#GoDbacks

Earlier today the Arizona Diamondbacks started up a social media campaign where supposedly if one were to tweet a message including a #GoDbacks hash tag, said message would then be displayed on the scoreboard. The irony in the situation occurred when some Philly's fans caught on to the campaign. Immediately the tag was flooded with trolled messages. Withen hours #GodBacks was not only trending in Philadelphia and Phoenix, but nationally as well. All it took were some avid sports writers and bloggers, and a bunch of fans for #GoDbacks to be a nationally recognized campaign.


This trend can tell us alot about not only baseball but America as a whole. We can relate this to Dellillo's Underworld. In Underworld, Dellillo retells Americas hidden history as a mass amount of interwoven and intersecting story lines each with a version of the story told in a personalized language that stems from a world that is complete unto itself. Very comparable to the #GodBacks campaign, which is enabling fans to input their own story into the continuing narrative the is baseball. Through the Go Dbacks trend, we can see a mass of opinions from both sides, and really all over, that come together to explain a single game, story, or event.

Regardless of weather the messages actually appeared on the scoreboard or not (I'm sure that they were filtered so only true DBacks fans got their tweet shown), this social media campaign helped to spread a story of a game to millions, and it encompasses what baseball truly is: a narrative.

Here are a few of the funnier tweets for your entertainment:
 FanSince09 ‏ @FanSince09
Attn fan in section 132 row 5 seat 18: You look kind of Mexican. Prepare to show your papers. #GoDbacks

Mike Meech @meechone
 I'm only 19 will someone buy me a beer? Meet me at the beer stand in section 104. #GoDbacks

Ramzy Nasrallah ‏ @ramzyn
Craig James killed five hookers at SMU. #GoDBacks

Braun, leave him alone already

Ryan Braun who was accused of using performance enhancing drugs earlier this year is still getting booed from fans. Although Braun's test was later considered invalid, and in fact it was an invasion of privacy for the information to have been made public in the first place, the MLB fans won't stop riding his ass about it.

On March 17th in Tempe Arizona, since his name was announced at the begging of the game, Ryan Braun (last year's league MVP) was rained down with boos from the inconsiderate, unjust Angels fans. Although the fans may have been acting like complete assholes at least the Angels players understood the situation and responded like responsible individuals, outfielder Vernon Wells told the press,

In this game — or in life — if anybody can find a negative, they love to take advantage of it -- In this society, we've gotten to the point where the negative is glorified. It's unfortunate. -- Any time your name is associated with it, you'll hear about it, -- You know that coming in. When something like that goes public, you'll hear about it the rest of your career. I think he'll be one of those guys that can deal with it.

The unfortunate thing about being accused of cheating in the MLB is that, whether guilty or not, the allegations will follow you for the rest of your career and could prevent you from attaining goals like the hall of fame. Why is this?

Because of the extreme reliance on myth in the MLB. The fact is that as far as we known Ryan Braun has never used steroids, there is no information that says otherwise, and therefore labeling him as a cheater and treating him as thus falls into the category of myth.

Braun told ESPN that, "don’t think anything of it. That’s a story for you guys.”, although he is currently being a good sport about the situation, will the boos and jeers ever end? And can a player put up with something like that for their entire career without it effecting their game? So far this spring pre-season Braun
is 1 for 15 at the plate, lets hope he's not going to pull a Tiger Woods on us.

Baseball and Cheating -- What's the real issue

No matter how you slice it, cheating plays a big role in major league baseball.  It is a conversation that MLB enthusiasts will happily argue over for eternity.  Not only is cheating prevalent in today's baseball society ( almost exclusively concerning PEDs) it has been around since the creation of the game. In the "Cambridge Companion to Baseball", David and Daniel Luban, discuss the great importance cheating has in baseball; their article opens up with a quote from Rogers Hornsby, "I've been in pro baseball since 1914 and I've cheated, or watched someone on my team cheat, in practically every game. You've got to cheat." In the past however cheating has not been as big of an issue with fans, of baseball, as is their concern with PEDs today.

Why is this?

