting and new equipment the boys receive while in Cape Cod. This section also talks about the players salaries and how little they get paid for playing in Cape Cod. They get food for free and gas money for free cause they dont even have a private team bus so they all have to drive alone. All the players need to find jobs in the Cape Cod area but most of them just find jobs as grounds crew or working for the owner doing paper work. Also in this section we get to meet the owners family and the rest of the Catham A's employees. At the end of the section I read for this week the team had a big dinner party before their game in Tampa. The boys had basketball games and wiffle ball games. I had no idea older guys still like to play wiffle ball because that was the only thing I did this summer other that real baseball. They all had their steaks and chicken breasts as a team and then watched the Yankees vs. Boston on ESPN. I found it rather funny how all the boys were critiquing every single play and every single movement of some of the greatest players in the game like A-Rod and Jeter. We all know that the boys in this league are good but if they have the guts to critique All-Stars why aren't they in the big leagues too?

Outside Reading, 12/9/08

Now that baseball is completely over I felt I needed to catch up on my baseball and what better thing to do than read my BASEBALL book. In the previous section I read Pauly isn’t man enough to face the competitiveness of the new league but eventually learns to live with it. The whole section I just read was about their first game against the Harwich Mariners. Its just a scrimmage but the team treats every game like a league game. The author gives most of the game in the point of view of Pauly but occasionally gives the point of view to other players in the field. I really like how Jim Collins made the game up beat and exciting because we all know how boring baseball can sometimes get. Anyway, the A’s jump out to a one run lead going into the 5th inning when Pauly gets a bit of a scare from the coach. The coach tells Pauly to get warmed up and Pauly is thinking to himself, "Oh boy, I cant do this, I’m not ready, What should I do?". His fright turns into happiness when the coach told him to go warm up someone else instead of him. There is a big rain delay in the 8th inning and the author gets into the head of Pauly and we learn about his past and what he is going through right now. The game eventually is rained out and we never get to see a game fully finished. This section was deep, yet exciting. Exactly how I like my books.

Annotated Citations - Steroids in Baseball

MLA Style Citation:Bathe, Bill "Baseball and Steroids- The Controversy." Baseball and Steroids- The Controversy. 2 Feb. 2005. EzineArticles.com. 7 Dec 2008 .
http://ezinearticles.com/?Baseball-and-Steroids--The-Controversy&id=12718

Bill Bathe was a player in the majors for a few years and played in the 1989 world series. He was coached by some of the best coaches/players ever including Dusty Baker, Harmon Killebrew, Billy Williams and Eddie Matthews. Bill Bathe now has a website that gives tips, drills, and advice for young and intermediate ball players. Bill Bathe is very serious about the issue of steroids in baseball and this was a great article about the effects of steroids and what steroids do to the game of baseball.

MLA Style Citation:Chuinard, Troy "Steroids in Baseball: Has the Game Been Tarnished?." Steroids in Baseball: Has the Game Been Tarnished?. 23 May. 2007. EzineArticles.com. 7 Dec 2008 .
http://ezinearticles.com/?Steroids-in-Baseball:-Has-the-Game-Been-Tarnished?&id=576907

Troy Chuinard, in this article, gives a deep perspective on steroids and gives examples of the steroid effected things like Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Jason Giambi. All of these players were once looked up at by young adults but now are looked down upon because of the use of performance enhancing drugs. He goes on to state that many of those players teammates wouldn’t even select Mark Maguire to the Hall of Fame because of his alleged steroid use. Our records may forever be ruined by the use of performance enhancing drugs.

The Last Best League

Over the break I tried my best to read my book but never had the long period of time I wanted to get deep into the book. So lets recap what I have already read. The book starts out describing the Cape Cod baseball league to the readers and telling us how exclusive this league really is. It goes on to describe the Chatham A's, and a call-up player named Thomas Pauly. Pauly is from a small school which is unlikely to see because almost all of the players in this Cape Cod baseball league are from schools like USC or UNC or Vanderbilt. The book then goes on to tell the readers about the head coach of the Chatham A's and the other parts of the organization.
Now in the section I read over break nothing very important happened except the introduction of more characters and the start of practice for the Chatham A's. The book goes on to tell the reader about the importance of this league and how the teams perform in the league. Pauly gets nervous about the competitiveness of this league and has to buck up and face it like a man. I only read about 30 some pages but they were pretty important ones due to the fact that they explained many of the details of the Cape Cod baseball league. The next post will be longer and definitely more exciting.

