A-Rod: A man of two sides

At this point in the whole Alex Rodriduez story he has signed with the all time best franchise in major league baseball; the New York Yankees. The book goes on to say how a team like this is a better fit for Alex with him being able to perform in the limelight well not having the responsibility of his team and his teammates put on his shoulder. If there is one thing I've learned about him in this book it is that he is not a leader. A lot of comparing goes on between him and Derek Jeter and it becomes very apparent that Jeter is way more of a leader type than Alex is. Even in the day when A-Rod played for Texas whenever there was pressure put on him steer the vessle he began to underperform. Teamates described him as being a player in his own world who didn't really didn;t put as much effort into the teams performance as he did to putting up his own big numbers on the stats sheet. He made a lot of teammates mad because he would seek special treatment in the clubhouse by having his own personal attendant and demanding a private jet to be at his disposal. He was never really protrayed as a team player and was not what the Texas management was expecting when they signed him to a 10-year $252 million contract, the biggest ever in MLB. Sure Alex was a star slugger who put up huge numbers and won MVP's, but the teams was losing with him. He is a great player but as we would later find out he was a user of steroids and his image was damaged by acts of sometimes selfish indulgments. But alex as a baseball player atleast in my books is a Hallof Famer.

A-Rod #2

As I get further into this story of Alex Rodriguez's life and all the controversy surrounding his rise to stardom the question of steroid use seems to becoming more prevalent. This was all taking place right in the heart of the steroid era in major league baseball. Late 90's to the early 21st century it was starting to become certain that they had to do something to stop it. Alex fell into this category of so called "sluggers" who were putting up huge numbers with an uncommon amount of home runs well keeping this up throughout the lengthy 162 game season. Almost all these players it would later be found out were on some sort of performance enhancing drug although it was pretty obvious at the time. The players association though did not want to make it known because they thought it would hurt baseball by getting rid of these almost superhuman "sluggers." Although Alex was viewed through the public eye as a clean player the evidence at the time was so obvious I am surprised no one caught it, or in the good chance that they did, why didn't anyone speak up. It was really just a reflection of the times where there were strict laws on doping in sport such as the Olympics, and on the world stage. Well in professional league sport it might not have been accepted, but there certainly wasn't the same attention around it.

A-Rod #1

My non-fiction read is essentially a biography on the famous baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez. But it is more of a critical biography in that the author emphasizes main points of the baseball players flaws and leads you up to his story of steroid use which was huge news in the sports world. The prologue of this novel gets the reader thinking in a critical direction towards Alex Rodriguez before dabbling into the many ins and outs of his life story.

I find the first few chapters are almost trying to explain an excuse for baseball star's flaws by telling of his childhood and how his father left him and his family and they grew up on the line of poverty and so on. But then it almost begins to contradict itself by explaining how Alex was always surrounded with many good friends and piers and how he always managed to get a good education at private schools. So really we are shown two sides of his life and how they might effect his future.

One of the main themes though does relate t the lack of a father figure in his life and the many ways that this would effect the many decisions he makes. I believe this will continue throughout the book while we continue to learn more about his life story and rise to fame.
Cheers

The Conventional Aspect

In the second chapter of this book the idea that struck me as most profound was that regarding conventional literature. The reason this surprised me so much was when Frye talked about books such as the Bible and Greek mythology and how a lot of those stories are actually very conventional. Although in a religious sense the Bible takes on a lot of meaning it is an interesting concept to think that the stories in it can many times be very conventional and how sometimes today stories like that can be easily perceived as 'corny'. But Frye makes a good point how some of these greatest works of literature although written thousands of years ago are conventional. Once being introduced to this idea I can definitely agree with Frye on this point and see it as a very important one with regards to literature.

Exploring Complex Ideas!

“One person by himself s not a complete human being…” (p.6)

I believe what frye is trying to get the reader to grasp here is the concept of what makes a person a human being. |The idea of the world around us acually shaping us for who we are as humans is emphasized through Frye's analagy of the human alone on island. He does this to isolate a human from everything else and basically strip it down to just a bare human being that is not influenced by the world in which actually shapes us to who we are. I would definately agree with frye on this statement because i do esentially believe that if we were alone on an island with know sense of being able to communicate or work or create we would not really exist as what we refer to as "human beings" if you know what i mean.

cheers

~ mikeyg