Week Eight- Creative Writing

Creative writing in baseball makes me realize the effect a sport can have on someone's life. Many people play sports when they're younger but do not continue into adulthood. For many, sports such as baseball allow people to reflect on their childhood, a time of more innocence. We see this as a common theme in fiction stories of baseball, such as "Death of a Right Fielder" by Stuart Dybek. The way the kid describes the death shows his innocence and lack of understanding for the real world. In Toby Wolf's "Bullet in the Brain" the man reflects on baseball in green fields in his final moments. Sports provide a mental happy place for people. Since I played basketball growing up, when I am older I will look back on my times playing as some of the best of my life. The other aspect brought into fiction writing of baseball is the ability to escape reality. While playing or watching baseball, or any other sport, we allow ourselves to stop thinking about the troubles in our lives and enjoy the game in its purist forms. For some, being a fan of a certain team gives them something to be excited for. Creative writing for sports in general can effectively portray these feelings as shown in many of the writings this week and last week.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week Ten- The End

This course, LSP 112, revealed an abundance of themes within baseball. Before taking the class, I did not know there were so many. There were a few themes that I connected with more than the others, making them more powerful in the readings. The first is the connection between baseball and family. This theme became most apparent to me in “2004, A Red Sox Odyssey” by Tim Stone. In this story, the author explains on his connection to the Red Sox due to his family history. He felt that by watching the Red Sox break the curse of the bambino, he witnessed what his grandfather waited so long to do. This the theme I most related to. Although I am from Dallas, my dad’s love for the Brewers growing up cause me to be a fan as well. This was a pretty obvious theme in “2004, A Red Sox Odyssey”. In several of the other readings, identifying themes was not so easy. That’s what made critical reading important in this class. My reading skills have never been good because its always been my least f...
Read more

Week 3- The Economics of Baseball

Money drives the world of baseball and all other sports in America. Billions of dollars go into stadiums, player contracts, and team equipment every year. The main focus for the economy of baseball in the Tuesday articles were the economics behind baseball stadiums. I've always wondered why the cities have to pay for new stadiums and after reading these articles it seems to be due to greed from the owners of the corporations, as stated in "Major League Baseball, like the NFL, ask taxpayers for free money".   These corporations leverage and strong arm cities to get their stadiums payed for. Citizens of the city, rich and poor, are paying for a stadium that the billionaires at the top would have no problem funding. In addition to having to pay for the stadiums through taxes, several people see gentrification in their neighborhoods due to these new stadiums. That is a good thing for some but can be bad for residents that are no longer able to afford their property due to ris...
Read more

Week 2- Time in Baseball

The importance of time in baseball is often overlooked do to the lack of a clock of any type. We can see baseball games, such as the 18 inning world series game in 2018, go on for several hours so from the perspective of a fan, time seems to not effect the game at all. However, from the view of a player, time is involved in everything they do. The pitcher needs a set amount of time to go through his routine before every pitch just as a hitter needs a certain amount of time to get from base to base. Over recent years, complaints have rose from fans about the game of baseball being too slow. The article "Play Ball and Do it Faster" by Adam Sobsey touches on these complaints, using statistics and graphs to show how the time per pitch and time per game has increased during recent years. While these statistics are true, the graphs were misleading. The intervals were very small and the graphs made the changes look a lot more significant than they actually are. In the latter half of...
Read more