Final Portfolio

I added more details to parts where it was needed.

Since I was 8 years old and living in the Dominican Republic, I have always enjoyed playing sports, especially baseball. Since I can remember, my dream has always been to be a professional baseball player and follow my dad’s dream of being a pitcher, but my dad his mom wanted him to study and become a doctor. In  DR, practicing baseball with a professional team was hard, because although my dad always sent me all the equipment I needed, the park was too far from my house. But that never stopped my friends and me from walking for an hour and a half to get to the field, and then, when we got to the field, we needed to run around the field for thirty minutes. Now that I look back at it, it looks like we were going too much, but we didn’t see that because we had a dream and were having fun. When I got the news that I was going to come and live in the United States, I was happy because I was thinking about all the opportunities to play baseball that I was going to have and I would have my dad to support me with his advice.

At first, it was hard to play baseball because I didn’t know English and I was scared of going out to the park without my dad. At the time, it was hard for me to play because, at the time, basketball was my brother’s favorite sport. I went to the park once a week with my dad. Going to the park with my dad was always a good and exciting time because we both liked baseball since we were little it was also a really special moment for me because I got to show my dad that I didn’t use to live with all my baseball skill, and it was nice seeing him smiling and getting surprised with how I play.                    The good thing was that I made friends with other kids my age that liked to play baseball just like me. In my first year in the U.S., it was almost the same thing every day going to school, coming home, doing homework, and going to the park on the weekend. The transition from middle school to high school was not easy for me because I didn’t know English that much but with time I got used to it and I also made friends that were just like that were from DR. In my freshman year I made the baseball team and did well for a freshman. In my sophomore year, I was ready to play baseball but it got canceled because of the pandemic. In my junior, we play baseball but it was not a long season we play like 8 games because there were not a lot of teams. But my senior year was when I put everything together as a player and had my best season by far. The team was doing good and we made the playoffs.

It was a normal day of school,  it was a  good sunny day to play baseball, the only thing was that the school baseball team had a semi-final game and I was going to pitch that game. That day for my first class I did nothing but think about plans for the game and talk to my teammates about the game. We were talking in Spanish because we were all Dominican and we were saying things like “Ahy que estar listo con tiempo pa’ la recta”(We need to be ready on time for the fastball) and one of my friends named Jhon told me “Tu tienes que tirar mucho strikes”(You need to throw a lot of strikes). The baseball team was doing good because we knew how to play smart and we knew what to do at the right time. That day all it was in my head was the catcher’s glove because as a pitcher you want to throw the ball where the catcher puts his glove most of the time is In the strike zone. At 1:30 pm it was time to meet up in front of the school so we can all as a team take the L train to the 14av stop and then take the 5 walks for like 3 minutes and get to the field.

When we got there the field was locked so our coach needed to call the owner of the league so he can come and open the field. I wasn’t nervous because I have faced that team two times before that game and I pitch well but that don’t take away that it was going to be an intense game because both teams were going to have their best pitcher pitching. We were the away team with meant that we hit first,  the first batter for us got a hit but was cut out stealing and the next two batters got out, so it was my time to pitch, that game was the best game I ever pitch because I pitch the full game with was seven innings and struck out 11 batters. We won that game with a score of 7 to  3 and I got the MVP of the game. When we went to the final although we didn’t play badly we lost because we were not able to put everything together. In baseball putting everything together means that we didn’t get back-to-back hits to score a run. 

 Losing the final was hard for me because that was my last baseball game with my high school team we were like brothers and the coach was like my dad in baseball and we were always talking about how we can improve and always talking about the MLB and the teams. When I got home I was proud of myself and also my coach was proud of me because of all the work that I have put in since I was a freshman and how much I have improved. 

