spin+AB

Spin Right and Shoot Left Andrew Bartlett As I was reading “Spin Right and Shoot Left”, I became intrigued about how John McPhee wrote about the sport of lacrosse. He broke everything down so that someone who had never heard of the sport at the beginning of the article would understand the most basic components of the game. He created such a vivid picture of what lacrosse looked like you could image yourself seeing a game of lacrosse or even playing it. In the article McPhee goes over all of the rules and different options that are done during the game. This part of the article was very heavy on information with fact after fact being presented to you. But, to keep you interested in the article McPhee tells his experience he had with a cab driver one day when he was going to watch a match between Princeton University and England. What stood out from this conversation was that the cab driver had never heard of lacrosse and didn’t know what it was. So, on the cab ride over to the stadium McPhee goes over the history and all of the rules with the cab driver. But, McPhee does this with such passion and interest that by the time they get to the game the cab driver has become very interested in lacrosse and wants to go with McPhee to watch the game first hand. I found this fact very interesting because McPhee was able to just talk to someone about what he knew, but did it with such enthusiasm that someone who had never heard of lacrosse or cared about the sport now had to go and experience it first hand just by talking with McPhee about it. McPhee is able to write into his stories pictures and events of places so well that you become interested in the message he is creating over what actually he has written down. In this story he wrote in the cab driver as an everyday person that you would just meet. But, McPhee makes you connect with them and start to think of yourself as that person. I found myself at the end of the article thinking that anyone who had been in that cab with McPhee could have just replaced the cab driver and still become interested in lacrosse because it wasn’t the sport that created the interest its the message McPhee created through his words. This way of writing is very different than any conventional way of writing, but it seems to work because you end up creating a story out of a piece that is just supposed to be a factual piece. By doing this you are creating a mood for your reader because you are getting them interested in the underlying story of the cab driver when in actuality it is supposed to be about the rules of lacrosse. This makes you stay interested in what McPhee has to say even if you are not interested slightly about lacrosse, since McPhee is you what to find out why he is telling you this and what his underlying message is. It’s also important to note that this article is arranged in a different manor than most journalistic articles because it starts right out by going into the rules of the lacrosse and its history without an opening explaining what the article is about. It also has facts mixed in with his story, where in most journalistic pieces it goes one topic at a time so that your reader does not become confused. What really worked in this piece was that he didn’t sum up what he was telling you he just gave you the ending of the experience he had with the cab driver and left you thinking what will happen next when McPhee and the cab driver are actually at the game. In most articles about sports people write about being at the game, where in this piece McPhee wrote about the events leading up to the game. This is totally different than how most sports articles are written up, but very effective. Type in the content of your page here.