Magic In Baseball

Baseball has always been a game of numbers. Fans of the game have grown up being able to recite them by heart; Ted Williams’.406 batting average, Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak, Babe Ruth’s 714 home runs. These numbers hold a special place in the history of the game. Statistics such as batting average, wins, home runs, and runs batted in have always been there to tell us who the best players are. Your favorite player has a .300 batting average? He’s an all-star. He hit 40 home runs and batted in 120 runs? That’s a Most Valuable Player Award candidate. Your favorite team’s best pitcher won 20 games? He’s a Cy Young Award contender. These statistics have been used to evaluate player performance

Coffee makes the drinker more alert and, therefore, more productive. It sharpens the mind and focuses the drinker. Alcohol has the opposite effects.

Sports—which involve emotion, competition, cooperation, achievement, and play—provide a rich area for psychological study. People involved in sports attempt to master very difficult skills, often subjecting themselves to intense physical stress as well as social pressure. research has expanded into numerous areas such as imagery training, hypnosis, relaxation training, motivation, socialization, conflict and competition, counseling, and coaching. Specific sports and recreational specialties studied include baseball, basketball, soccer,

Baseball statistics are meant to be a representation of a player’s talent. Since baseball’s inception around the mid-19th century, statistics have been used to interpret the talent level of any given player, however, the statistics that have been traditionally used to define talent are often times misleading. At a fundamental level, baseball, like any game, is about winning. To win games, teams have to score runs; to score runs, players have to get on base any way they can. All the while, the pitcher and the defense are supposed to prevent runs from scoring. As simplistic as this view sounds, the statistics being used to evaluate individual players were extremely flawed. In an attempt to develop more

​ Baseball to most it just a simple game that involves one just throwing a ball, another hitting it, and then another catching it, but it’s much more than that. The ability to hit a baseball three hundred plus feet, that’s coming at you at speeds greater than 85 mph, is hard to attain. Now imagine trying to catch a ball that’s coming at the same speeds, not so easy now right? Apart from the physical abilities needed to play, the mental part of the game is also important. The game of baseball is similar to life if you’re not prepared physically and mentally to go about your business you won’t succeed.

Individuals participate in rituals for various reasons. As explained in Baseball Magic by George Gmelch, athletes often participate in rituals for superstition-based purposes. These athletes tend to participate in rituals or taboo in order to improve their performance on the field. Alternatively, The Adaptive Value of Religious Ritual, written by Richard Sosis, describes that participation in religion-based rituals is often with the intent of improving the communication and cohesion of a group. Although Gmelch introduces ritual participation in the context of individual performance and Sosis in the context of group performance, both authors explain how rituals can benefit a given group or scenario. As an individual who has both witnessed and

rules changed over time such as the length of the game change to nine innings and the distance from the pitchers found to home

Mathewson’s heroics begin on the field through his all star performances. He owns the mound where his fastball and famous fadeaway pitch leave batters feeling baffled as they shuffle back to the dugout. Soon after his arrival to the big league, Mathewson became an easily written, feel-good family sports story due to his incredible performances and pure character. Despite a streaky start to his pitching career, by 1905 the New York Giants dominated the league on every facet, posting a 105-48 record on their way to a World Series title led by Mathewson. According to Rossner in her book, Inventing Baseball Heroes, “[Mathewson’s] early work had impressed New York’s sports writing community, who called him the ‘greatest pitcher in the land’” (Rossner, 2014). Mathewson leaves batters feeling starstruck as his variety of pitches and precision accuracy led to an ERA of 1.27 in 1905, a career best. Rossner notes Mathewson of holding countless nicknames alluding to his greatness, including: “The Great Flame-Thrower”, “Big Hero Six”, and “Christy the Great” (Rossner, 2014). All of which are given to Mathewson considering his mind blowing performances that lead to great team success. Superhero-like pitching abilities set up Mathewson’s heroism and his character only drives the run home.

Firstly, I noticed people rushing to get to work with the sense of them only becoming human subsequent to their morning caffeine fix. Secondly, family and

The three different factors that cause baseball players make it to the MLB include, hard work and determination, physical strength and natural skill as well as, making it to and playing well in the minor leagues

“Life is like a baseball game. When you think a fastball is coming, you gotta be ready to hit the curve.” -Unknown. Baseball is a game, one that is not timed, one that is not rushed either, but is only allowed twenty-seven outs. For some it means everything to them, for some the opposite. Even though it is just a game, the characteristics and necessities that come along with it, is what people don’t understand. Baseball can teach individuals, all ages, the tools they need to help themselves, schooling and their future. Within this comes the aspects of teamwork, self-confidence, and the importance of family.

Baseball has been known to be Americas past time since it was first introduced. Although its origins are unclear, a similar game called rounders was seen in 1828, inside an English book titled The Boy’s Own Book, which closely depicted a resemblance to the game we know today (Holtzman, Jamail, Laue, Peterson, Peterson, & Rader, 2014). By 1845, Alexander J. Cartwright adopted this idea and formulated the rules that would act as the foundation to modern day baseball (Holtzman, Jamail, Laue, Peterson, Peterson, & Rader, 2014). Cartwright was a member of the Knickerbocher baseball club, which he organized in New York City, and established the first rules, some of which are still used today (Allen, 1978). The game quickly grew in popularity

In world of sports, magic plays a big part in not only the lives of those participating in the games, but of those spectating as well. In the reading, “Baseball Magic”, Gmelch(2012) describes magic as, “practices, notably the use of rituals, taboos and fetishes or good luck charms, designed to gain control over the supernatural p(267).” Many players in the game of baseball have multiple different rituals or good luck charms they use every day in order to achieve the peak performance. Most commonly, players use these the most when on the pitcher’s mound or in the batter’s box. These are the most difficult tasks in baseball and the players will take any good luck they can get in order to perform at the top of their game. In the article ritual is defined as “prescribed behaviors in which there is no empirical connection between the means and the desired end (Gmelch 268).” Even though these actions do not have any direct correlation to how the players perform, these players still practice them habitually because they believe that they will play better. Gmelch, describes in his article, how Wade Boggs would eat chicken before every single game in his major league career because he believed it would help him achieve optimum performance in the game later that day. Good luck charms, or fetishes are also very common in baseball. Many believe that these objects coincide with their good performance, thus many players keep these good luck charms with them. One example that I thought was

drinks, baristas hired for their social skills and passion for coffee, no longer had time to

Baseball is a sport of many skills and figuring out the weaker part between all the skills is very challenging in baseball because it’s broken down into so many parts of the game. The sports are divided into offensive technical, offensive tactical, defensive technical and defensive tactical. All of these skills have a very strict guideline that one will fail without the other. In this paper, it will go through the details of the most important part and yet the weakest part in the youth baseball today. Offensive technical skills have been the struggle in youth kids these days because of the facts everyone wants to hit for a home run. Home run shouldn’t be the focal point of the offensive, but in today games it really has been the team in the professional really just want that guy who can hit fifty plus home run in a season.