Inspiration

Nate Winters had the dream of becoming a pro baseball player but that changes on day after a tragic boating accident. One day on the lake Nate was ejected from the boat and he lost part of his leg. He was devastated because he lost his hopes of ever playing baseball again. With hard work and determination he made it through physical therapy and his hopes of making it back to the baseball field were in sight. He finally was healthy enough to pitch in a high school varsity baseball game. He pitched the whole game and won. People like Nate are an inspiration because when you think  you did not have a good game think of all the kids that do not even get to pitch or play in the game like you do. Nate could have just given up and said oh well I will never play baseball again. But with his hard work and love of the game he went against the odds and accomplished his dream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1KCD4h52aM

Pitchers Cheat without Steroids

Steroids are not the only way that athletes can cheat in sports. Not a lot of baseball pitchers cheat but when they do they are really sneaky. Some ways they cheat are sandpaper, spit balls, and putting different types of substances on the ball so it will move.  Pitchers will spit on the ball to give it some extra movement. They are rarely caught but one instant was  in 1999 a Dimondback pitcher was caught when a bandaid fell off his shirt and it had "heat balm" on it. He was immediately  ejected. Other substance that pitchers use are mud, Vaseline, and sunblock. Former Tigers pitcher was ejected from a game for putting a small piece of sand paper on his thumb. He was subtly scuffing the ball to give him more movement. Pitchers do not cheat often. But when they do its effective. Most of the time they are not caught.

Cheating in Baseball

Pete Rose may have been one of the best players in baseball. He had a fantastic career and is known as the "Hit"king with a total of 4,256 hits. He was also the Cincinnati Reds manager. Unfortunately Pete Rose is banned from the baseball hall of fame. He is banned for his gambling addiction. Pete Rose was reported to be betting on the games. He denied all accusations but finally on August 24th, 1989 he accepted all punishments and was banned from major league baseball. He has been fighting to be apart of baseball again. He has been making money by signing autographs and being apart of endorsements like Sketchers. Pete is still not eligible for the hall of fame but he says he will not stop trying. He luckily was just hired to be a special guest and analyst for Fox Sports MLB broadcasting. Gambling in baseball has always been a serious problem. There was the 1914 wold series when the Philadelphia Athletics and Boston Braves played and the players did not play their hardest. The A's then traded all of their starter players so MLB could not prove the allegation of throwing the game. The punishment for this was never given and MLB acted like nothing happened. Since Pete Rose was caught they were very hard on him. Sometimes people make mistakes but the MLB has to show the public it is not acceptable to cheat.

Reaction to the League of Denial

The League of denial was a good video with a lot of interesting knowledge about concussions. The video was a little repetitive though. In the documentary the video found CTE, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in almost every brain examined in retired football players. Many, if not all, lost there way and ended up committing suicide and devastating their families. Many players blame football for their brain trauma and want something done about it. The NFL is without a doubt in full denial of it all. Trash talking other neurologist who try and go against the NFL. In my opinion the NFL is wrong and should use the large amount of money they have and do something about this issue whether is helping prevent it or paying retired players. The fact that the NFL is trash talking well renowned neurologists is very unprofessional. I believe Doctor Omalu and Doctor McKee were completely right and deserve an apology from the NFL and deserve the respect they deserve. 

In baseball concussions are not as serious as other baseball related injuries. A major injury in baseball is a surgical procedure in which a healthy tendon extracted from an arm (or sometimes a leg) is used to replace an arm's torn ligament. The healthy tendon is threaded through holes drilled into the bone above and below the elbow. This in jury happens to most pitchers in baseball. In the 2014 season there were 17 players that had Tommy John Surgery. This surgery is a major surgery that is taking pitchers out of the game for a whole season and some do not even return the following year. A tweet from John Roegele "Since the start of 2012, 53 Major Leaguers have undergone Tommy John surgery and had a full year now to recover. Only 32/53 are back in MLB." This statistic is extremely high and major league baseball needs to make a change and cut back on players receiving this surgery.

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Yankees won't pay Alex Rodriguez

On Friday night, at Fenway park Alex Rodriguez hit his 660th home run. He just tied Willie Mays. Alex made an agreement with the Yankees that when he hits this home run he will get a $6 million dollar bonus. The Yankees are not paying him the money because the contract says that he is due $30 million in possible bonuses if he hits five milestone home runs. The Yankees are not paying because since he was suspended all of last season due to performance enhancing drugs they don not want to advertise him to the public positively. Should Alex Rodriguez home runs count that he hit while he was on steroids? If the Yankees will not pay for his bonus did he really even hit 660 home runs? The MLB will not take away any of his home runs. Since Alex hit 660 home runs it has not been advertised anywhere. There are no t-shirts or advertisements that say he hit 660 home runs. The TV stations barely announced it. The actual home run ball has little to no value right now. Baseball didn't ignore the fact that Alex Rodriguez used performance enhancing drugs but baseball cannot ignore the fact that he hit 660 home runs. 

Commissioner of Baseball

About 75% of kids quit youth sports by the age of 12. Most kids quit because there is a lot of standing around and it is not very fun. At a young age the game is about learning basic skills. T ball is the first interaction with baseball most young athletes have. It can be really boring for a four year old to stand around in the field and play in the dirt.  To improve a T-ball baseball game I would make the games shorter and the teams smaller. If the teams were smaller there would be a smaller amount of kids standing around. If the games were shorter then the kids would not get bored so quickly. Some kids quit because they do not get the same amount of playing time as other kids. I think that the town baseball programs should play every kid on the team. Each player should get an even amount of time and work on skills. When a kid joins a travel or club baseball team the coach should play the best players and try to win the game. By making T-ball games more efficient and making town baseball games about skills, that will influence more kids to keep playing baseball and not quit.

Youth Baseball

Since 1996 2.5 million kids played youth baseball but since then the amount of kids that play has decreased 25%. The number of kids that play youth baseball is slowly decreasing and Major League baseball is trying to help increase the popularity in the inner city. Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) is a youth outreach program designed to promote interest in baseball, increase the self-esteem of disadvantaged children and encourage kids to stay in school and stay off the streets. It was started in 1989 by John Young. In 2003 this organization reached 185 cities. It is crazy to think it started in one city and it now spreading and helping so many kids.This great organization is now giving the inner city kids a better opportunity to play baseball. 

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/mlb_official_story_headline.jsp?story_page=rbifacts_rookie