Well as we discussed in class it must either be a moral or a records issue, meaning are the fans concerned with the morality behind PEDS or are they concerned with the possible advantage the drugs could have to breaking records, in particular the HR records.
If it is a concern of morality, we could construct a syllogism to attempt to prove it. (I found a very useful one in a paper by Sharon Ryan) it reads:

(1) Using PEDs is harmful to athletes and athletes are under enormous pressure to take
PEDs.
(2) All things that are harmful to athletes and that place athletes under enormous pressure
to do are morally wrong and that is why (it is such a big deal in baseball).
________________________________________________
(3) Using PEDs is morally wrong and that is why (it is such a big issue in baseball).

The problem with this argument is that premise one cannot be considered valid. There is not enough information to prove the harm that PEDs cause, in addition if PEDs were made legal and regulated, doctors could find a dosage that would actually be healthy for athletes.

So if morality is not the reason behind the fans outrage at PEDs, it must then be a concern for the value of MLB records. Fans must realize that this is what is important to them and need to stop blaming they're outrage at players on issues of morality.

Recently we have had two cases of PED use in the MLB, the Ryan Braun case.

And more recently the Erick Hortada case.

The main difference between the two being that Braun's allegations were eventually over turned. Although this may seem significant, will the fans actually look at the two players differently? Even though Braun's case was overturned he will still be labeled as a "cheater", and thrust into the same category as Horta

da. Are these two "cheaters" morally bad people? And will the fans ever be able to accept them if they break records or are in contention for the hall of fame, or will they simply be remembered as immoral cheaters?

Only time and myth will tell.

Catchy, Funny, or Inapropriate: Si Mother@!#$% all the above

It is crazy how fast the online community can come up with an idea and mass produce it.  Last week during a Detroit batting practice, for Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder, ESPN blogger Buster Olney witnessed the following events transpire:

When Cabrera took his turns in the box, he carved long liners to right field, over and over, shouting to the others to guess whether they would clear the fence.
“SI OR NO?” Cabrera yelled. “SI OR NO? SI OR NO?”
When the ball would land on the other side of the chain-link fence, Cabrera punctuated the drive this way: “SI, M———–.”

 Within 4 days a Tiger's blogger, Walkoff Woodward , has already begun mass producing the t-shirts (pictured above).

What will the side effects of Cabrera's new "catch phrase" be?

Well to begin with, it adds a whole new chapter to the mythology surrounding Miguel.  Fans will now have a different image of Cabrera due to a fun conversation at a batting practice.  As we have discussed in class, fans want to view baseball players as pure beings.  It turns out pure beings usually dont spout out Motherf$#@%! when they hit the ball over the fence.

This does a few things to Cabrera's image, first it labels him as more of a bad boy.  This is potentially something fans can latch onto, they could see this devious speech as a projection of Cabrera's life as a whole.  This mirrors the main concept Barthes discusses in Mythologies, that myths are created by the confusion between history and nature.  Just because Cabrera was using profound language at one instance in history, it does not mean that he is a "devious" person in nature.

However due to the enormous amount of myth present in baseball this new catch phrase could forever change the image of Miguel Cabrera, for better or for worse; only time will tell.

Cespedes! ...or Soler?

            Jorge Soler, an outfielder from the Cuban national team is one of three players from Cuba receiving attention for the upcoming MLB season.  He has been slightly shadowed due to the huge hype around newly signed A's outfielder Yoenis Cespedes.  But the weird thing about that is, " (He) profiles as a corner guy, long term. He has the same sorts of tools as Cespedes. He’s much younger too: 19." (http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/02/14/jorge-soler-expected-to-sign-with-the-cubs/) 

Also surprising is his contract which is looking like it will be much cheaper than Cespedes; 27.5 million for four years compared to the 36 million the As are paying Cespedes.

This was especially interesting to me after reading "Money Ball"; I am confused as to why Billy Beane would go for Cespedes over Soler, with his famous frugal ways in choosing ball players. Although in the novel Beane does say that the players age is severely misconceived as being more important than it should be.  Also another radical decision is the As starting Cespedes straight away in the majors, just as he did in the novel.  Whatever the case, what I am most interested in is why exactly Beane thinks Cespedes is a better option than Soler and an extra 2.5 million a year.

Since in class we've discussed just how much a win is worth to a team, how many wins would 2.5 million cost? And how many more wins will Cespedes give to the As over Soler?  These are questions that I'm sure Beane figured out mathematically in order to make his decision, well "Money Ball" would have us believe he did at least.