History

An ascribed status is something that no matter who you are, whether you like it or you hate, you are born with it. The ascribed status that I was born with was nothing to brag about. Nobody in my family has attended college before my sister who attended it just a couple years ago. Overall expectations in my family are not much more then high school and then straight to work. I grew in a town called Lodi in New Jersey. Lodi is positioned right next to some questionable towns that are considered poorer like Passaic, Paterson, and Garfield. My town Lodi is grouped right in with those towns, my high school was extremely diverse and had a very low college attendance post high school.

My father who also grew up in Lodi, went to the same high school I went to and fell right into this trend. He graduated high school and right after, proceeded to become a roofer. Eventually my father branched off from a roofing company he worked for and created his own roofing company called Spero Roofing. My Mother graduated high school in Clifton and also went straight to work. The cultural capital my parents faced led them both into going straight to work after college. Cultural capital has to do with the social assets somebody has such as education and style of speech. Having just a high school education, first generation parents and living in a poorer area led them to make these decisions.

Also working against them was social capital and economic capital. My grandparents all worked extremely low paying jobs and the friends of the family all worked similar jobs. My parents both worked jobs during high school in order to help pay bills and put food on the table. Economic capital is the resources you have around you such as goods, property, and money. My parents not only never were surrounded by economic capital, they were never surrounded with the social capital to push them toward a college education. Their parents did not expect them to go to college, they expected them to work after school.

The reason I bring up my parents in such detail is because they are ultimately the reason I am here studying at Rutgers University and if you understand them you will better understand me. My parents are a perfect example of achieved status. Despite being born with extremely low ascribed status, they pushed on and were extremely successful in their areas of work. Achieved status does not care what the ascribed status was that you were born with, achieved status is what you work for and my parents are a perfect example of that. My parents have worked hard to not only provide me necessary economic capital to attend college, they provided me with the proper the social and cultural capital to get here. Unlike their parents, going to work after school was never an option to them. I can still remember in high school being frustrated with going to school and mentioning perhaps not going to college. My sister and I knew that was a big no no in our household. If one of my parents heard you suggest such, let’s just say they would be very unhappy. 

Grandpa

When I thought about this topic, I was not sure where to go with it. I am not an extremely cultured person when it comes to my culture, I have never been to Italy or the Netherlands. None of my family speaks Italian or Dutch, that being said I do still carry traditions and have something comparable to an very tight knit Italian family. So, I did not think that was interesting enough to write about. I really wanted to write about somebody in my family that has changed my life and choose somebody I considered not only a grandfather, but a best friend.

My grandfather George Spero was a true role model for me. He was a little rough around the edges, but man did he push me and show me what it was to be a man. The stories he would tell me about growing up in Brooklyn and having nothing was nothing short of inspiring. It made me realize how spoiled I was to have such an ample amount of opportunities and how much tougher life could be. The main thing me and my grandfather bonded over was baseball. My grandfather was always extremely generous to me, he would buy me baseball bats, helmets, gloves etc. My grandfather was a baseball coach for fifty years, he not only coached me and my father, but numerous sets of cousins.

I still remember going to the old Yankee Stadium and him buying me ice cream at the end of the game. Now you may be saying how did going to Yankee Stadium change your history. The relationship me and grandfather had fostered my love for baseball. If I have one passion in my life it is easily baseball, if you have not been able to tell by the fact that most of my posts are about baseball. My grandfather is what instilled baseball into my father's blood, and my father pushed me to enjoy baseball as much as he did. Not even joking, when I was a kid all I did was eat and sleep baseball. A normal kid might watch cartoons in the morning, I used to watch baseball tonight reruns looking for the scores of the previous games. I played on three different teams during the spring baseball season and two teams during the fall ball season. My grandfather would always be at the games no matter what, my dad coached most of those teams, so personally I feel baseball is what made us so close. I still remember my grandmother hollering at me, my father and grandfather at dinner because we would non stop babble about baseball. Whether it was Yankee baseball, Little League baseball, or private baseball leagues I played in. Man, if I had a bad game, I had to deal with more then just one father haha. I would get what I did wrong from my father and then my grandfather would be waiting to tell me what I did wrong. Sadly my Grandfather passed away years ago suddenly. Sadly this really made me appreciate what he was and meant to me. He was someone I could always turn to for help and really taught me right from wrong. I always write about my grandfather when I get the chance because I do not want him to get lost in history.

Steroids in the MLB

The Major League Baseball is one of the largest sport leagues not only in the country, but in the world. Known as America's past time baseball in the hearts of many. The season is long and each team plays one hundred sixty two games per season. For those who have been involved in any type of sport imagine how taxing that might be. Often these players will play twelve games in thirteen days. Last year the Yankees played fourteen games in fourteen days and none were home, that is right consistent traveling across the united states. Clearly the scheduling for these players is taxing and at no point are they well rested, when these players become tired that is when injuries happens.

Baseball has been faced with an epidemic of steroids starting and escalating to maximum usage during the 1990s. Players like Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, and Sammy Sosa abused steroids. These players used their superior natural ability combined with steroids to stay healthy and stronger. Battling each other for the single season home run records they tarnished the records books of the MLB. Many people questioned these so called records that these players were breaking, calling for *** next to the names in the record books.

Insane that people did not realize that steroids were being used, look at this before and after picture of Barry Bonds. The one on the left you can see he is skinny, Bonds was primarily a speedy player that hit for some power. But, after taking steroids he turned in a bomb hitting monster seen on the right.

Now the reason this is a social issue is because we all  know that these players are using steroids to get ahead in their careers. People look up to these stars and seeing their usage of steroids might drive them to take shortcuts in their jobs, which is not okay. The other big problem is increased usage and trick-down that is falling down to high school and college level.

Steroids are an extremely unhealthy and hurtful entity to the human body. Steroids have created a competitive edge that is killing players that refuse to use these harmful drugs. It has caused legitimacy issues within the game of baseball and it hurts has a hardcore baseball fan to wonder what exactly is real and what is embellished by steroids. You question what team should of really won the world series.

It is a real shame that when I turn on sports radio around hall of fame voting for the MLB I have to hear arguments over whether Barry Bonds should be a hall of famer. The guy hit the most home runs ever, the most single season homeruns and top five in runs batted in. The best hitter probably ever stats are basically being discredited, makes you feel like you were cheated watching him break all these records. Despite steroids being used slightly less, randomly they will catch people and it makes you wonder how many people are using and just have not been caught.