robbie+efolio

In today's issue of the Boston Globe Sport's section, a lot of coverage was provided about the conference tournaments going on in college basketball this week and there were recaps for all off the games. There was also an article about the Patriots resigning a guy from their team last year and there was a recap of the Bruins last night who lost to Tampa Bay 3-1. Along with that there was the usual recaps of the NBA and NHL games from last night. There was also an article about the Yankees players getting suspended from brawling with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and also an article about Major League Baseball having some issues with expanding the game into places like China because it is so costly to do so but how they are being rewarded in the end for expanding the game into these places. The final article was a recap of last nights high school hockey division 3 boys state semifinal game between Scituate and Marblehead which Scituate won 8-2. The two articles that I feel we could cover for the Bradford would be the MLB expanding into China and also the whole March Madness issue as this weeks conference tournaments are deciding who will play in NCAA tournament which is also called March Madness. For the MLB in China article, I think we could cover it in two ways. One way would be to talk to students and faculty and see what they think of the MLB expanding into all these countries, and the other way we could cover it would be to research how other sports have done with expansion into other countries. For the NCAA tournament article we could go around to especially students and get their feelings on the March Madness tournament and see if they like the current system that is in place or if they think the committee should create a new system for selecting teams to go to the tournament.

Journal entry: Thursday In today's Boston globe sport's section the articles were the same topics just about different things this time. There was an article about Bartolo Colon of the Red Sox pitching for the first time this spring training, as well as a Red Sox article about Doug Mirabelli being released from the team. There was an article about the Bruins not being able to win again, as well as roundups from the NBA and the NHL. There was also recaps of the college basketball conference tournament games that are going on this week around the country. There was also an article about the New England Revolution and how they are starting their season up with their pre season practices. There was also an article on the slow response to the Mitchell Report which detailed the use of steroids in major league baseball. Two stories I feel we could cover for the Bradford are the story of Doug Mirabelli being released by the team and also the article about the slow response by major league baseball to the Mitchell report. For the Mirabelli article, a way we could cover it would be to talk to Red Sox fans, both students and faculty around the school and see what they think of Mirabelli and the Sox releasing him and also weither or not they think the Sox will bring him back if things at the catcher position do not go well at the start of this season. For the Mitchell report article, we could talk to students and faculty and see what they think not only of the Mitchell report but also the response by major league baseball since the report has come out and what people think mlb should do about the players named in the report.

Journal entry: Wednesday In today's Boston globe sport's section the articles were about the Bruins losing last night to Ottawa 4-1, Josh Beckett possibly missing the team's trip to Japan to open the regular season due to his back injury, recaps of last night's emass girls basketball semifinal games at the TD Banknorth Garden including our Wellesley girl's team who beat Lincoln-Sudbury last night to advance to the state title game, there is also an article about the restraining order by a Florida women against Patriot's player Randy Moss being dropped, there is also the usual roundups from the NBA, NHL, and college basketball, there is also articles about the college basketball conference tournaments which are starting up for the most part this week. One of the articles that I think we could cover for the Bradford would be the Bruin's, not just their game last night, but their season in general. For an article we could talk to students and faculty and see if first off, if they think the Bruins will make the playoffs, and if so how far do people think they will go. The second story that we could cover would be the dropping of the restraining order against Randy Moss. In order to this article we could handle it two ways, we could give background of the case including a timeline and give facts about the alleged incident. We could also talk to students and faculty and see if they think that this issue will impact the Patriots and Randy Moss at all, and if so, how.

Journal entry: Tuesday In today's Boston Globe's sports section the stories were about the Celtics winning their 50th game of the season last night in Philadelphia, Josh Beckett saying that his back is getting better after it forced him to miss a start and a few days of spring training workouts as well, the Bruins Zedeno Chara is out again with a knee injury, the Yankees signed movie star Billy Crystal to a one day contract as a player so he can work out with the team and play in one of their spring training games, the Patriots have interest in Pacman Jones who was suspended from the NFL for all of last night due to off the field issues, and recaps from yesterday's high school boy's basketball emass championship games at the TD Banknorth Garden as well as previews for today's women's emass title games, also being held at the Garden. Two stories that I feel could be covered in the Bradford is one the story about Billy Crystal signing with the Yankees. I think in order to cover this story, we could talk to students in the school who follow baseball and see what they think of this move by the Yankees and what they think about not only Crystal, but the prospects of other celebrity sports fans suiting up for their favorite teams, even if it is only for one day. The other story is Josh Beckett and his back issues. I feel that we could cover this story for the paper by again talking to students around the school and seeing if they feel that his injury will impact the Sox during the regular season at all, and if so how?

