Thursday, May 20, 2010

Infinity essay draft

To me, baseball is the biggest passion in the world. I enjoy every aspect of the game from blocking dirtballs to hitting that 400 ft. homerun. Baseball has been in my life for I can almost say my whole life and I hope to continue to play throughout my life. However baseball can teach you more than just catching and throwing. It teaches you about life. Teaches you how to be responsible, how to work together as a whole and not an individual, how to manage your life, your time. Baseball can take me many places.

Head coach Scott Yamada of Moanalua High School states that he uses baseball to teach the players mainly about teamwork, hard work, sacrifice and responsibility. He tells us that baseball teaches you about team work because you need to work in a group to get the job done which in this situation is to win the game. He stated that “one person can’t win a state championship but with 24 guys working hard for one goal there may be better results as to playing as an individual.” In baseball you can’t work as an individual you have to work as a team. He states that baseball teaches you hard work because constant hard work and repetition will give you better and a somewhat quicker result.

Yamada states that “the game teaches you about being responsible because in this program you have to balance your life like how it would work in real life.” In baseball, we have to manage three important things and that is our families, school and of course baseball. “The management skills come in because if as a player you don’t balance these three things then something will suffer” Yamada states. “If you focus only on baseball then your school work suffers the consequences.” So that’s why with baseball as an extracurricular activity at school, it can help teach you on how to manage your time which can then relate to on managing your time in a real life situation.

Lastly baseball teaches you how to sacrifice things. Sacrifice meaning you have to give up something you may want really badly but in the end it’s the right thing to do and you made more people happy other then yourself. In baseball and in life you have to be unselfish and put other before yourself in some situations. In baseball you have to sacrifice your ego. Meaning that “you can’t be the ‘I’ guy because you as an individual won’t win the game.” An example would be laying a bunt down to move the runner at first over to second to put him in scoring position for the winning run, and then if the run scores your team will be recognized as a whole because you won the game. “You may not be recognized as an individual, but your team will as a whole.” In life you have to sacrifice things to be successful, in base ball you need to sacrifice to be successful. You need to choose between yourself and or winning the state championship.

According to assistant coach Merl Miyashiro, “the words ‘Moanalua Baseball’ stands for hard work and hustling.” That’s what the coaches teach the players at Moanalua, not only to play the game but to do the little extra things as well.

Baseball is also like a big system that can help you go in any direction in your life. Baseball can take you to college, find jobs and much more. If a business boss just so happen came to a baseball game and he say that you were working hard and that you did everything you did to help your teammates. Then you decided you wanted to apply for a job and just so happen this boss that watched you work hard already knows that you’re a hard worker and that’s what he likes, hard workers. You got the job.

So for those reasons are why baseball is a passion that I enjoy but it can also help me in other areas in my life. How it teaches me different things other than catching and throwing. How it can help me get places in my life. My passions baseball, what’s yours?

Monday, May 17, 2010

Journal 2

My research was basically all with my coach on how much more baseball can teach you as a passion. I also interviewed my dad but he never helped me out as much haha.
The basic overall question I asked my coach was what more can baseball teaches you other than just playin the game? This was a basic overall response

He said it teaches you TEAMWORK, HARDWORK and RESPONSIBILITY.
Baseball teaches you teamwork because you need to work in a group to get this job done which is winning the game. With one person you cannot win a state championship he says that 24 guys have to work hard for one goal and that is to win the state championship. You can’t work as an individual you have to work as a team.

Baseball teaches you hard work because constant hard work and repetition will give you better and a somewhat quicker result.

Baseball teaches you responsibility because playing in this program you have to balance your life just like how it would work in real life. You have to manage your life with school, your family and baseball. The management skills come in because if you don’t balance these three things then something will suffer. If you focus only on baseball then your school might suffer. And if you only focus on school then you might not be playing as much in baseball.

Baseball also teaches you sacrifice. You have to sacrifice your ego for the team. You can’t be the ‘I’ guy because you as an individual won’t win the game. But if you sacrifice your self as an individual to maybe lay the bunt down to move the guy over to scoring position for the winning run, then if that run scores, your team will be recognized as a whole. In life you have to sacrifice, to be successful in baseball you have to sacrifice. You need to chose between yourself or a state championship.