Ground Fog Descriptive Writing

In David Bottoms’ “Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt,” the speaker uses flexible diction and metaphor to illuminate the sacrifice his father made for him. He continues the metaphor into the present to show that he has finally understood this sacrifice. First the speaker emphasizes the importance of baseball, highlighting the time and sacrifice his father made for him, an unappreciative son. Towards the end of the poem the speaker shows that he has realized his mistake, and creates a metaphor that describes their relationship. Through his use of diction, the speaker highlights the importance of baseball and shows the painstaking care his father puts into teaching him about it.

“‘Tony C.?’ ‘Yep. In 1965, I was pitching for Cleveland. Tony crowded the plate, and he was fearless. I drilled him in the shoulder and never felt bad about it. Sometimes you gotta hit a guy, Joe, you know that’” (Grisham 205).

This inning was the spark of our lead, for we scored a couple more runs, but the game was not even close to over. For they could easily make a comeback.. Their team was breaking down both physically and mentally. However one baseball game would not exhaust me, for I practiced hours of pitching, batting, and baserunning. With the game , and it’s natural whizzing by, I was actually startled while taking the mound in the bottom of the sixth inning, but then again, my hard work paid off, feeling as fresh and as controlled as the beginning. I was facing the top of the lineup, which means the best players on the other team. The first batter I struck out with a breeze. The second, not so much. I had to bust out my wicked curveball on a full count to make him take a seat on the bench. Next up was their best player. I reared back and fired the ball as hard as I could. “Strike one!” called the ump, the sound muffled by the sound of the glove. The next pitch, a curve was thrown, him chasing the ball which leads to strike two. The next pitch, I knew I had to give everything I had, and upon firing the ball at a high rate of fire, the glorious glove came in contact with the ball, ending the game then and there. After the ceremony we partied, using water instead of champagne. The whole team went to a burger restaurant, and laughed and ate

Only being the bat boy, Stanton had to bring his equipment to the ballpark everyday and go hit in the batting cages before the team showed up. Stanton thought to himself, “Why is coach asking me to swing in batting practice today? He has never done that once since I became the bat boy.” Stanton walked back onto the field and stepped into the batter’s box. Before Stanton even took a swing, he looked at the beautiful Marlins Park. Straight ahead was the bright, colorful outfield walls that were painted green. Stanton soaked in the atmosphere. While the batting practice pitcher went to throw the first pitch to Stanton, Johnny Field, the Marlins seventh round draft pick said, “Come on coach! You’re giving the bat boy a couple swings? Ha-ha that’s funny.” Just as Field finished his sentence, Scotty Stanton crushed the first pitch he saw into the left-center field gap, landing at an estimate four hundred feet. Coach Mattingly said, “Sit your ass down Field, we should have drafted this kid over you!” Stanton gave Mattingly a smile. Stanton continued to punish balls, smashing them all over Marlins Park. To others, it was just batting practice, but to Stanton, it meant more. It felt as if he had the game of baseball back in his life. When Stanton’s round was over, the Marlins players were impressed, besides the envious Johnny Field. One Marlins player even told Mattingly that this kid needs to be in the lineup. Mattingly

Sign For My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt In "Sign For My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt" by David Bottoms, family shapes one’s identity because the boy wanted to hit homeruns for the fame and glory, but learns as an adult, he had to sacrifice for his team to make his father proud. Next to the home plate, the boy stands. The narrator reflects, "I admired your style, but not enough to take my eyes off the bank that served as our center-field fence." (Bottoms 4). The boy did not like bunting, but did, because he respected his father for teaching him.

Was I relieved that he was dead? Did I feel guilty because I didn’t save him? I stood staring across Bloody Ice, and perhaps it was wicked, but I told no one and was married to my sweetheart in a fortnight beside Bloody Ice. I was beautiful then, hair unbound and cheeks rosy in the cold. Gazing at blurry photographs, my children would sometimes ask why I did not smile or why my face was perpetually turned towards the lake’s faded red.

He was bombarded with death threats for who he was. He was punched so hard he was left with a bloody seven inch gash on the side of his face. Even his teammates did not want to be associated with him anymore. Through this unbearable torture, he still did not shed a single tear. This story belongs to Jackie Robinson, a home run hero.Jackie Robinson, number forty-two, is looked back on as a hero that was an immense part of baseball;Robinson was known for the incredible heroism he showed in baseball and in his community through his fifty-three years of life. Using information from, “What is Heroism,” and, “How Jackie Robinson Changed Baseball,” The reader learns that Jackie Robinson’s heroism is shown from his fight against the social norms of an era filled with discrimination, his courage when people tried to hurt him spiritually and physically, and his personal and his professional sacrifices to be part of baseball.