Journal entry: Monday The paper I have chosen to read this week is the Boston Globe. The section I have chosen to write about in these entries is the sports section because obviously I like sports a lot. In today's Boston globe sport's section there was an article about the Bruins game last night, there was an article about the girl's high school ice hockey tournament, there was an article about the Patriots spying scandal and how a video assistant is giving information to the NFL, there were also articles about the Red Sox, and about the Celtics new player, Sam Cassell, who was recently activated and will be playing in the team's next game. The two articles I have decided to discuss today are the article about the girl's hockey tournament and the article about the Patriots spying. In the girl's hockey tournament article it talks about how there is some push to move the tournament finals from Harvard's hockey arena to the TD Banknorth Garden where the boys hockey finals are held. It mentions how many of the girls on the different teams have favorite past and present Bruins and would love the chance to play at the Garden. The way we could cover this story for the Bradford would be to interview members of the girls hockey team as well as Mr. Brown and get their thoughts on weather or not the finals should be moved. We also could have a member of the team write an editorial about their thoughts on this issue so the article, in that case would be personalized. In the Patriots article it talks about the former video coordinator for the Patriots Matt Walsh who allegedly has information and recordings that could further tarnish the Patriots. He is close to a deal with the NFL to turn over the information and he has been making many allegations against the Patriots in the fast months since the first spying incident against the New York Jets took place. In order to cover this article we could talk to students and faculty and get their thoughts on this alleged information that Walsh has and what they think about this whole situation with the Patriots and Spygate

Term 3 project 1

Profile

Mr. Jason Moore is a teaching assistant here at Wellesley High School. He is currently in his 4th year at WHS and has been working in the same capacity for all four years. He was born August 6th, 1973 at Falmouth hospital, in Falmouth, Massachusetts. For his schooling Mr. Moore started at Cotuit elementary school and then went to Barnstable Middle and High School where he graduated in 1991. Mr. Moore then attended the University of Maine for his undergraduate and then received a master’s degree from Simmons College in Boston. In his previous teaching experience before coming to Wellesley, Mr. Moore worked with younger children at an elementary school in Randolph, MA. Mr. Moore’s favorite part of teaching is that he is able to work with kids and help them achieve to the best of their abilities. He also enjoy’s teaching subjects that he is interested in, and he is constantly involved in classroom teaching as well as in Mrs. Bourne’s learning center. He enjoys seeing kids excel to the best of their ability and tries to help them achieve this to the best of his ability. The hardest part of the job for Mr. Moore is dealing with kids who don’t want to listen or work hard and that is what gets him at times frustrated. If Mr. Moore could do another job besides teaching he would either fly a military aircraft, or be a colonist on Mars. Mr. Moore brings knowledge in different subjects and a sense of friendliness to the school. He likes the fact that he can contribute to a sense of inter-connectedness amongst the different departments in the building. Mr. Moore would like to keep teaching for a long time to come, and can’t wait to see what his career has in store for him in the coming years. Mr. Moore also enjoys sports, especially baseball which he played in high school.

Term 2 project 2 Robbie Johnson 1-7-08 Bradford wiki packet October 2007 issue

I. Coverage

Overall coverage: 1. At standard: Has something in there that everyone will want to read 2. At standard 3. At standard 4. At standard: Not as much for long range bearing on lives, but info does have immediate impact 5. Exceeds: Definitely blends both aspects together 6. At standard 7. At standard: Definitely gives students things to think about, they want to read the paper 8. At standard 9. At standard: Talks about many different subjects 10. At standard 11. At standard: Keeps up with what’s going on

Subtotal: 95/100

News Coverage: 1. At standard: Need a few more briefer articles 2. Exceeds: Use many sources 3. At standard 4. At standard 5. At standard 6. Needs work: Need more in that area 7. At standard 8. At standard 9. At standard: Good job relating outside news to students

Subtotal: 47/50

Feature coverage: 1. At standard 2. At standard: Research is good 3. Exceeds: Definitely get opinions 4. At standard 5. At standard 6. At standard: A little more maybe on job front 7. At standard 8. At standard: Nice poll outline 9. At standard 10. At standard Subtotal: 49/50

