Travel Team by Mike Lupica

Travel team is a great story for anyone that likes sport book, or just sports in general. I have read a number of books by this author, his name is Mike Lupica. He has easily become my favorite author. Every book he writes has a great message that any sports player could relate to, all of his books are about sports. His writing style is easy to understand, but complex at the same time. The way he does this is by using easy to understand words and describes a number of things; but he also has hidden meanings in some things a character would say.

                Travel team is well written and has a great message behind it that can be related back to anyone who really thinks about it and understands. This book is about a young boy named Danny Walker AKA double crossover. Double crossover is a term used in basketball which is Danny’s sport. Danny is a very talented young man when it comes to basketball; the only problem is that he is very short. His height gives him fast speed and great agility, his height also affects the way he can shoot and do other things in basketball.  Danny was encouraged to try out for his towns travel team; at first he was hesitant but then after his friends and family talked to him about it he tried out. When he got to the try outs he looked around and everyone was way taller than him. Danny was cut from the team because the coach said that he was too short even though he was much better than some of the kids that were not cut. After Danny was cut he felt like quitting basketball for good. His father Ritchie Walker who used to be a professional basketball player came back to visit and ended up staying for a while. Up until this point Danny’s father did not stay for very long, he and Danny’s mom were divorced for many years. When Danny's dad finds out he was cut from the travel team and was willing to quit they both come up with the idea of making a team with just the people that were cut from the travel team and whoever else wanted to join, they were not going to turn anyone away. The only problem with this idea was that the coach Danny’s father has a drinking problem and has trouble focusing. The greatest part of this team is the mentality they have; they are the kids that are the underdogs, the ones who want to prove everyone wrong. The kids on the actual travel team now think they are the best and have to show nothing more, but the underdogs have nothing to lose only everything to gain. That’s only half of the story; I'm not one to spoil things for others so if you want to know what happened in the end you will have to read it yourself.

                ­­­­­­in my opinion this book could not have shown a better message for kids and athletes. I was reading about Mike Lupica and I read that this had some truth behind it because it is what happened to Mike Lupica’s son. This is interesting because it makes it more interesting and makes the message more powerful. The message that I'm talking about is don’t take criticism so seriously, if someone tells you that you don’t have the right height, weight, look or talent. Then don’t take it to heart, that is not written in stone and that is just someone’s opinion not a hard fact. The situation can always change. The book illustrated how weak someone can be when something goes wrong, but then everything is turned around and towards the end it shows how mentally strong one person can be and how important good friends and family are. This book is great for everyone because everyone has been told they were not good enough at least one time in their life and if they haven’t yet they will soon. It is part of life to be told you’re not good enough, that’s wrong the wrong this is actually listening to it and quitting at whatever you were trying to accomplish.

                

Venezuelan Baseball

                Last Friday my family and a few of our friends went to a Venezuelan baseball game. We went to watch Los Tiburones play Zulia. I was not exactly too excited to go to this game because the last one I went to was a very boring baseball game but I knew that Venezuelan baseball games are supposed to be very exciting usually, so I decided to go. When I got there the security guard asked my dad if he would like to throw out the first pitch, obviously he said yes.

                We were very surprised when we got the because we found that there was no one there, but the we realized we were about thirty minutes early, we thought more people would show up later. Not very many other people did show up. That was okay though it still turned out to be lots of fun. Five minutes before the game was to start me, my dad, and two security guards went down to the field. I and my dad walked up to the mound together, I was nervous for him. Apparently he was more nervous because his pitch was horrible; it didn’t even make it all the way to the base! I was so embarrassed that I just walked off the field to the dugout and back to my seat. The whole night, next day and even a few days after that my dad was being told that his pitch was horrible, he was being made fun of it. Luckily he takes criticism well and he knew that everyone who was making fun of him for it was ultimately joking so he joked back.

                The game went well. In Venezuelan baseball games there are waiters that come around and ask what you want, pizza, hamburger or a hot dog. We would always order a lot of food, and then the family in front of us would take most of it. This made my friend’s dad very angry, every time he would see the food coming he would practically jump up out of his seat and grab as much as he could so that the people in front didn’t take it. This was one of the funniest things that happened all night.

                The actual game wasn’t very exciting, the first inning was the only inning that the plays were good and the hits were struck well for both teams. After that inning Los Tiburones started to play a lot better than Zulia. After the second inning the score was 1-6 with Los Tiburones winning. After that neither team score till the 6^th inning. Then Zulia scored three more times, that same inning Los Tiburones scored five more runs. This pretty much ended the game for Zulia. At this point most of the fans were gone and the rest were getting ready to leave. The Zulia team gave up and so did their fans. The final score was 4-11. 

CAISSA!!

CAISSA is a tournament that my school is a part of. We compete against three or four different international schools in the Caribbean. This past tournament took place in Trinidad; the sport we were playing this time was boys and girls Volleyball. The tournament was a week ago, I would have wrote about it before but I had no time, I was making up for all the work I missed from the days I was gone.