Now at day, I don’t play a lot of baseball because I’m in college, but when I do get to play I always feel like a connection, like I miss the game and the game misses me. What I miss the most about baseball is putting in hard work to get better, and talking with my teammates and my coach about little things that I can improve that will make a big impact on my playtime. You may be asking if you were good at baseball and love playing the game why you didn’t go to a college where you can play baseball. Well in my senior year of high school I was focusing so much on baseball and doing good that I forgot about looking for a college where I can play baseball and have my career. I wish I could go back and spend time looking for a college that has a baseball program.

Unit 2

How has baseball become a global phenomenon?   

I’m interested in this question/ topic because I know that I’m not going to get bored reading about baseball and also I have played baseball a lot in my life I love to learn about the game. I expect to find out how baseball got popular in different countries and the different stories on hove baseball became that countryman sport. Is going to be hard to find information that goes against what I’m expecting because I know a lot about baseball but if it happens I will learn about it.

McMaster, Michael. “The Globalization of Baseball.” Bleacher Report, Bleacher Report, 3 Oct. 2017, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/178183-the-globalization-of-baseball.

Summary:  The Globalization of Baseball written by Michael Mcmaster on May 18, 2009, is an article that talks about how in the United States baseball is more than a sport, that is a tradition passed down from generation. The origins of baseball are unknown, but Americans believe it was created by Union soldier  Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown in 1839. “Over the next two centuries, baseball evolved into a national phenomenon, making stars and heroes out of household names like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Jackie Robinson. Although the United States is where baseball is played on the biggest stage there are also some other countries like Mexico and Japan where they also have a baseball league”.(McMaster)  The world baseball classic is an event like the Olympics where every country has a team of baseball players(of that country) and plays against each other. In this event, the United States has a big problem and is that there are the best players don’t go to this event and play because they believe that there is a lot of risk of getting hurt and not being able to play for their regular team, especially pitchers because they have the most probability of getting hurt. Baseball is no longer America’s sport is now a sport of the world. In this article, he uses Key Quotes like, “Baseball can no longer be contained within the borders of America’s 50 states”. In this quote what he wants to say is that baseball is no longer popular only in America, baseball is a sport that is played at a professional level in more than 19 countries and we can see that in the 2023 Wold Classic where is projected to have 20 teams of 20 different countries play against each other. 

Rhetorical Analysis:  Michael McMaster is a developmental biologist and educator in 1994 joined the UCSF faculty.The primary audience is people who want to know more about the sport and how it got so popular also people who are new to the sport and want to learn more about it. McMaster published this in  2009  because baseball had a lot of players like Miguel Cabrera, and Albert Pujol in their prime, so it was getting popularity after some dawn years. McMaster wants people to know that baseball is not just a United States sport there are some other countries that have a professional league. The author sounds proud of the sport and its growth, he also sounds sad when he talks about how players from the United States don’t play in the BWC.

More Key Quotes: “Baseball is no longer America’s sport; now, it belongs to the world. The World Baseball Classic provides a stage for the world to compete. As nations compete, the world will look on, and hopefully, America will too”.  “In the United States, baseball is much more than a sport. It is a tradition, passed down from generations, woven into the beautiful fabric of American society”.

Cremonesi, Rafael Rojas. “Why Are Venezuelans so Crazy about Beisbol?” Caracas Chronicles, 2 Jan. 2016, https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2016/01/02/why-are-venezuelans-so-crazy-about-beisbol/.

Summary: In the article “Why are Venezuelans so crazy about beisbol” by Rafael Rojas Cremoise, Rojas talks about the big impact that the game of baseball has had in Venezuela. In a quote, Rojas says    “It’s the national pastime – bueno, alongside politics. It has become a big part of Venezuelan culture and embedded itself into the way we speak: we’re not in a tough spot, you’re “en tres y dos”. Venezuelans are never baffled, they have a  “cara de poncha’o”. We don’t do great, “la botamos de jonron”.  This quote shows that baseball has such a significant impact on the people that they are replacing normal words with baseball phrases. In Venezuela, the first baseball was called “Carasco BBC”, It was created in 1895, but in Venezuela baseball started getting popular with Juan Vicente Gomez who was the president of Venezuela in 1908. In 1941 the Venezuela baseball team played in the “Amateur Baseball World Series in Cuba” where they won the title; in that team where players such as Daniel Canonico(Chino), José Antonio Casanova, Atilano “Pollo” Malpica, and Guillermo Vento who now are legends in Venezuela and remember as “Los Heroes del 41.”   Now a day in the MLB Venezuela has a lot of star players like Ronald Acuna Jr, Jose Altuve, Miguel Cabrera, and many more.  

