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.