Analysis Of Nap Time By Matt Mccarthy: The Complexity Of Sleep

Baseball statistics have gotten increasingly complicated over time. Once upon a time, people primarily used counting stats like RBIs, home runs and stolen bases. Some of the most complicated statistics were stats like batting average, fielding percentage and ERA basically requiring little more math than average division. Then, there were statistics like FIP, wOBA and WAR. These are difficult to calculate but are reasonably simple to understand. A higher wOBA and WAR is better than a lower one. Now, with data from Statcast and Pitch Fx available to the public, it allows us the creation of new statistics that are difficult to both calculate and understand. One of these metrics is exit velocity.

In Matt McCarthy’s “Nap Time”, he discusses the “most mysterious” of all needs - sleep. McCarthy uses the story of Mike Napoli to introduce this topic. Napoli’s story of his struggle with sleep apnea includes some bizarre elements. Firstly, he cites his “first dream in a decade” that he can actually remember (p. 49).

It is a common belief in Major-League baseball that a pitch limit for a starting pitcher is needed to reduce chances of injury. The idea of a pitch limit was first recommended by James Andrews, perhaps the most credible expert on Tommy John surgery. “James Andrews, the renowned orthopedic surgeon, suggested 100 -- a ballpark figure -- in a 1999 study titled "Elbow Injuries in Young Baseball Players" with James Whiteside. Even 17 years later, this study is still frequently cited” (FoxSports.com, 2016). Dr. Andrews did this for a variety of reasons. For one, it limits stress on the arm. In 2004, Baseball Prospectus came out with a formula they had used to measure “Pitcher Abuse Points”, or the amount of stress that is put on a pitcher’s arm

The cause of sleep is an active inhibitory process .An earlier theory of sleep was that the excitatory areas of the upper brain stem,the reticular activating system, simply fatigued during the waking day and became inactive as a result. This was called the passive theory of sleep. An important experiment changed this view to the current belief that sleep is caused by an active inhibitory process: it was discovered that transecting the brain stem at the level of the midpons creates a brain whose cortex never goes to sleep.In other words, there seems to be some center located below the midpontile level of the brain stem that is required to cause sleep by inhibiting other parts of the

Around 45 million children aged 6-18 play organized sports in the United States; each dedicating their time to becoming the best in their league. This pressure to be the best comes from everyone that surrounds them; their parents, coaches, and even teammates push them to give their all. However, in recent years, there had been a heated debate about whether these sports are becoming too intense for young, developing athletes. Many argue that the competition of organized sports places way too much pressure on the shoulders of young athletes, and can be mentally and physically harmful to developing athletes. Others argue however, that sports help to teach young athletes the values of discipline and hardwork. Although youth sports place a large

In the Newsela article, “Opinion: Time for baseball to pick up the pace” by Bob Klapisch, the claim is that baseball games are taking way too long now. “ Sitting through nine innings, especially in the postseason, was a test of patience, if not one’s sanity” (Paragraph 1). The author stsaed the claim in the beginning and dusted it with lots of evidence. They even included some ways they could reduce the amount of time the baseball games take. “ As the commissioner told ESPN earlier in the year, “This topic is like dandelions. The minute you look the other way, you’ve got them all over your lawn” (Paragraph 3). This man was talking about how the baseball games have continued to become longer every year, and he compared them to dandelions growing fast over your yard, you

Do college athletes throw their bodies away so programs can succeed and benefit? College athletes put more into the school than regular students. College athletes should be paid for playing because the sport they are participating in is essentially their job, they have no time to do any other activity because it will interfere with their schedules. Another reason I believe this is because of the profit the school makes off of the players. If you or your child was an athlete giving your all to a school and you were still struggling financially to where you can barely take care of yourself would you believe in paying them then?

In the article “Baseball Magic” by George Gmelch, he discusses the routine rituals, taboos, and fetishes in which baseball pitchers and hitters engage in when they are about to play a game or during a game. Gmelch reveals the reasoning behind these activities using the approach by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. These rituals help the players feel as though they have a sense of control even though the game is based on luck and chance. The way these players develop these rituals is when they win, they associate their win with the events leading up to their win so they repeat these events before every game. He talks about how the baseball players believe that these rituals produce some magic that helps them control their wins and losses

In his opinion, baseball’s situation is not as bad as everyone is making it out to be. According to the data, the difference in popularity between football and baseball is steadily declining while the split between baseball and basketball is steadily rising. For example, 56% of Americans do not follow basketball compared to the 47% who do not follow baseball. Even though baseball suffers from long game times, young people age 18-29 watch baseball more closely than basketball. This statistic contradicts the common belief that young people do not find baseball interesting. The one area basketball has baseball beat is in its postseason television ratings (Gaines, 2015). If baseball can quicken the pace of games and generate more excitement for playoff games, then its future can be even more secure compared to other sports. Although I have a problem with the way the author interprets the data (his language exaggerates the gap between baseball and basketball), I trust the numbers. If statistics show that baseball is not dying, then it makes my research more relevant for future

State Thesis & Main Points: Having trouble sleeping can cause you not to function as efficiently, but there are ways to help

Neatorama tells a story about an experiment that shows the effects of sleep deprivation. Traveling back to 1965 where a young 16 year old student still holds the record for the longest period of being awake. This student conducted an experiment that lasted 11 days or 264 hours. Randy Gardner spent every minute of these 11 days awake without any type of stimulate. So this means no caffeine to help keep him awake. This experiment was self-imposed. Randy Gardner experienced some of the discussed topics. These include problems with his long term memory as well as problems with his mental health. By the second day Gardner lacked focus and had complications with recognizing object even by touch. The third day he began to be negative in thoughts and his words. At one point in this experiment, Randy hallucinated that he was a black football player even though he was a not very muscular as well as being white. In 1959 there was a test on four puppies by keeping them awake for five days. The outcome of these puppies was death so there was a lot of questioning on what would happen to Randy. Eventually his memory was affected and could not remember even what he was

My roommate has been coming back to the dorm at all hours of the night, disrupting my sleep. This has caused my sleep cycle to be disturbed and have become sleep deprived.

In life, people will experience different things that will have an influence on who they are as well as who they will become. These experiences are in direct correlation to future success. Some believe that most of these experiences are outside of one 's own control, such as where he was born, where he goes to school or even a financial situation. While this makes sense, there is one thing that is within one 's control that will greatly increase the likelihood of one 's achievements. Playing sports in high school has a positive impact on future success.

regeneration. But if a student does not get the required hours of sleep, their body cannot fully regenerate, which is why students feel tired when they lack sleep.

Playing sports is a great recreational activity. It doesn’t only provide you an avenue to have fun but it is also generally good for your health. But like most activities, playing sports can put you at risk of sustaining an injury such as an ankle injury.