Sports Coverage 1. At standard: Good diversity 2. At standard 3. At standard 4. At standard: Got stuff from both 5. Exceeds: Cover all sports 6. Needs work 7. At standard 8. At standard 9. At standard: nice statistics at side

Subtotal: 46/50

Opinion coverage 1. Needs work: Need more editorials 2. Missing: Need to relate to another story 3. At standard 4. Needs work: Need to have more of that 5. At standard 6. At standard: Arts section Subtotal: 40/50

My overall score: 277/300

Writing and editing: Basic Journalistic principles: 1. At standard 2. Exceeds: Definitely gives both sides 3. At standard: Give good credit 4. At standard: Little mention of first person 5. At standard 6. At standard 7. At standard: Writers get to the point 8. At standard 9. At standard: Paragraphs are fort the most part short 10. At standard 11. At standard 12. At standard: good grammar 13. At standard 14. At standard: Editors do good job editing

Subtotal: 104/110

All stories: 1. Exceeds: Very objective 2. At standard 3. At standard 4. At standard: People understand stories 5. At standard 6. At standard 7. At standard: A little more liveliness may be necessary 8. At standard 9. At standard 10. At standard: Readers are held for most stories 11. At standard 12. At standard: Very good interviewing skills 13. At standard 14. At standard 15. At standard: Stories use fresh ideas 16. Exceeds: Very good 17. At standard 18. At standard: A little less maybe of school name 19. At standard Subtotal: 105/115

News stories: 1. At standard 2. Exceeds: Basically no editorializing 3. Needs work: Less when 4. At standard 5. At standard

Subtotal: 23/25

Feature stories: 1. At standard: Good variety 2. At standard 3. At standard 4. At standard: Good, but maybe a little bit more 5. Needs work 6. At standard Subtotal: 21/25

Sports stories: 1. At standard 2. Needs work: to much combining 3. At standard 4. At standard 5. At standard 6. Missing: No real columnists 7. At standard Subtotal: 20/25

Opinion Pieces: 1. Missing: Need unsigned ones 2. At standard 3. At standard 4. Missing: No connections 5. Needs work: More variety 6. At standard 7. At standard 8. At standard 9. Needs work 10. At standard

Subtotal: 38/50

Headlines/columns: 1. At standard: Big letters is good format 2. At standard 3. At standard 4. Needs work: Less A’s 5. At standard 6. At standard 7. Needs work: More of those 8. At standard 9. At standard: Good job in this area 10. Needs work Subtotal: 43/50

Total score: 354/ 400

Graphic presentation: Overall format: 1. At standard: Not intrusive 2. At standard 3. At standard: Good format 4. At standard 5. At standard 6. At standard 7. At standard: Readers want to read all 8. Needs work: a little more adaption 9. At standard 10. At standard 11. Exceeds: Material is very attractive 12. At standard Subtotal: 45/50

Page one: 1. At standard 2. At standard 3. Exceeds: All is color

Subtotal: 15/15

Other Pages: 1. At standard 2. At standard 3. At standard Subtotal: 14/15

Photography, illustrations and informational graphics: 1. Needs work: a little bit more necessary 2. At standard 3. At standard: All are clear 4. At standard 5. At standard 6. At standard 7. At standard Subtotal: 47/50

Typography: 1. At standard: Good widths 2. At standard 3. Needs work: maybe a little less clutter 4. At standard 5. Needs work: Not much but a little 6. At standard Subtotal: 43/50

Participation and proficiency in bringing issues to camera/press readiness: 1. At standard 2. At standard, exceeds: Very crisp, clear and consistent 3. At standard 4. At standard 5. At standard, exceeds: very nice proofing

Business operations: Budget Analysis: At standard, Exceeds Subtotal: 20/20

Circulation: At standard Subtotal: 15/15

Frequency: At standard Subtotal: 24/25

Flexibility: At standard Subtotal: 15/15

Advertisements 1. At standard 2. At standard 3. At standard 4. At standard 5. At standard

