San Francisco Chronicle

Moneyball is a modern film about the Oakland Athletics. Billy Beane, the general manager, was upset because his team lost to the New York Yankees in a 2001 postseason game. The Oakland Athletics were losing three of their star players and Beane was concerned for the 2002 season. Beane was excited for his prospect, a Yale graduate, but then ended up hiring an inexperienced assistant general manager. The transition of assistant general manager is not smooth. Oakland scouts do not like Brand’s…

What do writers John Updike and Robert Penn Warren have in common. Well among other things to each other in a poem about baseball. John Updike who has written other sports related literature wrote the poem Tao in Yankee stadium bleachers and Robert Penn Warren wrote the poem He Was Formidable. Both of these poems appear in the book “Hummers, Knuckles, and Slow Curves, Contemporary Baseball Poems” [University of Illinois Press; Urbana and Chicago, 1991.] an anthology. For people who thought…

Flat Track Racing This paper is going to be on Flat Track Racing. This paper will inform you on what you need to Flat Track Race, when Flat Track Racing got started, and how it got started. The track is made up of compacted dirt, once it has been compacted water goes on to makes it slick which makes sliding around the turns easier. There are many different places to race but the most popular is Dayton because it is the biggest place to race. Things needed to race are helmet, gloves, riding…

The Role of Statistics. A game of numbers, the Moneyball effect is considered start of professional baseball statistics. Statistics play the main role in baseball. It’s made a huge change in the way baseball runs and how players are evaluated and could be rated to be drafted. Every team uses statistics and it is not an even playing field. There are high salary cap teams and there are low salary cap teams. When statistic first became a huge role in baseball because low salary cap teams…

they are harder, so it make a loud crack noise that people like to hear. They are also built to have more power in them. In the picture to the above, the bat on the top, is ash wood, and the one on the bottom is maple wood. (Stamp). In 2001 a San Francisco Giants player named Barry Bonds set the record for the most home runs hit in a single season. This was a record that no one thought was beatable. When the word got out that the bat Bonds was using was made of maple everyone wanted a maple bat,…

The sandlot Have you ever heard of the sandlot ? This movie is a good movie. Because of the director David Evans. There was a new boy that moved into the town. His name was Scotty Smalls but they called him smalls.When they got on the baseball field Smalls was trying to prove his stuff but he had never learned how to play catch. So he failed everyone of them started to laugh. Except for one person Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez or Benny for short and that is how it all got started. Smalls…

If you were alive in the 1920s the chance of you knowing who Billy Sunday was is very high. Billy Sunday played Major League Baseball for 8 years. Sunday's personality, outlook, and athleticism made him popular with the fans, as well as with his teammates. Sunday got recruited because of his speed and his energetic outfield play. Billy could run the bases in 14 seconds, and often was top in the League for stolen bases. He was captain of Pittsburgh Alleghenys for the 1888 season and gained a…

Walter Jerry Payton was born July 25, 1954, to Peter and Alyne Payton in Columbia, Mississippi. Growing up, Walter did not play football. “Payton took an interest in music and learned to play the drums. He joined the school band in high school, and he sang and played with various rhythm and blues groups in his spare time. During his freshman year of high school he participated in only one sport, track and field.” (Life of Walter Payton) Walter first started football his junior year of high…

“I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being” this is a quote Jackie Robinson once said. Jackie Robinson is one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He is the first African American baseball player of the 20th century. He had many problems and troubles, but that did not affect Jackie at all. He would would think of the negatives of life, only the positives. He help show that it is not about the color of our skin, it is heart…

Jackie Robinson reminds us how far we’ve progressed in the world of sports. Given the frequency with which we see African-American superstars like NBA player LeBron James or NFLer Adrian Peterson light up the sports highlight reels, it's easy to forget that they wouldn't have been given the same opportunities a lifetime ago without Robinson, even though Jackie was not the first african american on a professional team. Who do you think was the very first african american to play on a professional…