blog 9...

In our mixed genre we decided to go away from immigration in baseball and go back to just blacks in baseball and how it first started. Im doing the diary part of it with Branch Rickey where im doing an interview of him through Howard Cosell one of the most famous commentators in the 50s through the 80s. I take quotes from Rickey Branch i found on the internet and make a fictional interview between the too its really in depth and i think will really inform people if you didnt know who either of these people were.

i wish i could have had a chance to cover the cuban defection part like in the last couple papers because i would have done a 1st person diary through the eyes of el dique when he was lost at sea for 3 days which i went over in my rp4 paper. im also doing the mixed genre part of our paper im going to take pictures that we found and put them on there. im also going to take qoutes from famous players or players like Jackie Robinson or Willie mays that had great significance. we have a youtube video from Ryan Howard that he discusses black baseball players in baseball.

kevin will be doing something similar so i will try not to over lap wuth what he has planned. it wont be like a regular paper its going ot be a lot of things put a page. pictures that re relevant and the wordle we learned how to do in class. our topic has been an issue for a while now with african americans in the majors dropped from 27% in the 70's to 9.5% in the present day but hasnt been brought in the public until a few weeks ago when tori hunter went out of his way to say that players from other countries arent better than black players there just cheaper to sign. Ozzie Guillen went on to counter that and say thats all cuban or latin american players know so thats why they do it and are good at it. were trying to fit that into are project because i feel like thats the biggest and hottest topic out there right now.

Blog 9 :)

For the mixed genre project, we have chosen an issue that has really taken off in the last month for sports fans. We are focusing on race in Major League Baseball, through both a historical survey and an interpretation of relevant current events. A main point of our project is to show the role that Jackie Robinson played in integrating baseball, and what he has meant to the sport ever since. Everything changed when he came onto the scene, and everything that baseball is today is because of him. For people looking at this project who are not entirely familiar with baseball, they need to get a real sense of how Jackie Robinson changed the sport and the Civil Rights Movement, in general. In order to do that, he is mentioned in the academic piece, and the creative piece focuses on Branch Rickey’s decision to sign him and what he thought it would mean to baseball before it happened. He will also be prominent in the visual aspect of the project. The other side of our project deals with the decline of African Americans in baseball through the past 3 decades, and what MLB is doing to help and hurt that problem today. With this side, we are looking at MLB’s RBI program, whose goal is to revive baseball in inner-city communities and start programs that will give African American children a solid foundation to play baseball. We are also looking at the decline from a statistical standpoint, because the numbers have consistently decreased since 1975, despite RBI’s 21-year existence. Because of this decrease, there have been comments from prominent black players in the media within the last few weeks about the role of blacks in baseball and a possibility of racism in the sport. These are especially interesting because they are coming from black players who have already made it big in the league, so they know first hand what it takes. The question, though, is why they would be drawing negative attention to MLB themselves, if the goal is to re-diversify. This ties into the exigence and timeliness of the argument because race and baseball has reemerged as an issue that has to be dealt with.

The academic essay makes an obvious logical appeal. It is a crucial part of the overall project because it shows with actual numbers how this issue is important to baseball. The decrease in black players from 1975 to today is unacceptable, and this gives people who need concrete data in order to believe in an issue the proof that they need. There is no arguing with the numbers, so it is an important part of the argument. The logos aspect of the argument does not act alone, however. The other parts of our project look at various other appeals. Bringing up racism in any form is an ethical issue. When we look at Torii Hunter and Orlando Hudson’s comments about baseball today, it raises the ethical questions of how MLB is run and how they make decisions on who to sign and why. For instance, when Hunter discusses how he believes Latino players are signed over black players because of money concerns, and how Latino players can be signed for “a bag of chips.” Obviously, the last part is an exaggeration, but it makes you question how the MLB makes these decisions, and what they should be doing to encourage signings of African Americans instead of discourage them. Hudson’s comments about racism in the free agent process are an entirely different kind of issue because he is talking about established major leaguers being passed over because of their race. That would obviously raise ethical concerns if it were true, and if it was not then it makes choosing baseball over other sports less likely for black kids. The mixture of ethical and logical dilemmas within baseball are hopefully made clear in our project, among other things, for both baseball fans and people who have never had much interest in the sport.