Rhetorical Analysis: Rafael Rojas Cremoise is a sports writer with more than 15 years of experience. Rojas wrote this article to show the history of baseball in Venezuela and why it is important. This article was written on January 2, 2016, with is one year away from the day that a  Venezuelan-born player won the World Series MVP. The genre is Non-fiction, he uses this genre because in the best way to prove his points.  Rojas had an informative tone and a fun way to tell the reader about his points. He uses Ethos/ credibility to prove his point. For example, “There’s simply no way to put into words how passionate Venezuelans are when it comes to baseball”.   To prove this point they said, “Current superstars include Miguel Cabrera, the first Triple Crown winner (2012) since Carl Yastrzemski did it in 1967, and Cy Young winner Felix Hernandez, who pitched a perfect game in 2012”. Quote Sandwich: In the article, “Why are Venezuelans so crazy about beisbol” by Rafael Rojas Cremoise, he wrote, “It’s the national pastime – Bueno, alongside politics. It has become a big part of Venezuelan culture and embedded itself into the way we speak: we’re not in a tough spot, you’re “en tres y dos”. Venezuelans are never baffled, they have a  “cara de poncha’o”. We don’t do great, “la botamos de jonron”.  What Rojas wants to say is that in Venezuela baseball has become a phenomenon that everyone enjoys, to a point that people are using baseball phrases in their normal life. For me, this means that if you talk about Venezuela you need to talk about baseball. I agree/relate with this quote because these are words that I use with my friends and we as  Dominican related a lot with Venezuelans.

Rodriguez, Julio M. “Early History of Baseball in the Dominican Republic.” Society for American Baseball Research, Sabr /Wp-Content/Uploads/2020/02/sabr_logo.Png, 22 Oct. 2022, https://sabr.org/research/article/early-history-of-baseball-in-the-dominican-republic/.

Summary: In the article “Early History of Baseball in the Dominican Republic”, by Julio M. Rodriguez, Rodrigues talks about the early stages of baseball and how everything started. Rodrigues said that baseball began in the Dominican Republic when two brothers from Cuva named Ignacio and Ubaldo left Cuva to come and live in Dominica in 1891, they were the ones that organized the first game of baseball in the Dominican Republic. Dominican people liked it so much that in 1907 they created their first baseball team named “Licey” and three years later in 1910 they created another team named “Estrellas Orientales”. Baseball became such a big thing that in 1911 the first stadium for baseball was built in D.R. During the American Intervention in 1916 when the games really took off, Rodrigues wrote, “During the years of the intervention, many games were played between Dominican teams and teams made of US Marines who came on Navy warships. To see Dominican teams beat those American teams was one of the greatest pleasures of the population during those years”.  In this quote, Rodrigues talks about the games that the Dominican team and U.S. mariners played and how happy people were when the Dominican team beat the U.S. marines team. This means that  Dominican players were getting good at baseball and the people were enjoying it.

