Personal Narrative: Baseball In My Life

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Baseball may be the favorite pastime for millions of Americans--for me, it’s my life. A game of strength, skill, and stamina; for me it is also a game of physics and math. One hot game day, I watched parents and supporters cheering at World Series decibels. As we took the field to warm up, I had it all figured out that a win today would put us in the history books. While others busied themselves throwing and catching, I thought about how I was going to work with Mr. Newton’s laws--of inertia, of acceleration, and of reaction--in my pitching, and was determined not to let him down. As a self-proclaimed baseball mathematician, I also found myself pondering how my team's probability of winning the game was affected every time our batters would face their pitchers and vice-versa. The subjects I loved in school harmonized nicely…show more content…
Yikes! As I tried to shrug off these thoughts, I noticed that our coach had moved the infielders closer, up on the grass to prevent a run being scored. I figured I had to throw an inside two-seam fastball; there would be no way for this batter to catch up to it. Once I released it, time seemed to slow down. I could see the seams of the ball rotate as the ball rifled toward the batter as he began to swing--already too late. Mr. Newton, and Mr. Nash were tops on the long list of people I needed to thank. Which got me wondering whether it would be a good idea for baseball major leagues to recruit consultants who are not only well versed in physics, but also in game theory? It could become a new career option for kids like me to pursue. And who knows, maybe one day, after college, I will be sitting on the sidelines helping someone like Derek Jeter better his game. Clearly I need to create a new field that combines math, physics, game theory and baseball – I declare myself the founder and

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