Subtotal: 25/25

My score: 263

Robbie Johnson 1-8-08 Bradford wiki critique

For my critique I chose to look at the issue of the Bradford from October of this year. First off, I felt that the issue in general was a very good one. I felt that this particular issue, along with the other issues that we have produced showed a good blend between all the different aspects of high school life and the writers really applied the stories that were written to high schoolers and showed how these stories affect that reader population. One thing I think that we are good at when writing the articles is that we don’t use our own personal bias unless of course we are writing an opinion piece. We definitely stick to the facts and get comments from both sides of an issue if need be. I think that all the high school students can relate to at least one of the stories that we write about in the issues because we have different subject matters in the different sections, and therefore people in our school can read about what they like and there is usually at least one story that gets their attention when reading. I think that the headings are very lively and really get to the core of what the article is going to be about. I also believe that the paragraphing is perfect, but maybe we should consider cutting the number of columns we use so that way we can add more shorter articles which could include letters to the editor or unsigned editorials which is something I feel we are lacking in the issue I chose. The pictures are very well centered and are at just the right size to fit the paper and also the captions we use for those pictures are just right as well. Also we do a good job of naming our sources and using a good number of quotes in the stories to really get a view from someone who has first hand knowledge of what we are writing about. Also we do a good job of acknowledging people who give pictures and we always use citations which is a good thing for a paper to do. I think the process of producing the paper is a good one but the one suggestion I do have for it is that maybe we should have layout occur a little bit quicker after the layout deadline. There are two reasons for this and why it would work; one is that by having a quicker layout and print we are able to get the paper to students sooner after the events we are writing about occur so therefore a lot of the news will still be newsworthy to them. The second reason is that by doing this you put more pressure on the students to do the work on time or face a bad grade in the class so then hopefully they will meet all their deadlines. I feel that all our sections do a good job at portraying the events or issues that are in their sections to the students of Wellesley High School. As stated above, though I think it might be a good idea to allow letters to the editor and other out of class editorials so that the school student body is able to get involved more in the papers production. I also think do a great job of using proper journalistic styles and we do not violate any guidelines for journalists in the process of writing our articles which is a good thing.

Term 2 Project 1 Onion

Football Team a no go, Powder Puff fills in Robbie Johnson ‘08

The Wellesley girls Powder Puff team got a dose of what the aggression and physical play of football really is like when they were forced to fill in for the boys’ football team in their annual Thanksgiving day rivalry clash with Needham. The football team all got food poisoning while at their annual team breakfast the Sunday before the big game. Because Needham was unwilling to postpone the game and demanded that Wellesley put a team out there, Wellesley athletic director John Brown had no choice to put the Powder Puff team out there the day after they had played the Needham Powder Puff team. “It was actually a no brainer in my mind. They have played the game of football before, just not in pads and helmets like the guys do,” said Brown when asked about the decision. That decision backfired though for Brown as not only did the girls lose the Powder Puff game 14-0 but they also lost badly to the Rockets 49-0 on their home field. The game was delayed in starting by a half hour as the girls took their time in getting suited up. The girls also had to have double practices in order to be ready for the Thanksgiving game. The girls had an hour and a half Powder Puff practice followed by getting changed into the football gear and practicing for two hours for the Thanksgiving game. “It was so hard to do all that running, especially for the last two hours in full football gear, which was hot as hell and made it hard to focus,” said senior Katrina Sereiko about having to pull double duty. Needham got up 28-0 at halftime in the Thanksgiving game and even though the girls played a little better in the second half, the game was still a disaster. “I thought the girls played hard. It’s tough asking them to do double duty, but now they know what the guys go through when they play every single Saturday,” said Brown who had to fill in as coach for the Thanksgiving game since the football coaches went on strike and refused to coach the girls and the police officers refused because their agreement with the school is only for the Powder Puff game. Brown, who got help from a few parents in coaching the team, said despite the loss he had fun, “I only had to stand on the sideline and coach, so I got to have some fun even though we lost.” Added senior Katie Eisenstein about the game, “Those boys hit really hard and we could not hit back. The game was kinda boring after a while and so most of us resorted to cleaning our nails and wiping away the constant sweat.” We attempted to reach the boys football team for comment on the game as well as their conditions but all we got was this, “Blah!”

