Tuesday, September 30, 2008

My gocart and baseball.

My Gocart and Baseball

In life there are many things that can be determined as valuable or valueless. Can you understand what the difference is between things that you can put a price on and the things that are just plain priceless.
I walk out onto the freshly mowed grass, and smoothed dirt, and just stare at it. The beautiful infield just waiting to be run on, and get the dirt flung everywhere; the sign of a great game, and the best thing to start off a perfect summer.
I start off by preparing the field for the game. I need to put the bases in, rake the infield and the pitchers mound, and get all the equipment out and neatly set it aside. I position the end of the bat in the chained fence so the hang there. The baseballs are then emptied into a 5 gallon bucket and set next to the dugout. While we wait for the other team to come, we grab are gloves and spread out along the right field sideline and start throwing back and forth.
When the game finally starts I take the field first. Catching grounders and pop flies I am gracefully running and diving all over the right side of the field. Then the hitting comes. Fastballs change-ups, and curveballs quickly dancing around the strike zone. I get a good pitch and swing as hard as I can. I hear the ping of the ball meeting the bat and look up to see where the ball is. I don’t see it in my first glance, so I start my stride. I look down at first base, my place of savior, and see the fielder running toward it. I look up again to see where the ball is and I see it fall just over the shortstop's head. I take a wide turn and take a couple extra steps after I reach the bag toward second base. Once I see the ball thrown back in by the left fielder, I side-step back to first base. This game, this game right here, is about having fun and about the love for the game.


I grab the plastic lever and jerk it back from forward to reverse. I put my foot on the gas and slowly and carefully back out of the garage. I grab the lever again, this time throwing it in the opposite direction, forward. Forward is the direction I am going and hope I will never have to stop.
My go-cart is dark blue, with 2 seats accustomed with seatbelts. There is a role cage in case you accidentally flip or role over on the side of the go-cart , as it has happened in the past. There is a small brake light on the tail end of the machine, and two headlights on the front. It has four 12 inch tires that can turn up to 40 miles per hour. Normally because gas is so expensive you think it would be a problem to be driving all the time, but at 40 miles to the gallon it is also very affordable to ride.
To drive a go-cart you need a lot of land, and that’s exactly what I’ve got. My huge yard opens up into an enormous field that is awesome to drive on and contains a driving range for golfers and its funny to drive on. Sometimes the people aim for you and it's a lot of fun.
I love both my go-cart and baseball for the same and different reasons. The same because they both allow me to have fun. I enjoy them for mainly different reasons though. My go-cart allows me to get away from it all and I can do whatever I want, be free. But playing baseball allows me to spend time with friends, be aggressive and competitive, and learn some new things.My go-cart and playing baseball both allow me to have a good time, baseball more competitively and my go-cart by relaxation.

7 comments:

Eddie said...

This author is writing about his gocart. This gocart is blue and is his priced item. He also writes about baseball.

Tomas' pricless moment is him geating ready and playin in a base ball game this was very vivid. I think this subject was to big to write about in this essay and should have just done warming up. The gocart was only a little more clear.
This ovarall strenght was spelling and gammor. Also the content was very good he just wrote about a vast topic.
My one piece of advice is to not write about a vast topic or break it down istead of all together.

eric said...

Tom discribes how he values his gocart and baseball in his story. I think that his discription of baseball was very well developed and was my favorite part of the story.

I liked how he talked about baseball. The great discription in that part of the story was very good and made me feel like I was there. I can relate to this because I was on Tom's baseball team before. I really liked all of the detrail that he put into it. I liked it when he said that he dives gracefully to catch the baseball.

One of the strengths that I thought was in Tom's story was his word choice. Iliked how he discribed all of his things by using great words instead of over used boring words. The great word choice in the story made me want to read more and made like the story even more.

One piece of advise that I would give you would to pick a particular part in your baseball career that was meaningful to you. I think that it is pretty hard to describe baseball itself. Other than that, L thought that the story was very good.

Allie B said...