Blog Post 8

4/14/10

Letter to the editor

Dear Mr. Bud Selig,

There seems to be a huge problem with the game of baseball which is affecting many communities across America. The problem is there are few African American baseball players and this is hurting many of the urban communities. This problem is affecting those areas because there are few role models for the sport for young Afro- American kids to look up to. Also, I believe if baseball was more advertised in urban communities more kids from those communities would participate in the sport. By investing some money into the urban communities baseball could get a lot of fans for life, I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt any of the teams to give a few kids from the inner city tickets to games to come out and enjoy the game. If baseball were to become active in the inner city it would help a huge number of kids stay out of trouble and give them something to do after a school. With most basketball and football teams being full of kids from urban areas, baseball could possibly be an alternate for the kids to choose from. In my opinion, some of the abandoned buildings/ apartments could be torn down to create baseball diamonds for kids who may not have transportation to play on. Not only would that help the kids but it could also help the city by cleaning it up and having something new for them to take care of. All in all, I’m a huge fan of the sport, but I would love to see more African Americans get involved in it. I honestly think that if you guys assisted in introducing it to the inner city more African American kids would participate in it and potentially help the game continue to be great in the future. Thanks for your time and I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

Kevin Claxton

Urban City Activist

Racism in Free Agency?

I remember it like it was yesterday: October 26, 2005. I was a junior in high school, and my favorite sports team, the Chicago White Sox, was playing in Game 4 of the World Series. The Sox were up 3-0 in the series—going for the sweep, but the game was scoreless through seven innings. I was sitting in my bedroom by myself because I cannot emotionally handle watching big games with other human beings (seriously…even when the Bears went to the Superbowl, I watched alone…). That’s enough about my unfortunate personal quirks, though. This isn’t about me.
Like I said, the game was scoreless through the 7th, and the previous three games had all been too close for comfort. We had a runner on third base with two outs in the top of the eighth, and Jermaine Dye was at the plate. First pitch strike. Second pitch in the dirt. Third pitch up the middle, and my wildest dream was an inning and a half from coming true, as was Jermaine Dye’s. And it did. The White Sox were World Champions, and Dye was the MVP of the series.
For the next four seasons, Dye remained an integral part of our offense, until his second half slump last season, after which the Sox decided against picking up his club option. Keep in mind, even with a horrible second half, Dye still had a .250 batting average with 27 homeruns and 81 runs batted in. Not bad. Anyway, when the happiest day of the year rolled around in 2010—Opening Day—Jermaine Dye was watching games from his couch. I can’t help but feel frustrated for him. One of my favorite players for the last five years, and one of the more underrated hitters in baseball, was riding a figurative bench. Even if the White Sox no longer wanted him, how was it possible that 29 other teams could not find a place for him?
Many people attribute Dye’s unemployment to his mediocre defense, increasing age, and his pride. He refused to accept offers that he deemed “not enough to move his family for.” He has said that he would rather retire than accept an offer that he considered demeaning—which includes not being worth enough, being a fourth outfielder, or taking a full time designated hitter position. While this has obviously played a role in his being unsigned, there is another perspective on the issue.
While I didn’t mention it before because, well, it’s mostly irrelevant, Jermaine Dye is African-American. In a sport that has been integrated for over 60 years, this shouldn’t be worth pointing out. However, one major league player, Orlando Hudson, believes it to be the reason that Dye and other great black players are jobless. Hudson, while not explicitly saying racism was the issue, inferred it by saying, “You see guys like Jermaine Dye without a job. Guy with [good numbers] and can't get a job. Pretty much sums it up right there, no? You've got some guys who miss a year who can come back and get $5 [million], $6 million, and a guy like Jermaine Dye can't get a job. A guy like Gary Sheffield, a first-ballot Hall of Famer, can't get a job." When he was asked if he was saying that this was because of racism, he responded, “We both know what it is. You’ll get it right. You’ll figure it out. I’m not gonna say it because then I’ll be in [trouble].”
Since Hudson won’t openly discuss his thought process here, it is difficult to understand how he formulated these grand statements, but he does make an intriguing point. Whether or not players like Dye and Sheffield truly don’t have jobs because of their race, Hudson’s statements have the potential to be very destructive. In a time when African-American youth are choosing to focus on football and basketball, and the percentage of black players in the MLB is staying down around 8%, the league cannot have accusations of racism floating around—let alone from African-American players themselves. The MLB is doing a lot of work, with the help of prominent black players, to convince black youth to start playing baseball—with both advertising campaigns and building inner-city facilities. Hudson’s comments send mixed messages to these kids—why would they want to play baseball when the players who are supposed to be convincing them to think the MLB is racist? These comments need to be taken seriously, and if Hudson has no reasoning to back them up, then he needs to keep his mouth shut.