Bradford Insight into Various aspects of Wellesley High School Sports Price: Free

Wellesley High School Loves Sports School Sports Importance Robbie Johnson ’08

In the survey I conducted with members of the Wellesley High School student body, I asked them this question: Are sports at Wellesley High School to important, not important enough, or just right? As the responses to my survey came back to me and I tallied the answers the following results occurred: Out of 21 people that responded to my survey 17 said that the sports were just right at the school and the other 4 people said that sports were not important enough. What was interesting as I looked at the responses was that the people that responded that sports at this school were not important enough were all athletes at the school. They all remarked that their biggest thing was that no one attended the home sporting events except for a select few games such as the night football game and thanksgiving as well as some select games for the other sports teams. It was also interesting that no one felt that the sports at Wellesley were to important which shows in a way that the school is able to balance its athletic programs with the challenging academics. One other thing that I found was that a few of the just right responders gave much praise to the coaches of the athletic teams, all of whom are the backbone of our successful athletic program here at WHS. While the amount of responses may seem small I feel that it definitely demonstrates the feeling of the WHS student body weather it’s those who play sports or not.

Volleyball Keeps Going By Robbie Johnson After getting out to a fast start at 4-1 the Wellesley High girls volleyball team has evened out the last 2 weeks going 2-2 in that period to stand at 6-3 so far this year. The teams victories were against Weymouth on Monday, November 1st 3-2 and against Norwood this past Friday 3-2. The teams losses were bough tough losses against Bay State Herget opponents as the team fell to Natick on Thursday September 27th 3-0, and Walpole on Wednesday November 3rd 3-2. In the Natick match the team played poorly in the first game. “We were shaky and intimidated playing the best team in the division,” said Amanda Slaboden, a junior captain. The team lost the second game in a very close game by a score of 26-24 as the team was unable to get key points against the talented Redmen squad. “It showed us that we are capable of winning against the best team in the division,” Slaboden said about the close second game. The third game was also close but the team could not come up with the win for the third consecutive game. In the Weymouth match it was a very tight match against a pesky Wildcat squad. Wellesley started off the match by making some very silly mistakes but overcame the mistakes by the end of the match and showed improvement. “Our team’s communication still needs to improve. Balls are still dropping and that hurts us,” junior captain Jackie Morrison said. Freshmen Morgan Kellogg came off the bench for the team and contributed in the victory. In the Walpole match the Raiders came out of the match very disappointed and feeling that they could have played better. It was a tough match for the team, who had been through a long week already. The games were very close but the team was not able to make the plays it needed to win and therefore came out on the wrong end of the 5 game match. Senior Sara Davis did an excellent job at serving for the team and junior captain Corley Stone did a nice job of hitting and getting some points for the team. “Walpole was not our best match of the season and we look forward to playing them again and we feel we can beat them, “Morrison said. In the Norwood match the team was without Morrison at the setter position so junior Dana Berens stepped in and filled her slot. “For a first time starter she did a great job,” Stone said of Berens. Wellesley won the first game, lost the second, won the third, lost the fourth, and won the fifth in what was a see-saw match against the Mustangs. “Norwood played hard and played good defense and we had to wrestle with that the entire time. We were to quiet in the games we lost. Our goals for the rest of our games is to be positive and loud,” Stone said of the Norwood match. Senior captain Laneya Spencer-Jones had some strong hits as did sophomore Lydia Bolton. Slaboden did a nice job at defense in the back row and Stone contributed on both fronts. The team has seven games remaining and needs two more wins to make the tournament. Morrison said she hopes to get both of the wins this week against Milton and Brookline. “We’ve done well the first half with a young team. We got bunch of early wins and that helped us. Our main goal is to work hard in practice and get the freshmen off the bench soon,” Morrison said of the season so far.

Gameplan Leaves Fans Roaring Robbie Johnson ‘08

In the movie The Gameplan, it combines comedy with emotion and a lot of excitement. The Gameplan is one of those movies that will have the audience on the edge of their seats and will leave them wanting more. In the movie Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays a 30 year old quarterback named Joe Kingman who plays for the Boston Rebels and is a little bit self centered when it comes to football and his life in general. That all changes when his life gets turned around by the arrival of his unknown daughter Peyton played by Madison Pettis who has come to stay with him for a month while her mother is in Africa (which we find out is not true later on). Joe must now balance being a father figure and his football career. It is hard for him early on as in one scene Joe leaves Peyton at a nightclub that he owns and gets the media on his back because of it. As the movie goes along though, Joe is able to become a better parent as shown when he is part of Peyton’s ballet recital along with the ballet teacher played by Roselyn Sanchez who has a thing going with Joe throughout. Joe gets some tips throughout the movie from one of his teammates played by Morris Chestnut who is a father himself. The climax of the movie is when Peyton is in the hospital because of a allergic reaction and her aunt played by Paige Turco shows up, the aunt that Joe thought was dead. It turns out that Peyton’s mother is dead, which is one of the things that Peyton didn’t tell Joe when she first arrived. After overhearing Joe’s agent played by Kyra Sedgwick say that Joe’s career could be ruined by her, Peyton wants to go home with her aunt and Joe is shocked and at the same time has to prepare for the biggest game of his life. Joe shows his true parent side here and his hurt and pain shows through but Joe is able to gut it out with the help of Peyton’s return and he is able to win the big game. The Game Plan is a movie that is emotional and a movie where you might have tears in your eyes during some points.

