Jon Stovich always had dreams of becoming a dancer. He could light up the stage with his perriettes and pilets. Yet, after a automobile accident he became paralyzed from the waste-down. Now, he is a famous director and chorographer for the American Ballet Company. Red Smith took the same path. While his childhood dreams were most likely filled with homeruns, he ended up as a baseball journalist. While he kept striking out with the scouts, he decided he needed to earn a living. Although his career wasn't what he'd planned, he still earned a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Because of these experiences, he uses his intelligence and background information on baseball to successfully become one of the best baseball journalists ever. In his article, Social and Slightly Revolting, we see his writing and baseball knowledge through his use of parallelism to society, metaphors to the game of baseball and his diction.
Babe Ruth, full-length portrait, standing, facing ...
Babe Ruth pitching with Boston Red Sox, Cominsky P...
Babe RuthFirstly, Smith takes an article on baseball and gives it an educational twist on the matters of society. Smith does something many other sports writers cannot do. He takes the game of baseball and not only makes it interesting for fans, but for all citizens; members of society. Because he uses such parallelism, many readers view his work for the interesting twist he puts to the game of baseball. He identifies this technique from the beginning with his opening sentence, "with results which were moderately revolting to those who fancied the ball players were going to get a new Bill of Rights." Not only does he make a reference to our government in this paragraph, but to the party classifications. The article was written in a time of expansion and growth in the government, something Smith ties into baseball. This is seen clearly here, "Certainly the...