Group Project statement

We are looking at moving our topic from immigration in baseball to race in baseball because like the MLB, we had been overlooking the decrease in African Americans playing into the league. This is an issue that has been coming up a lot recently from baseball players themselves, so people are looking at reasons why and how it can change. We want to provide some historical information about Negro Leagues and Jackie Robinson, but also show how less black children are getting into the sport in the first place, and less players are coming into the league. One article that we want to remember is: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-dyehudson041210 in which Orlando Hudson made comments about racism in the free agent market, not just among amateur players.

Wot? You no believe me?

this article was very confusing just by the opening title started off side ways but i realize this is how the whole article was going to be about. this was more of a free style argument or opinionated article i liked the article about the kid born in Hawaii just to see the difference in culture over there even though there still americans. but the first article somewhat appealed to me with the slang talk that really seemed like an average text message i get from my good friends everyday. thats why i feel the first article was intended for young African American group as bad a s that sounds. i didn't really know where these articles wear trying to go or what they were trying to accomplish though?

the first article seemed the most effective because it was something or a language i deal with everyday that friends or family talk like in text messaging. the hawaiian person was really interesting as well it was more of a story of someone's life instead of the text messaging example of my life. but they didn't really go into detail about the difference or why they had such a big difference in culture then over here in the states.

i thought the article about the ancestry of hawaiians arranged the genres to fit the overall argument the most there is a handicap when it comes to there language i never even heard of the pidgin language or pidgin english they call it but it was still hard to really understand the article ad what they were trying to get across to the audience.

i think the difference in these articles and the ones we looked at in class is the ones you gave us for the blogs seem more realist or something i would believe i didn't know these were made up.

Journey through "Journey Through the Fog"

In the multi-genre text “Journey Through the Fog”, Carbone is trying to share the hardships of having a family member with Alzheimer’s disease. It is inspired by her own family’s experiences, and the audience is anyone in a similar situation who needs help to understand what they can expect and what they are going through. Since having a family member with Alzheimer’s is such a different experience than any other disease, sharing her experiences is a way of helping others, and probably herself.
There were tons of genres in this project—collages, stories, letters, conversations, poetry, charts, quotes, definitions, scripts, puzzles, obituaries, short written excerpts, and more. Many of these genres made emotional appeals, such as the conversations that Carbone recalls from when she was a child, or the letters that her grandfather wrote to his wife before he completely lost his memory. Not only are these emotional for anyone reading, but they could especially trigger something in someone who relates to the situation. On the other side, having a prevention chart or definitions make the text go beyond emotional, to informational and helpful as well. The different genres also represent different ages and years and the steps of the family’s journey, which is an effective strategy for showing how Alzheimer’s can impact a person from the diagnosis to the end, and from childhood to adulthood for Carbone.
I think that the letters from Allie and Bill were the most effective genre in the text. Bill wrote his letter after he was diagnosed, and Allie wrote hers after Bill died. These letters showed how their lives had changed because of Alzheimer’s, from the moment of his diagnosis. I think that it is emotional, but also gives information about what happened in the family that you cannot get through photo collages and word searches. I think that all of the genres work together, but the piece as a whole would not function as well without these letters in it.
Since there were so many pieces to the text, I think that she did a good job breaking it up. There were not 6 poems in a row, or all of the letters, or all of the visual things. This kept me interested and wondering what was going to be next. Also, she would sandwich the more informational pages between little dialogue scenes or shorter pieces such as the “the many victims of Alzheimer’s” sequence that comes up a few times. Those were only a paragraph, and after a full page of information, it was refreshing. I think that this gained a lot from being a multi-genre project because it wasn’t boring medical information, but it wasn’t overly emotional to the point where it was unreliable. All of the pieces could appeal to someone different, and if you are looking at this text and going through a similar situation, no one can predict which one would stand out for you.
This text is vastly different from the examples we looked at in class. This looks like something that was years in the making, instead of a few weeks before a due date. I think that the fact that they had all of these different parts coming together really served their purpose, whereas the examples we saw in class seemed to be pushing it. Both of those started with an academic essay, which was useful to set up their topics but not the best way to get people interested in what they were doing. Then, some of their more creative pieces seemed out of place instead of furthering their argument or purpose. I definitely see the benefits of mixing genres like this, because it can be interesting if you choose wisely or do each part really well. Sometimes, though, finding all of these genres to go over the same point can either be difficult (for those with a lack of creativity, like myself) or overkill. Putting the same topic in 8 different genres might not necessarily make it better, it might just be stretching it too far.