Robbie Johnson 9-22-07 Book Letter 1

In the first third of the book that I am reading which The Duke of Havana by Steve Fainaru and Ray Sanchez it talks about first off the post revolutionary Cuba which has fallen on hard times since the revolution began. The main purpose of the book is discussing the main sport in Cuba of baseball, which is a big part of life in the country. The book talks about players from Cuba who defect to play in the United States after Cuba has disallowed players to go to teams in the United States. The book talks about the particular story of Orlando Hernandez who is a all star pitcher for Cuba who is constantly being tempted to defect by agents from the United States. There are two main focuses in this book, baseball and politics. The baseball in this country sort of plays in to the political side of the country because it is the government officials who decide players fates in the countries baseball system and it is those officials that follow the players, especially the very popular ones and give them everything they want. One example that shows how baseball and politics were interchangeable in Cuba in the book is in a passage that discusses this point exactly, a passage where the author is talking to a Cuban official, “ ”The Cuban system is ideal,” Domingo Zabala, the Cuban baseball commissioner, once told me. Professional baseball in the United States was the equivalent of “converting me into merchandise.” The Cuban players, he said, played for pride and country, for Fidel, for the revolution.”(Page 47) This shows that the government really did play a key role in the baseball leagues at that time and that they controlled the players and their futures. Another issue in this book is the fact that players did not want to play in Cuba at that time because of the poor conditions and the fact that they were not paid much money at all to play. This is why so many players defected to the United States because there was more money offered and they had more freedom in the United States than in Cuba. In order to get out though the players had to be sneaky and had to commit treason against their native country. Many players that defected went to other countries first and then went in to the United States because they were able to get in from the other countries when Cuba would not allow travel to the US. There were a lot of American agents that were pressuring the players to defect and helping them to do it. The Cuban government brought this upon themselves ultimately because they allowed the country to fall on hard times, which led the players to defect. These hard times led to the defections because players needed to make money for their families and they could not do it in Cuba so they went to America where they were paid in the millions of dollars. I feel that the authors of this book have a very nice style of writing. I also feel that they did an excellent job researching for this book and really were able to dig deep into some very difficult issues. They really give you a sense of what life was like and still is like for Cubans in life under Fidel Castro and how players and citizens a like reacted to the different situations of their everyday lives and how they were able to deal with the problems that plagued them. They also got their information from all different sources on all different sides so they were definitely able to provide a fairer version of what happened even though it does lean towards being an anti-Castro book, the authors did interview some of Castro’s officials to get their side of the story.

