What's Your Trigger?

When I watch a Little League baseball game it instantly brings me back to the days when I first began playing the sport. I started to love the game of baseball from the first day I picked up a ball. Every weekend, I would go out to the local fields and practice for many hours with my brother and my dad. These memories are constantly brought back up into my head whenever I see any sort of baseball being played but Little League especially. This form of the game is perfectly representative of a young boy playing baseball for pure joy and happiness. That's how it began for me. I loved going out and playing catch with my brother or my dad, and I looked forward to it every single time. My first game came along with such an amazing feeling and to know that it was strengthening my relationship with myfamily made it even better. Little League was the starting grounds for the rest of my baseball life and whenever I see a group of kids playing in a game it reminds me of how baseball began for me, with my family. Watching a Little Leauge game is more than just remembering the sport I played, it's about remembering all the practice and great times spent with my brother and my dad on those fields back home.

Sports Effect on Communities

Both the essay “33” and the Rodney Jones poems deal with the idea that sports are not just some hobby or game to most people. Sports are a bigger, much more important part of life to most and especially the writer’s. In “33”, Klosterman tells the deeper meaning behind the great Lakers-Celtics rivalry and how it taught him much more about life than just basketball. He says how this rivalry taught him about politics, race, religion, and much more. Rodney Jones’ poem, “The End of Practice”, is a poem about how important and significant sport is in his life. It shows how if he doesn’t succeed on the field, he is going to be overwhelmed and over run. He describes this by saying “ If I did not rise above the field, I would be eaten.” In both of these pieces, sport is such an amazing aspect of the culture these authors are involved with and there is a sense that sport completely defines who these people are. The culture that Klosterman tells about live their lives based on this rivalry. He talks about how if you’re a Celtic’s fan you were representing the republicans and you were likely to be white. While Laker fans were likely to be black and support democratic ideas. It’s shocking that just from this one rivalry he can determine so much about people. In this case, the sport definitely defines who these people are, and in most cases, what they believed in. The poem is a little less intense in these aspects but it still shows signs of defining the culture surrounding the sport. This poem is less about a big rivalry separating the community and more about how the sport affects people’s opinion and reputation of someone. Jones expresses the idea that if he doesn’t succeed on the field, he won’t succeed off of it. This idea resembles how important the sport is to everyone in the community because they only believe that those who succeed on the field will have any success at all. 

Dear Urban Meyer,

We all know that you left Florida becuase you wanted to coach the Buckeyes. There is no reason to try and lie about it and use your health conditions as an excuse. I understand why you left, I don't know why anyone would want to coach the Florida Gators in the first place but we all make mistakes I guess. Ohio State is obviously a better place for you and I understand your REAL reason for leaving but nobody is believing that it is due to your health so give it up. Of course the gator fans are going to cry and try and hate you for leaving them but nobody really cares about the gators anymore anyway, especially because they aren't any good. Just know, I'm not buying your excuses for leaving, but I would've found a way out of that terrible place if I were you too. But next time try and make up a more believable excuse when leaving one of the worst schools in the country for a slightly better one.

Sincerely, Tyler Mistretta

Participants Versus Spectators

I have been a participant in all of the sports in my life throughout my whole life. I was always a spectator as well but I definitely preferred and primarily acted as a participant. It is just recently that I am taking more of a spectator’s role in the sports in my life. This is because of a lot of the reasons that the author of the text book explained in this section. When I was younger, sports were such an enjoyable experience for me, but as I grew older it become much more competitive and I couldn’t see myself committing to such a rigorous athletic lifestyle past the varsity high school level. My involvement in sports today is based much more on intrinsic goals and rewards rather than the extrinsic goals i once went for. 

Now that I have begun to move on from participating in organized sports, I have begun to watch them a lot more closely and actively. I have a lot of things going on in every day life that make it difficult to maintain a physical activity regimen. Because of this, it is much easier to follow the professional athletes and their teams during my spare time. Just as the top sport for spectators in America is professional and college football, those are also the top sports that I like to watch.

Games We Should Never Forget

Both of these pieces incorporate aspects of memory and ethnic diversity, while the purest nature of sport overcomes these issues. In “Three Man Weave”, a small and extremely unknown juco basketball game is finished with one team only having 3 players. This team was very undersized and supposedly incapable of winning from the beginning. The Native American ‘Thunderbirds’ also had the challenge of overcoming the stigmas and stereotypes against them. This team played most of their season with only 5 men who played every minute of every game. But, in the first game of the NJCAA tournament in 1988, they were forced to play with only 3 men due to foul outs by two of their players. Once the Thunderbirds were down to 3 players, the few people that were attending this game believed it was over, and so did mostly everyone else in the gym that night. Yet with only 3 men on the court, the Thunderbirds were able to stay within reach and eventually take the lead with only seconds left in the game forcing the opposing Lumberjacks to go for the game winning shot at the buzzer. The Thunderbirds walked away with the win that night, but the practically nobody knew about their great performance. It was a great sports moment that went unheard for way too long. The poem “ Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio” is about the influence that even a small football game can have on all communities. This poem describes all kinds of people with many different issues in their lives but still they have one thing in common and that’s the ability to “escape” from their problems through football. The author probably uses a high school football game because in high school the kids are just playing the game for the fun and joy. There is no aspect of scholarship, payment, job securities, or anything else. This football game gives a good perspective on how sometimes its the little things that matter instead of the issues in life. 

In both of these pieces, the sports played serve as more than just a game between men, they serve as a form of purpose and pleasure for everyone involved. These sports surpass racial stereotypes by playing a common game that all races can relate with. In “Three Man Weave” these Native American players, who regularly minimal recruitment, make an effort which will help future athletes like themselves. In the football game in the poem we read, all races mentioned have separate issues, even women, but they all agree on the appreciation of a high school football game. 

Memory is a very important aspect in the essay “Three Man Weave”, and in our love for sports as a whole. This is because in the essay, there was a very small amount of people actually at the game and it was not broadcasted in any way. The stories and reproductions from that night are all based strictly on memory. In a way, most of our sports memories are like that as well. Not a lot of people have ways to relive their greatest sport triumphs besides remembering. The way we remember sports is definitely going to have a huge effect on our love for the game.