User talk:Joseph

Do not get me wrong, I have a great life, I have four amazing kids and a gorgeous wife. but just like everyone else in this world I need a getaway from it all. Life can get hard, and we all need something we enjoy to keep us from going crazy. With four kids, my days are full of excitement, we are always on the go, hardly ever a dull moment. thankfuly we still have nap time. at which time I find my Perfect Getaway.

I found sports to be my getaway, whether it be Baseball, Football, Boxing, Basketball, Golf, Tennis, and sometimes Hockey. I will say that Baseball is my favorite from all of the above, then Boxing is a very close second.

Hate is such a strong word to use when expressing emotions, I do not like to use that word often but in some cases I very well have to use it, for instance mma, ufc,

Green Bay Packers, ST.Louis Cardinals, USC Trojans and last but not least Auburn Tigers. From the list above of the teams I hate, mma and ufc are the worst. I just can not stand them. one good reason will be the fact that I love boxing. real die hard fans of boxing feel the same as I do. mma is a joke to the fight game, its just a glorified version of WWE. ufc took the best wwe matches (cage matches) and took the best ideals from boxing, combined the two minus the acting from wwe, and created a show. real fights? I do not think so. I watched plenty of ufc shows and never was I pleased or amazed by anything that took place. never have I said wow that fight was awesome. now i could use the more popular terms for a ufc employee but i will not act on that. ufc is just another company that is gaining recognition off wwe's fans, ufc hired Brock Lesnar to come in and bring the wwe fans with him. and he did just that, Lesnar won a heavyweight tiltle in ufc after just 3 fights, even tho he lost 1 of those 3. I do not see how that is even possible. the two biggest stars of ufc in the past five years are a former wwe star and a guy they plucked off the streets. ok enough about my hatred towards mma/ufc. I need to get back to my love for the sports that have real talented athletes.

I will start with Baseball, it all begins on opening day, I feel opening day should be a recognized holiday. I do not think I am the only one. I celebrate opening day with my family, we cook on the grill, Hot dogs, Brats, we have peanuts and of course whats a good Baseball game without a cold beer. on opening day we watch as many games as we can. but then its back to just a game or two a day. for those three hours that I sit and watch a baseball game I feel free from all my worries, i escape to that perfect getaway. I could watch a baseball game that has a final score of 1-0 and feel pleased that i just witnessed a shut out. it's easy for me t find pleasure in a baseball game. I know that at any giving time during a baseball game something magical can happen, and thats all I need. so many small things about the game of baseball make it so great. the fact that you can fail seventy percent of the time and still be considered great, that alone sets baseball apart from other sports.and other then boxing it's the hardest sport to become a professional. hardly ever do you see a college player go from college straight to the major leagues. altho few have done such a thing, but its not likely. that is what makes baseball so speacial a player has to earn his way to the top, it is a very long road and for the ones that do make it, they become more then just a baseball player, most become hero's, idol's and some become role modle's.

my passion for baseball began in 1998. the year that plenty of baseball fans remember as the Home run race. which is what got my attention, Mark Mcgwire vs. Sammy Sosa, Mcgwire won the race that year with 70 home runs, beating Sosa by 4 (66) Mcgwire's 70th was the new single season home run record. but it would not last long, Barry Bonds hit 73 in 2001.

What should we think about when i say 1998 baseball season? well it should be the record that the New York Yankees set. they won 114 games that year ( most ever by any franchise in MLB history) but it was over shadowed by the home run race.

and now we find ourselfs thinking that Mcgwire,Sosa and bonds should not be apart of baseball's Hall of Fame. i know that a few players have said that they took steroids. but still they put baseball on top again. that reason alone Mcgwire and Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame. I do not have a say on who gets in and who stays out, but if I did, Mcgwire and Bonds would have my vote every time.

We have seen the steriod days of baseball come and go, now we have a game that puts all focus on pitching and defense. still very exciting to watch. the double play, its such a sweet thing to witness, watching a batter strike out swinging with two outs and the game on the line, the pitchers reaction to that. seeing fans fill the ball park during a day game. I could sit and watch baseball all day long,Baseball is one of the few sports that I will say its better to watch live then on tv, but I still think its great to watch on tv.one thing that sets it apart from the other three majors sports is, the game is never over till the end. by that i mean the score could be 7-0 with two outs bottom of the 9th, bases are empty, and a full count (3 balls 2 strikes) and they still have a chance to win. if a football team was down by just 3 scores going into the 4th quarter they would more then likely lose.

just one swing of the bat can turn the whole game around. yes I became a fan of baseball because the home run, but I no longer need it. i found thers is so much more to the game then home runs.

I hope you enjoyed reading this. tomorrow I will try to put my passion for boxing into words, and talk about what changes can and should be made to the world of boxing and it's fans.

thank you for reading.