The author seems to be saying that things can be determined as valuable and valueless. The author says that things can be priced differently depending on their value to you and whether or not they even have a price value. He says that things in his life are valuable to him in different ways. Thomas says that he values his go-cart and playing baseball for different, yet similar reasons.
The author describes his go-cart with the most vivid and clear description. I can really picture what the gocart looks like because of his description. He uses good adjectives and gives specific details. For example, Thomas says, "My go-cart is dark blue, with 2 seats accustomed with seatbelts. There is a role cage in case you accidentally flip or role over on the side of the go-cart , as it has happened in the past. There is a small brake light on the tail end of the machine, and two headlights on the front. It has four 12 inch tires that can turn up to 40 miles per hour." This description helps me to picture the go-cart in my head without actually seeing it.
One of this essay's overall strengths was the comparing and contrasting of the objects. He described how the go-cart was valuable to him, as well as why the baseball game was valuable to him. Within this description, he included the differences of how they are valuable to him. Thomas also described why they are similar in value. For example, Thomas said that both of these items are fun, but his go-cart allows him to get away from everything and be free, while the baseball game lets him spend time with his friends, be aggressive and competitive, and learn new things.
A piece of advice that i would give Thomas would be to try and hook the reader into your essay in the first paragraph. Have you considered making it a little longer? You could also add observations about what other people seem to value or one more question to really make the reader think. Overall though, you did a good job with your essay!

Connor said...

Thomas, I liked this essay a lot and you made your two values easy to understand in the first paragraph without actually identifying them. You seem to have a good idea on what has value and what doesn’t.

Even though both of your values were well described, I think that I liked your priceless moment which was baseball. Being on your team and experiencing each game with you, you described the pre-game very well when you said, “Fastballs change-ups, and curveballs quickly dancing around the strike zone. I get a good pitch and swing as hard as I can. I hear the ping of the ball meeting the bat and look up to see where the ball is.”

I think your overall strength in your essay was your writing style and the way you explain your values. I really liked the way you described your go cart because you told every aspect of it including its wheel measurements to where you ride it.

I don’t think I could give you any advice on how to make your essay better because I think it is good as it is and I couldn’t identify any mistakes in your writing.

Mike's Blog said...

The author of this essay says that there are many things that can be considered valuable or valueless. He values his go-cart and and baseball. He believes that there is a difference between things you and put a price on and things that you can.


The item I found most vividly described was his description of baseball. He made it so I could really picture him getting the field ready and getting ready for the game. He used great word choice so it seems like every word is in it’s place.

One overall strength of the essay was the author’s ability to write to a very good description of baseball. He made it so that you can easily picture how much he loves baseball. He does a great job describing how he feels when he first gets to a game and how he feels when the games i starting.



I piece of advice I have for revision would be to work a little harder on the introduction. He needs to make the introduction to the essay clearer so a reader can tell what the story is going to be about. Other than the introduction, the rest of the essay was good.

teddy said...

Thomas believes that value is easily determined and pricelessness is easy to differentiate from something of price. Thomas absolutely loves two things. One is baseball where he can hang out with friends and learn new things. The other is his go-cart where he can be free and do whatever he pleases.

The one of two items that was more vividly described in Tommy’s essay was baseball. He takes you through his pregame routine giving very specific details on everything that he does. You can see him at his game warming up. Then when he explains the start of the game you can picture that little blooper over the shortstops head.

Thomas does a great job describing both his objects. Although I have previously stated that he does a better job with baseball, he still explains the go-cart thoroughly. This is definitely won of the better parts of the essay. He also spends much time on the descriptions which is very nice.

One suggestion that I have for Thomas is to add a little more detail in the introduction. The reader doesn’t really get a sense of what value means to Thomas. They have to guess and put things together. It would be best if the reader did not have to think and could just read with no other thought but to process the material.

Peter said...

Tom writes about his go cart well, and also about playing americas pasttime (Baseball). He really likes baseball, and i know from playing on the opposing team. This was a good essay.
Thomas did describe baseball a little better than his go cart, in my opinion. The descriptions of the game and the field reminded me of my playing days. I liked the writing about baseball very much.
The best part of this essay was probably the fact of how it didnt really stop and start like some others. It moved well and was also entertaining.
So, all in all, good job. One thing i would improve on would be to add a little bit more to the quantity of the essay. Add another paragraph of description or two. Otherwise, i like the essay.