                I was not supposed to even be on the team; but the week before the tournament my friend had to quit because his parents were making him take a test for the school he is going to. This was weird for me and probably everyone else on the team because in the previous tournament I did not play at all. Then I was on the CAISSA team, I'm sure that everyone didn’t think I should have been there. I was worried that I wouldn’t play much when I got to the tournament, but the day we get there most of our players. The starter playing my passion was the most sick, he could hardly stand. He played five points in the first game then he didn’t play at all. I was playing for him. The first game I was worried and nervous because it was my first game in a big tournament. I did not play very well during the first game just because of the nerves. After the first game had passed I stepped up. I started playing like I normally do. I was able to make amazing plays. I didn’t think I was playing very well during the games but after coaches and Ads would come up to me and say that I played really well.

                As the tournament went on our team was undefeated. In volley ball it is best of five sets. Our team had not lost a single set. We were first place going into the third day. That’s when the nerves started to come back, just because of how important it was. Our first game was against the fourth place team, just so they would feel like they still had a chance. We beat them three sets to zero. Then we had a four hour break to sleep and cheer on the girls’ team. They were not doing as well as us, they ended up in third. After their game we all went back to a class room and rested for the final game. The time had come to warm up for the game. That was the easy part, I was feeling good, but the nerves were starting to hit me when we lined up to shake hands. The final game had started, we lost the first set. This did not bring us down, we were able to come back from it to win the second then the third set. The score was now 2-1 going into the fourth set. Everyone in the stands was cheering for us to win. I would look over and see tons of people screaming our schools name and each individual player’s names when they made a good play. We lost the fourth set and now going into the fifth, we were all nervous, but all we had to do was play our game. We did the saints pre-game cheer (Who Dat) to get all the nerves out. It must have worked because we won the final set 15-10.

                The celebration was HUGE. We all jumped around in a giant circle, some fell down for excitement. Then we wanted to do something for our coach so we dragged her out of the gym and poured jug full of Gatorade on her. She could not get mad because she was more happy than most of the players. After that we all went to the center of the gym and did “Who Dat” one last time. Then came the ceremony, the girls were called up first. Then came the boys. The team awards first, we took our plaque and sat back down, but then we were called up again for the sportsmanship award. That was a big surprise because usually the winners never win that. The two of our players were added to the all-star team. Our tallest and best player won MVP of the tournament. Everyone was happy for him because he deserved it. He had a fever and a broken ankle but he still played.

Our arrival at school was really nice, there were all of the moms and they bake cupcakes for us, we also had lemonade. After a day of traveling this is what I was looking forward to.

Well There Goes Ten Years of my Life

By eating what I did on Saturday I definitely took off three years of my life. I and four of my friends wanted to make a giant ice cream sandwich. There was only one problem, none of us are very good cooks. You may think you don’t need skills to do this and your right, but you do need knowledge of what to do. We started off by making the two cookies that would go on top and on the bottom of our ice cream sandwich. This seems pretty easy especially since the dough was pre made. We had no idea how long to put it in the oven for so we pretty much did it by sight. If the top of the cookies looked nice and crispy and normal then we would take them out. This is where the knowledge would have been useful. We thought that if the top of a cookie looked done then the whole thing looked like that, but in reality it is very different. We took the cookies out (they were about the size of a small pizza). After we let them cool for a while we tried to pick one up and put it on a plate. That is where it went wrong. The cookie was just a bunch of melted cookie dough. We tried to glue it together with some icing, this didn’t work very well but it did taste good. After we had done that we added about three inches of ice cream, them even more icing. This is where we all realized that this was a really bad idea. The next cookie went on pretty easy, but we still added icing to it just for the fun of it. We tried to freeze it again but the ice cream had melted too fast and it was all falling apart, so we had to eat it on the spot. The ice cream sandwich from hell was amazing. It felt so good to eat but it made me feel so bad. I could feel the ice cream and cookie and icing all in my stomach for hours after I ate it. I probably took off ten years of my life eating that but it was definitely worth it.

A Great Game

Like I said in a previous post I do not watch very many sports on T.V. for multiple reasons. This past week was an exception. It was the American league play offs were on. That is a part of the MLB. One of my favorite teams was in it, the Texas Rangers. They were predicted to win all the whole play off.

Game 1

The first game was close the whole time; the final score was 2-3. Many people consider this as a great game because it was two of the best pitchers in the league and it was basically a pitching battle. I don’t consider this a good game because I like seeing players smash the ball and scoring runs, not two pitchers getting strike outs.       

Game 2

The score of the second game looks like it is a blowout but in reality the game went into extra innings. It was three to three up until the bottom of the eleventh when Cruz, the Ranger’s right fielder hit a grand slam to end the game seven to three.