Long Weekend

The long weekend was great, i got to see family and eat a bunch of great food, but my days off were even more enjoyable. For the past 4 weekends I've played ministicks at friends houses. I totally forgot how much fun ministicks can be. If you dont know what ministicks is its basically hockey on your feet or knees with a squishy ball and shortened plastic sticks. Now at the two places I play at there are mattresses or couches along the walls so you can check kids. Ministicks is on my mind because I just played it yesterday and had a blast. I have a couple bruises here and there but they were totally worth it. We played with 3 guys on each team with one goalie on each team. I played goalie and forward and they are both pretty fun. The nets are really small and the goalies pretty much take up the whole net so the scores are usually pretty low. I also played a new video game of mine called Call of Duty World at War. I brought my XBOX 360 over to my friends house yersterday and had 4 guys playing eachother. The game is a shooting game but is nothing like Halo or Gears of War which are shooting games but with aliens and all that sci-fi stuff. Call of Duty is a World War 2 game and is very realistic. everybody switched off playing XBOX and ministicks but my weekend was pretty entertaining. I have a feeling that our next long break, christmas break, will be even better.

The Last Best League

My outside reading book is titled The Last Best League, by Jim Collins. This book is about the Cape Cod Baseball League, a league exclusively for the world’s finest college baseball players around the country. The book starts out by telling us about the Chatham Athletics, or A's, and their coach John Schiffner. We go on to learn about the players and where they are from. Most coming from North Carolina or USC or Wake Forest, all schools I would like to go to some day. We then meet a player named Thomas Pauly who comes from a small school we don’t know of yet. I haven’t gotten very far yet but I do really enjoy this book.I picked this book because I absolutely love baseball, as you probably already know, and really want to attend a baseball school to play baseball. This book definitely got my attention because it talks about an elite baseball league for collegiate athletes and I thought I would be good to read it and set my goals on something like that. I definitely need to read more but I've already done some research on the Cape Cod Baseball League and found out that 1 in 6 pro ball players come out of that league. If you think about it that’s a really good number because it isn’t saying 1 in 6 from the league, its saying 1 in 6 overall and this league is very elite and only few players make it to this league. So if I reach my goal of making it to the Cape Cod Baseball League I think I’d have a pretty good shot at making it to the big leagues.

My Q2 Outside Reading Book

I am reading the book called The Last Best League by Jim Collins and is over 250 pages.

Heat by Mike Lupica

I am currently reading a book called heat for my outside reading book. This book is about a young Cuban boy extremely good at baseball. He flees Cuba at a young age and keeps his love for baseball. In the beginning Michael, the young man, chucks a baseball across a diamond into the outfield pegging a thief right in the thinker. The fat cops trying to chase this thief, who is as fast as an Olympic runner, praise this youing man for stopping the thief from getting away. Michael and his family live a modern life with very few material goods. The one item that means the world to Michael is baseball. He listens to the Yankees everyday after school and runs down to the field, which is 3 blocks away from his apartment, to listen to the crowd roar when the Yank's win. I have not read anything more than that but I can tell it is going to be a really good book for me. If you can not already tell from my past blogs I have a love for baseball. Having the main character be close to my age really gives me a great point of view and where Michael is coming from. I predict that Michael becomes a highly touted prospect among the United States. The book keeps refering to Michael as a stud pitcher on his All-Star team. I also predict that he is going to grow up to become a pitcher just like his idol, the ace pitcher on the Yankess. Michael listens to every game that this pitcher pitches. In a way this pitcher could be like the Johan Santana of our time. Anyway, I'm really excited to read the rest of the book because I can tell there is going to be some controversy coming up.

Once again, Twins Fight for a Playoff Birth

Exactly one week ago I blogged about the Twins struggling for a playoff spot, and they were. Now they are playing a one game playoff game to determine who, from the American League Central, will make it to the playoffs. I really had no idea it would come down to this. Last week the Twins started a crucial series against the White Sox which would have been a make or break for this ball club. Luckily it was a make and uplifted this ball club to a half game lead over the Sox with 3 games to go. Those 3 games turned out to be harder than expected. The Kansas City Royals put up quite the fight and took 2 out of 3 from the Twins putting them in a bad spot if they wanted to make it to the "2nd" season. Amazingly to me and to the Twins the White Sox also lost 2 out of 3 against the Cleveland Indians thus leaving the Twins still in the lead by a half game. But wait, didn't the Sox have a rain out earlier in the season that they never made up? Yes, they did and now they had the chance to regain that half game and declare a playoff game. With my luck with favorite sports teams the Sox did just that, they demolished the Detroit Tigers and awaited the Twins arrival in the windy city. Today at school I really wasn't thinking about anything other than the game which is going on as I type. This game might not be important to soccer fans or football fans but it sure means something to us baseball fans because this determines who the Tampa Bay Rays play and could determine who plays the winner of the Red Sox/Angels series. (Just to let you know the Twins and Sox are currently deadlocked at zero-zero going into the bottom of the 4th.) I doubt people in Boston or California care about this game because nobody expects the Sox or Twins to make it past the Rays. Guess what, the 1987 Minnesota Twins were just that. They were a huge underdog and beat teams that just obliterated them in the regular season but miraculously moved on with no explanation. So there, there is proof to what can happen when you make it to the playoffs. Anything is possible because its a whole new season, the 2nd season. So lets wait and watch and enjoy the baseball while its here because there is only one October.

