Sports & Society

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This was a research paper I had to write for my ENC 1145 class. Its quite lengthy but it is very interesting. The topic was to pick a source that satirizes something and analyze the satirical elements. I received an A on this paper and A's are hard to come by in this class. I chose the episode of South Park where they made fun of steroids in baseball and well, here it is:

“I can drive.”

How many times have you heard people say that, even though they have had too much to drink? It is an all too common occurrence in America.

Too many people think they are capable of driving, ignoring the fact that they are impaired. You may have driven home drunk before and not been caught.

You may have not endangered your life or the life of another. On Thursday morning, April 9, 2009, drunk driving claimed another life, Nick Adenhart's.

UPDATE 4:38 p.m from Peter Abraham:

Forget those sun-faded glossy photos that are autographed by your favorite star, like A-Rod or Charles Barkley. You can now own real history, if you have the cash to put on the camera lens.

Memory Lane, Inc. (not that old fancy hamburger chain?) is selling off some of the artwork that adorned unknown walls over the years (not the Green Monster?). One item jumps out like the Curse of the Bambino come to life.

Officially there are now just 14 days left until the 2009 MLB season opens. Who will be this year's Tampa Bay Rays?

Last year's Rays went from celler dweller to World Series runners-up. So who will be this year's Rays?

Being a 44-year Cubs fan, can't remember anything before age 5, of course we all hope this will be the year.

And why not? Lilly, Dempster, Harden and Zambrano all return. Gone is oft-injured closer Kerry Wood. Hopefully Kevin Gregg will suffice.

After 100 years, we've gotta be close. But enough about my hopes and dreams.

I usually try to stay away from these kinds of articles but, after reading several "Greatest Team Ever" or "Best Team Ever" articles, I decided to write my own. Now, I know this I have only been around for 19 years on God's good green Earth so I do have a bit of bias towards today's players. But, all biases will be put aside and I will judge players based on career and other information.

The Sporting News, one of the premier sports publications of our times, turned 123 today. The event passed with no fanfare, and little notice.

This day in 1886, the venerable franchise was begun, starting off as nothing more than another in a series of baseball pages. There were many others, but none of them have lasted as The Sporting News has.

There are other sports publications nowadays as well, including the well-known Sports Illustrated.

“Mr. Epstein,” said the ace reliever, Jonathan Papelbon. “There is a cancer on your baseball team.”

It sounds like something out of the Nixon Administration so many decades ago.  Back then it took a brave man named John Dean to go into the lion’s den and tell the President of the United States that his Administration was suffering from a fatal disease.

A failure to act condemned Nixon and his tenure in office.