In 1922 the first tournament was set between the two teams in D.R., Licey, and Escogido. The tournament was set to 30 games whereas Escoguido beat Licey 23 games to 9. The first Dominican player to play baseball in the U.S. was Mero Ureña in 1925, but he only played in the minor leagues in 1926 the first Dominican player to play in the American Negro leagues was Pedro Alejandro San. After that Dominicans have a thing a big part in baseball for example Rodrigues wrote, “In 1983 Juan Marichal, also from Montecristi, became the first Dominican player to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown”. Having a Hall of Fame player born in the Dominican Republic was one of the best things that happen to baseball in D.R. Rhetorical Analysis: Julio M. Rodrigues was born in Montecristi Dominican Republic and is a board-certified pediatrician there. Rodriguez wrote this article so people can learn about the early history of baseball in the Dominican Republic and it became so popular and important. Rodrigues wrote this article on 22 Oct. 2022, with is the year that a lot of Dominican players like Manny Machado, Julio Rodrigues(From Montecristi), Jose Ramirez, and many others are showing why D.R has some of the best players in the game. This article was created for people like me that want to know more about the game of baseball and how it got popular in other countries other than the U.S. Rodrigues used a calm tone but he went over a lot of information about the history of the game. I dint like his choices I feel like it was really broad to read because the no images or something to call the reader’s attention.  In my opinion, this can have a negative on the reader because although it has a lot of good information like I said it doesn’t have anything to call attention to.

Quote Sandwich: In the article “Early History of Baseball in the Dominican Republic”, by Julio M. Rodriguez, he wrote, “Dominicans liked the game and began to organize teams. In 1907 Licey was founded in Santo Domingo. In 1910 the Estrellas Orientales (Oriental Stars) was organized in San Pedro de Macorís. A number of other short-lived teams were organized over the years”.What Rodriguez wants to say is that baseball and D.R. was love at first sight. For me, this quote means that baseball is a big part of the history of the Dominican Republic and also that the Dominican Republic is a big part of baseball since it is the second country that has the most player in the MLB, after the U.S. I agree with this quote and I’m a big example that in D.R baseball is a normal that everyone has played in there life and every Dominican grow up with the dream of being a professional baseball player.

Conclusion:  After spending hours looking researching how has baseball become a global phenomenon I found out that baseball is more than a sport for some people like me, baseball can a lot of things in a person’s life, for example in article number two we can see how people in Venezuela are using baseball phrases used of using normal words. I also found how that for every country baseball is a different story and had a similar impact on the people. For countries like Dominican Republic and Venezuela even though baseball is not their sport now a day baseball is a sport that represents who they are and are the main sport in their countries.  Here in the United States, we all know how baseball especially here in New York where we have two of the best teams in the games the average of people that go to a New York Yankee game is 40,207, and for the Mets is 33,308, these are top three and top six in 2022.

A lot of things surprised me, something that surprised me is how baseball has a different story on how it because a phenomenon in every country, for example in D.R baseball was first played because two brothers from Cuba that came to D.R introduced the game, and people in D.R. liked it so much that baseball became the country number one sport. Another that surprised me is how much the game of baseball has grown and how much it has changed before there was a league for black people called “The Negro League” and a league for white people. Now day people from every country and every color, baseball has also grown a lot, in 2022 more than 108 million people attended baseball without counting the postseason. I learned a lot of important things that for a baseball fan can mean a lot because for me baseball is like a girlfriend, I want to know everything, and I want to know where she is from and all of that. I think that the people that need to know this are people who are big baseball fans and want to know how the game is not only in the United States but in there are important countries to the sport like Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.

Unit 3

I record it again so I can sound more fluent.

Baseball is a big part of my life, since I can remember I always wanted to be a baseball player.  There are a lot of things about baseball that I don’t know and want to know, so what better than doing the research my self. The purpose of this project is to tell people a little more about the history of baseball here in the United State and In other countries like Venezuela and the Dominican Republic where baseball is the main sport. My main audience is young/new baseball fans that want to learn more about the game of baseball and any person who wants to learn a bit more about baseball and the impact that it has in other countries.