Minnesota Twins Struggle to Stay in Contention

The Minnesota Twins in the past couple of months have been off and on, off and on, and off and on. The inconsistency of the Twins leaves its fans either jumping with enthusiasm or contemplating suicide. You never know with this young group of guys.
Most of the Twins season was a total blur, "Twins sweep at home!", "Twins end miserable road trip going 9-15". But isn't that why we love them? You never know when they are just going to shine. This series with the White Sox better be one of those "shining" moments.
The Twins open up a 3 game series with the White Sox who are currently 2.5 games ahead of the Twins with just 6 games to go. The first game is on Tuesday at the dome as are the other two games. The starters for Tuesday are Scott Baker for the Twins and Javier Vasquez for the Sox. If your not much of a baseball fan, or for that matter sports fan, this might not seem like a lot. I'm a very close watcher of all Minnesota sports teams and the Twins are the only team I know that will make a run for a playoff spot year-in and year-out. This series can be compared to The Wild vs. The Canucks or Flames playing a series to go to the playoffs or The Vikings vs. The Packers in week 17 tied for first in the division.
Now that you have an idea of what is at stake during this series you can just imagine what all Twins fans are thinking after every strikeout or home run. All Twins fans can do is wait and hope. No not hope, know, because hope is not a strategy and I believe the Twins have a strategy.

The Vikings are Pathetic

My Sundays consist of reading the ad's out of the Sunday paper, fall baseball, and telling my mom I'll get my homework done but end up watching Sunday Countdown on ESPN. But those are just things I do to waste 2 hours before the "game" is on. I say "game" because it mostly ends up not being a game, rather a blow out, total collapse, or, in most cases, a waste of everybody’s time.
Yes, I am talking about the Minnesota Vikings. We can love them or we can hate them, most prefer hating and I dont disagree. After last Sundays performance against the Indianapolis Colts I’m not sure who would still love them.
Having people over to watch the game might not have been the best thing. Nobody knew what to say because the Vikings sucked so bad and were choking so horribly. Yes everyone tried to stay optimistic but come on, we tried that the past 3 years and it really hasn’t worked out too well.
In review, I’m going to put some serious thought into whether I am going to watch the game or not. I could do so many more things on a Sunday than watch the #1 Defense and arguably the #1 Running back in the league lose to so many brutal teams. I just dont get it. The Vikings are pathetic.

A Journey I Intend to Take

Ever since I was a little kid I've always wanted to attend an MLB All-Star weekend. The home run derby, futures game, celebrity softball game, and all the batting practices. Every year I watch the All Star game and home run derby on t.v. and think of how cool it would be to actually be there and see all my role models all on the same field. On the news a couple days ago they were talking about bringing the All Star game to Minnesota and the new twins stadium. I dont care if the tickets would have to be my christmas present, birthday present and anyother present combined. Attending the All Star weekend would mean the world to me.

Blog Expectations

My name is Drew Kremer. This is my super cool blog, which I will personalize and make my own(but not pics of myself on or use my last name on.) I will always use appropriate language on my school blog and follow the conversations of the English language. The expectation for this assignment is that I post my blog once a week for the remainder of the school year. I am expected to comment on texts that I am viewing in the world around me. These might include, but are not limited to: books, magazines, movies, internet articles, television shows, trips to museums, etc.
Each post should be at least 200 words. Each weekly post is due by 8am on that Wednesday. Therefore, Q1 due dates are: 9/17, 9/24, 10/1, 10/8, 10/15, 10/22, 10/29. That makes for a total of 7 posts this first quarter. I understand that blogs are worth 100 points per quarter and are graded holistically (I will recieve this rubric from Mrs. B. soon). I also understand that blogging is a significant component of my quarter grade. By the way, what I have just typed is only 196 words! Now it is 200!