Final Blog Reflection

I feel that many of my blog posts show my ability as a writer and reader, but there is one post that stands out from the others.  I feel that my best post this trimester was Thomas' Character    The reason I feel that this is the best post is becasue I really was able to dig deep and use my past knowledge to figure out traits about Thomas that were not directly stated in the text.  "After reading this Thomas realized he had let Newt down and he was mad that he had not done the one thing he friend wanted. This shows that Thomas is selfless because even after his friend had been taken away he had gone to look for him and he felt bad that he did not help his friend out."  I interpreted this about Thomas' character after he read a note from his friend to kill him.  I cited strong evidence about how I knew this by citing Newt's note to Thomas "Kill me. If you have ever been my friend, Kill me"(Dasher 196).  and also knowing that Newt was mad at Thomas but he did not know why.  Another good thing about this post was that it really had good flow and the information is presented in a good order.

This trimester I felt that I did a good job of reading every week and posting blogs every week.  In the future there are a few goals I have set for myself.  One of which is that I need to set a schedule or have a steady pace for reading.  This trimester towards the end I found that I did not read as much as I did in the beginning and found myself reading alot on one day.  Another goal I would like to have for next trimester is to finish more books which branches off of my first goal.  The reason for this is because I only had the chance to finish one book and barely start the other and I think I should blog about different types of texts and genres.  For writing I have set only one goal and that is to keep posting weekly and with good content.

How The Internet Comes Into Play in Money Ball

Money Ball is set in the early 2000s and because of that the internet is a new thing.  In chapter 3 when all of the scouts are having a meeting about who to pick in the upcoming draft they start to question Paul.  Paul is not a scout, but he is an assistant manager who can use a computer.  With the computer he can accesses  stats about any college baseball player and can tell you all about them.  The scouts say that the ability of a player is not all about his stats and usually disagree with Paul, but the manager Billy Beane thinks that the computer is a more accurate tool that can get him less biased scouting reports.  "Billy had his own idea of finding future major league baseball players: inside Paul's computer.  He'd flirted with the idea of firing all of the scouts and just drafting kids straight from Paul's computer"(Lewis 37). 

All of the veteran scouts always looked for the same cliche things: speed, power, and an arm.  However, Billy and Paul thought in terms of walks and on base %.  Billy and Paul are for a guy named Jeremy Brown, a catcher from Alabama but all of the scouts disagreed.  Jeremy Brown was not what you would think of if you thought of a good player.  He was a catcher who had a keen eye at the plate and could get on base.  Billy did not trust scouts because years back the best prospect was overlooked and that was him.

How Billy Bean Has Changed

Even though I am only 30 pages into the book, a big difference between Billy Bean as a high schooler and the grown up Billy Bean has appeared.  As a high schooler Bally Bean had everything going for him, he was batting over 500, he had good grades, and a good social life.  He only had one flaw and that was his anger when he failed.  However, that was easily overlooked because he did not fail that often.  He had a full ride to Stamford for athletics but scouts were quite often evaluating Billy.  But, there was one thing more important to him than baseball, an education.  That changed when the offer from a major league team was dangled in his face.

Billy did not know how to react when a $150,000 signing bonus was offered to him.  He still seem a little hesitant but he ended up signing and making a huge mistake.  He was worried about his education because once he signed with the A's, Stamford took away his scholarship and told him he could not even attend night classes.  Also, he failed to understand that he would end up stuck in the minors for years.  At this point there was only one perk of his choice to go pro, the money.  He and his parents invested the money and lost it and that was when Billy learned the most important lesson he ever had before.  Never do something for the money.  Fortunately he later became a manager in the A's front office, but he could never get back what he had before and he knew it.

Why I Decided To Read Money Ball

There were a few key reasons I decided to read Money Ball.  One of these was when I followed the major league in the past I had always know that the richest team (The New York Yankees) would always have a good year (except this year).  Before I heard about this book and movie I thought no matter how good a poorer teams strategy was the money would always win.  This book proved me wrong by telling the story of the manager of the A's that looked at baseball in a way that it has never been look at before.  Because of this the Oakland A's (One of the poorest teams) were able to have multiple winning seasons and many play off appearances.

Other than the difference in the A's road to success I also picked up this book for a few other reasons.  Aside from watching and following Major League Baseball I also have a few other connections to this story such as me playing baseball myself and liking underdog stories.  I am also fond of the fact that this story conveys the message that money cant always beat hard work and strategy when it comes to sports and life in general.  The cover of the book also interested me because it shows a bit of mystery.  Those are the overall reasons I decided to read Money Ball.