Game 3

                 The third game was won by the Cardinals to make the series 2-1. Doug Fister was the pitcher for Detroit during the third game, and he did excellent he made it very hard for Texas to get hits. Texas ended up scoring 2 runs, but Detroit was able to score five to win the game. 

Game 4

                The fourth game was won by the Texas Rangers, which made this amazing series 3-1 Texas on top. This game was won by Cruz yet again, it was three to three in the ninth inning, one score was made in order for Texas to make a lead, and then Cruz hits a three run home run which ends up as the game winning hit.

Game 5

                The fifth game was won by the Detroit Tigers; this was a very necessary win. If they had lost they would have been out for good. This game started off tough for the Tigers, Texas scored in the first inning. Then Detroit turned it around to end up winning 7-5. I do have to say, Texas did have a lot of bad luck during this game including a ground ball that hit the base and bounced over the third base men’s head, generating a run.

Game 6

                The sixth game ended up being the final game of this 2011 ALCS series. Texas wins this game and wins the championship. Now they are going to the World Series which ends up being against the Cardinals. Nelson Cruz and Michael Young both went for the big hits to score 15 runs; this game was the only real blow out in the series. Detroit only managed to score 5 runs.

By winning four out of the five games the Texas Rangers were able to make it to the World Series 2011. They didn’t only win this; this is also the second year in a row that the Rangers made it to the World Series. Last year they lost to the Giants, but I have a feeling they will win this year.

A Short Trip

Last week my school gave us a week off, we call it fall break. My family and I took this opportunity to go back to the US. My older sister is a senior this year so her and my mom went to look at colleges with in the US. My younger sister went to stay with other people in my family. My father and I went on a golf trip with my grandfather in Louisiana. 

Day 1

The golf trip went very well, the first day was a little slow because we had to drive there and it is a very boring drive because it is all farm land. The good thing was that it was only a two hour drive. When we got to the resort that we were going to play golf during that day. The resort was basically a giant casino, we got lost and it was hard to find a place to lunch. After we finally were able to eat we went over to the golf club house. When we were checking in a little kid was there and he knocked down all of the golf clubs on display. The first day was rough for me as I watched my dad hit the ball in close to the pin every chance he had, then there was me where I would hit it over the green or too short. By the last few holes I was getting the hang of it even more. I usually play golf a lot, but before this trip I hadn't played in two months so my golf skills were a little rusty. That night we went to this Irish restaurant, and my dad had ordered a plate of broccoli. When the plate came out it was covered in salt water, well I'm not sure about the water. The broccoli was so salty that when I ate one I had to spit it out.

Day 2

On the second day of the trip we had to wake up early to make the tee time, on this day we played somewhere else. This course had houses so my grandfather was worried that he might hit on of them. The round had ended but he hadn't hit one. The course was challenging but I was able to finish with a good score. We ate lunch and my dad was then determined to play another round, I went with him. My grandfather on the other hand took the car back to the hotel to take a nap; he said he was done for the day. At the end of this round I improved my score. Me and my dad were stuck there at the golf course half an hour longer because my grandfather had taken our only car so were forced to wait for him. 

Final Day

On the last day we had to wake up early yet again, but this time we had to drive an hour to the middle of nowhere to play. This last course was probably my favorite, it had hills and open fairways. Open fairways are good because it gave you more room, and less of a chance to lose your ball. The last course we played at was also my favorite course and it was where I made my best score of the trip. I was able to tie with my dad and that is saying something. During this round of golf I also laughed the whole time because there was a bunch of red necks in front of us that had never played golf in their life and the whole time they would just mess around, for me it was like a comedy show. My grandfather and dad didn't like it very much though.

My First Blog Post

Life was pretty good ever since I was born till now, now at age 14 I have lived in four different places. I have gone to five different schools. Most people wouldn't like that but I’m not one of them. I love how I am able to see things that not everyone in the world can. I have been to a lot of the most famous travel spots in the world.

I am originally from Texas, but I have lived on four different continents, and I have been to five different continents. My goal is to travel to every continent before I die. My parents have helped me get a head start on that. I don't know if I would revisit every place that I have ever visited but I would definitely revisit some of them. Sometimes when I’m on a trip I want to not be there, but then when I leave and go home I want to be on the trip. The best place I have ever lived was in Kuwait, I lived on a beach now tell me who wouldn't like that? I used to play on the beach every day, I was young so I would act like I was in the army or in the latest movie at the time, and I love those simple times.

Ever since I was young I played on sports teams, I have developed a passion to play all different sports. I play more sports than I watch. I don’t even like watching sports on TV. for the simple reason that it makes me want to play the sports and usually the sports play at night for where I live. Therefore I am not able to go out and play the sport after watching it. This always irritates me so I rarely ever watch it, mostly just the main big games. I love being part of a team because it gives me a feeling of friendship and support