I chose this genre( a video) because I as a baseball fan enjoy watching baseball videos and also a lot of my friends who are baseball fans like to watch videos about baseball as well. Also, I think is not boring.  What made me think that this is the best genre for my audience is when I talked to my classmates about it they agree with it and one student told me that he likes to watch videos like this but about basketball. I think that a video is the best genre for almost all topics because you can watch a video at any time, for example, me I’m cooking or doing the dishes I always have a video playing in the background, and most of the time is a baseball video talking about a baseball player story.

Doing the video was really fun because I had an idea of what I was going to do. So I just needed to write what I was going to say.  The hard part of doing the video was putting the most important formation because there was so many go information that I didn’t know what to put. My original idea was to make a TikTok where I was not going to talk but because I had a lot of information the video was going to be too long so I choose to talk in the video.

Now that is done I think that it came out how I wanted not a long video but with the right information. Something that I will change if I did it again is how fluently I talk and I will say talk slower. Doing this project was not hard because I had the idea in my mind it was just a matter of putting it together. Something that works well is adding pictures in the background because it makes the video not boring. Also having my coach’s opinion was good because he talks about his experience with baseball. After doing it I feel proud and happy because I got to talk about something that I enjoyed talking about.  I can see myself using this in the future for example in like a different class.

Final Reflection

When I decided to go to college, I thought I was going to have a lot of trouble because my English is not at a college level. But I knew that I needed to give out my best and put a lot of work into what I was doing. Having Prof. Hall as my teacher was a big thing for me because she does a good job of explaining what you really need to do, and she always makes sure that everyone understands before moving on.

This semester, I improved in a variety of areas, but one, in particular, was adding details to a scene. In the unit 1 assignment, I wrote, “At first, it was hard to play baseball because I didn’t know English and I was scared of going out to the park without my dad. At the time, it was hard for me to play because, at the time, basketball was my brother’s favorite sport. I went to the park once a week with my dad”. After I did a revision, I wrote, “At first, it was hard to play baseball because I didn’t know English and I was scared of going out to the park without my dad. At the time, it was hard for me to play because, at the time, basketball was my brother’s favorite sport. I went to the park once a week with my dad. Going to the park with my dad was always a good and exciting time because we both liked baseball since we were little it was also a really special moment to me because I got to show my dad that I didn’t use to live with all my baseball skill, and it was nice seeing him smiling and getting surprised with how I play”

As you can see, I include details about me going to the park with my dad to play baseball as well as my emotions.

This semester, my favorite assignment was the unit one assignment because I got to talk about how I got into baseball and a special day in my life. I had a lot of fun doing this assignment because talking about baseball and going back to when I used to live in the Dominican Republic was really special for me. My least favorite assignment was the unit 2 assignment, not because it was long but because it was hard for me to find three different articles that were not talking about the same thing. Also, for me, reading a lot of assignments, and an article to find out that it has the same point as my other article is not fun.

I struggled with time management this semester because I’m a freshman, and the transition from high school to college is a big one where you really need to know how to manage your time. I used to spend a lot of time on my phone or playing video games. What I did to fix that was quit playing video games and set up times to do every assignment and have time for other things. But on the other side, something that I believed I did a great job of was doing the work fast. When I start to write, a lot of ideas come to mind, so I just put them all together.

Revising my old assignments was I really fun thing because I got to see my old work and then put all that I have learned together so I can make it better. But in the end, the best thing is seeing how much you have learned in my case, without even noticing.

After completing the unit three assignment, I learned that you need to stick to your first. My first pick was a video where I was going to talk about it, but after my first draft, I was thinking about making one where I didn’t need to talk and just put the words on the screen. After doing it for like 30 minutes, I realized that the video would be too long because I needed to add more time so people could read what was on the screen. So I went back to my original idea and did a two-minute video where I even included my coach.

Overall, working with Prof. Hall was a great experience, and I learned a lot of new things, like, for example, how important it is to make sure you are not using plagiarism because you can get in a lot of trouble for that. I believe that everything I learn will help me in the future, like in English Composition 2 and any other class where I need to do research and things like that.