Robbie Johnson 9-30-07 letter 2

In the second part of the book The Duke of Havana by Steve Fainaru and Ray Sanchez it talks a lot about the same concepts as the first part of the book. This part of the book more focuses on the journeys of the authors as they go and meet people related to the story, as well as their other trips like going to meet Fidel Castro at a cocktail reception. This part of the book also tells of the build up of events leading up to El Duque Hernandez’s defection to the United States and also tells of the trip he took trying to get to the United States. One of the events it mentions is El Duque’s lifetime suspension from Cuban baseball because of his brother Livan’s defection. I feel that myself and anyone else that reads this book can learn from these two authors is that you really need to dig deep and find as many credible sources you can to get all the information necessary from both sides so you can write a fair, accurate article. These authors do that because they go and talk to all of El Duque’s family and friends as well as the families for other defected players as well as going and talking to government officials and people and players that are for the revolution to get their side of the story and their opinions as well as opinions that are against the revolution. One example of getting both sides of the story was the fact that I mentioned above of the author’s going to actually meet Fidel Castro and questioning him about the country. The author’s don’t have a lot of history books to go on so they really go on first hand accounts by the players and people that knew them to get the stories straight. The entire book is for the most part is about the defecting baseball players from Cuba to the United States and their stories. The second part of the book however dives deep into the politics of Cuba and the politics between Cuba and the United States. In this part it talks about incidents that take place between the US and Cuba like when three planes piloted by rescue groups did a mission over Cuba and two were shot down by Soviet MiG’s. This shows that the Cubans and other Soviet allies were not fond of Americans being on their soil and were doing anything they could to keep the American’s off especially when it had to do with American’s attempting to help government opposition in Cuba. Another issue in this part of the book was the oppression of the Cuban government against anti government groups. One example of this from the book is a group called Councilo Cubano which was a group trying to spread opposition to the government and to Fidel Castro. A quote that shows that the government was oppressive towards the anti-government groups especially Councilo Cubano is a quote that shows what happened after the mission attack, “I heard story after story of State Security agents bursting into people’s homes, detaining some 120 dissidents planning to attend the first meeting of Councilo Cubano. In some cases the dissidents were strip-searched, then relieved of all documents pertaining to the event.”(135) This shows that the government was not going to take the anti government protests. Another issue in this book is that not only was the government repressing anti-government groups they also were not giving all the facts to all their people. The government likes to think and preach that Cuba is a happy, united country which may be true in some cases but this book shows that a lot of what Cubans see and read is lies and propaganda. A quote that shows this is when one of the author’s is describing one of his trips to Cuba, “There is no real information. The eight-page morning newspaper delivers platitudes and lies. The two-channel television is worse. Your best friends can’t enter your hotel because of the obscene laws to separate the natives from the tourists.”(135) This definitely shows that the government is not only repressing its opposition but the government is repressing its own people as well.

Robbie Johnson 10-6-07 Book letter 3

In the third part of The Duke of Havana by Steve Fainaru and Ray Sanchez it talks for the most part about El Duque Hernandez and his journey after he defects from Cuba to the United States. It tells about how he is pitching with the Yankees and doing a great job and also how he is trying to get his family over from Cuba to watch him pitch, which he accomplishes towards the end of the book. He also is trying to keep a low profile and not tell the full story of how he escaped which makes him look a little suspicious as well as makes the sports writers curious about his past. It also talks about his friends and what happen to them in America. One of the themes in this part of the book is family. El Duque is constantly showing that he is missing his family and is desperate to get them over to America so that they can be with him. Many people are helping El Duque in this part of the book to try to get his family over from Cuba. These people include Pamela Falk and Archbishop John O’Connor who heads the archdiocese in New York. One quote that shows that many different people are trying to help El Duque get his family to the United States to be with him is when the authors start talking about the process of getting El Duque’s family back to be with him, “Unbeknownst to all of us, the real drama of the World Series was taking place behind the scenes. There was a diplomatic movement afoot to get El Duque’s daughters out of Cuba. The negotiations were taking place the highest levels of the United States and Cuban governments- the very highest levels.”(284) Another quotes that shows how much El Duque missed his family and how he yearend for them to be back with him is when Rene Guim is talking about how he started the movement, “I had talked on the phone with El Duque a few days earlier and he had mentioned how depressed he was because he had not seen his two little girls in over a year, and that he feared he would never see them again as long as Castro was in power.”(285) One thing I can definitely learn from this author is that you need to really get into the lives of the people you are writing books or even some articles about and become almost like friends to them so you can get the most information possible. This is what the authors of this book did by following El Duque around and others around for many, many years and became more like friends than a book writer and the books subject. The writers also teach the readers that you need to follow every little thing that happens in a story that you are covering because even something that seems like it’s not that important could turn out to be something extremely important and possibly something that you want to write about in your book or article. Being a big baseball fan, I knew about the story of El Duque Hernandez through videos I watched but I only knew the basic things like that he escaped from Cuba on a raft, came to the United States, and then started pitching for the Yankees. This book showed me a more detailed look at not only Hernandez and his escape from Cuba and the type of live he lived while in Cuba, but also the stories of others, some who did the same thing as Hernandez and fled Cuba and others who couldn’t leave or didn’t want to leave. In this book you learn a lot about the lifestyle in Cuba and come to understand why so many people try to leave each year. You also learn about some of the success stories for people that left Cuba and were able to do great things in the United States and about how people who aren’t able to leave don’t do as well. Not all stories of those who chose to stay in Cuba are bad though. An example from this book in a man named German Mesa who was a shortstop in Cuba and who got suspended for life for being associated with El Duque but was able to come back and play baseball and continued to be very successful at it.