In Brian Costa's article, "Baseball's Battle for Multi-Sport Athletes" (posted on October 15, 2017), he writes that baseball has an ongoing fight with losing baseball players to other sports such as basketball and football. One of the highlights of this article is the end when Costa describes a player that did not go on to play baseball until many years later. "Tom Kotchman, a longtime MLB scout, recalls seeing one such player while at a college baseball game about 10 years ago... the player had already forsaken baseball for the school football team, but when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch that night, Kotchman noticed something. It wasn’t just the arm strength. It was also how visibly irritated he was when the pitch got away from the catcher... Kotchman, then a scout with the Los Angeles Angels, asked coaches to pass along an information card for him to fill out, eyeing him as a likely late-round draft pick. But he never heard back, and the player continued his foray into football. His name was Tim Tebow. He is now a minor-league outfielder with the New York Mets" (Costa). Even though baseball is losing the war, it has won some battles. Aaron Judge for instance. Judge plays for the New York Yankees and hit a record breaking 52 home runs for a rookie. Judge almost went on to play college football instead with full scholarship offers from Notre Dame, Stanford, and UCLA. In the end, he chose baseball and the rest is history.
The speaker of this article is Costa as well as some quotes from scouts and baseball players. The occasion is that baseball is fighting a losing battle with players choosing football, basketball, etc. over baseball. The audience in this piece is really people that follow baseball. It is not geared towards kids playing baseball for two main reasons: kids do not really read The Wall Street Journal and the diction is too sophisticated. The purpose of this article is to showcase that the MLB has a big problem with losing players to other sports and they are still trying to find ways to increase their chances of recruitment. The subject is the loss of multi-sport athletes in recruitment for baseball. The tone of this article is contemplative and reverent. Costa writes very polite and does not add much emotion except for once or twice in the article.
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In the article, "Spain and Catalonia Carefully Weigh Their Next Steps" (published on October 2, 2017), the authors, Jeannette Neumann and Marina Force, write about how both Spain and Catalonia will be hesitant to make a final decision in the coming days. Neumann and Force argue that if the Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, argues against Catalonia more citizens would argue for secession. On the other hand, they claim that Catalonia is more open to talks because they do not have the resources to become their own country if not needed. Instead, the would rather have more economical support or independence.
The speaker of this article is Jeannette Neumann and Mariana Force. The occasion is that Catalonians want to become their own country, but Spain doesn't want that to happen so when Catalonia called for a vote to decided if they want to leave, Spain called it an illegal vote. Therefore, Spain sent police and military to deal with the voters which turned violent. The audience of this piece is more geared to people outside of Spain who are wondering about the civil unrest there. The purpose of this article is to bring awareness to the unrest that is happening and Spain and why currently there is a pause in the fights in the government. The subject is the thought process that Catalonia and Spain are going through right now. The tone is matter of fact and inquisitive and maybe even a little bit curious because they do not know what will happen for sure in the future. |