In Buck O’Neil’s book, I Was Right on Time, he mentions a phrase that was common for Negro League ball players to hear back in the day. O’Neil writes, “John McGraw said he’d give 50,000 dollars for Donaldson if he’d been white…we heard that a lot about a lot of players through the years” (O’Neil 78). But unfortunately for many of the ballplayers at that time, they weren’t white. And as a result of their skin color and the Jim Crow laws of the time, African American, including ballplayers like Buck O’Neil, had to endure troubling times and unjust hardships. On the surface, I Was Right on Time is a memoir, a story about O’Neil’s time spent navigating through black baseball and his stories of some of the greatest to play the game, but underneath the tales of a great American sport, is a great American travesty; a real look into the days of segregation and the harshness of racial problems in 20th century America.

My breakfast started to creep back up my throat as game time got closer and closer. I walked across the patch of grass behind home plate and was towered over by the 30 foot backstop with a huge net suspended from it. My bulging bag of equipment was beginning to make my shoulder hang. I walked down the steps into the cement dugout and placed my bag under the bench that spanned the entire length of the dugout. I sat down, laced up my cleats, and put my warm-up jacket on in preparation for batting practice. I stepped onto the grass surrounding the dugout to get the feeling of how wet the grass was. I dug my cleats into the grass and began my usual routine of taking certain practice swings as I gazed upon the press box in the wake of the backstop. Preceding the burn in my forearms, caused from the practice swings, I marched behind the dugout to the rows of batting cages to wait my turn in line. Pacing back and forth I knew I had to keep my nervousness to a minimum. I popped in a wad of Big League Chew and continued to

The pitcher tries to put me out of his mind, but he can’t because I’m 60 feet away. He may have the mound to his advantage, but nothing will stop me from achieving this goal. I assess the field. There are runners on all the bases, the outfielders are playing back to prevent any extra base hits, and we’re down by 2 runs. I smooth out the dirt where my foot land, I make it smooth and the perfect landing spot for my foot, and step into the box. Everything must be perfect. I take a deep breath. I must stay calm. In...out. I sway my bat towards him and back into my pre-pitch position. My hands are relaxed but ready to unleash the violence of a baseball swing.

Nothing beat the overwhelming emotion of stepping up on the pitcher’s mound and hearing the chant of my name, my heart clawing its way out of my chest. Before throwing the first warmup pitch, my mind raced through the entire season. How, as a team, we have made history winning all three major tournaments in the high school level. We had beaten many top competitors and lost plenty crushing defeats as well. My mind pondered, which situation will I be in today, glorious victory or destructive loss. This is the feeling I lived for during high school, it was my sole purpose. However, this was merely one minute of that fateful day in which I played prodigiously trying to win a baseball game.

As I walked, the air of this haunted, dreadful and sorrowful land had sucked the life out of everything and roared as humanity began to disappear. As I carried on walking, I noticed that the small fraction of light was getting smaller and smaller, until it had been engulfed into a think black ash like smoke. Aggressively, the wind walked past the building with its cruddy feeling, blowing away all signs of life. Deeper and deeper into the land was a burning car door. The fire roared and crackled. The roaring and crackling of the burning car door merged with the aggressive air and created the loudest sounds ever heard on land. Growing darker, the skies made me feel nauseous. The fear of not waking up if a human fell asleep towered

I slipped beneath the surface of the pool of grain, my hands sticking straight up over my head as I held my breath, preparing for death. I was preparing for the world to go silent. This was the exact situation my father had warned me about, and I had fallen victim to it despite that. Fourteen years old as of two months ago, and death had already come for me. Or so I thought. I felt firm, callused hands grasp my own, plucking me from my grave. The relief was wonderful. I drank the air in, filling my burning lungs with as much as possible. I almost laughed out of sheer happiness – until my eyes met my father’s.

All game I was comfortable batting until that moment. Right foot in, left foot out, staring at the pitcher, my arms shaking, heart pumping I get ready to bat. First pitch comes, ball outside what a relief. Second pitch, fastball blown right by my waist, buffet strike; I just looked at it. Anxiously wanting to hit the ball, next pitch I swing it goes deep down the foul line. One and one is the count, next pitch I swing and miss, still anxious, and now upset at myself. The common two strike pitch is a curveball. With the knowledge of that, I swing at a curveball in the dirt: "striiiiike three!" the umpire sits me down. I was so upset at myself, but the following batter wins the game for us with a hit right up the right foul line to bring the runner from first to home.

I was getting very nervous, because all three of us were hitless today. Okay, we need base runners, and we need them now. Don’t try to do too much, just get a hit. I thought. The first pitch was a fastball right down the middle of the plate, a perfect pitch to hit. My eyes got big, and my mind said swing, but before I could react, the ball was past me.