Sports Media

The different texts given in the book range from sports journalism to pop culture comments and Sports Illustrated. Just a side note, in the first article by Thad Mumford, I did not understand half of the words he was saying, but I think I got the overall gist of things. I also do not exactly understand the prompt for this blog, so I am just going to write what I think. Mumford's New York Times article was a bit unusual and hard to understand. However, the points he brings up make me want to delve deeper into "issues of cultural identity." Boyd's comments on the young, Black, rich and famous were much easier to understand and I liked the way he summed things up in his last paragraph about the shift and power and who's really in charge. Zirin's article from The Nation brought in a different aspect about Dominican-born baseball stars. The sad story of "Super Mario" draws in the emotions of the reader and poses somewhat of an ethical and cultural dilemma. I thought the Sports Illustrated covers on page 467 were kind of funny. One shows Serena Williams in an candid shot during a tennis championship and the other shows Kournikova posing somewhat sexually with make up, hair done, etc. It's interesting that the magazine uses both views of tennis players and almost seems to show a little underlying racism. I didn't really enjoy the MEF's transcript much, just way too much to read.