There is severe classic tragedy within major-league baseball, tragedy which catches and manipulates the fife of every athlete as surely as forces beyond the heaths manipulated Hardy’s simple Wes-sex folks into creatures of imposing stature.
Major-league baseball is an insecure society; it pays a lavish salary to an athlete and then, when he reaches thirty-five or so, it abruptly stops paying him anything. But the tragedy goes considerably deeper than that. Briefly, it is the tragedy of fulfillment.
Each major leaguer, like his childhood friends, always wanted desperately to become a major leaguer. Whenever there was trouble at home, in school, or with a girl, there was the sure escape of baseball; not the stumbling, ungainly escape of an ordinary ballplayer, but a sudden, wondrous metamorphosis into the role of a hero. For each major leaguer was first a star in his neighborhood or in his town, and each rived with the unending solace that there was one thing he could always do with grace and skill and poise. Somehow, he once believed with the most profound faith he possessed, that if he ever did make the major leagues, everything would then become ideal.
A major-league baseball team is comprised of twenty-five youngish men who have made the major leagues and discovered that, in spite of it, life remains distressingly short of ideal. In retrospect, they were better off during the years when their adolescent dream was happily simple and vague. Among the twenty-five youngish men of a ball club, who individually held the common dream which came to be fulfilled, cynicism and disillusion are common as grass. So Willie Mays angrily announces that he will henceforth charge six hundred dollars to be interviewed, and Duke Snider shifts his dream-site from a ball park to an avocado farm overlooking the Pacific, and Peewee Reese tries to fight off a momentary depression by saying, "Sure I dreamt about baseball when I was a kid, but not the night games. No, sir. I did not dream about the fights. "
For most men, the business of shifting and reworking dreams comes late in life, when there are older children upon whose unwilling shoulders the tired dreams may be deposited. It is a harsh, jarring thing to have to shift dreams at thirty, and if there is ever to be a major novel written about baseball, it will have to come to grips with this theme.
The first paragraph indicates that______.
A.winning and losing ball games are both heartbreaking experiences
B.no baseball player can escape the tragedy inherent in major-league baseball
C.tragedy catapults baseball players into creatures of imposing stature
D.Hardy, the novelist, wrote ennobling stories about athletes
Suicide has been a cause of concern in most societies for a long time. The classical Greeks, for example, required people who wanted to kill themselves to get permission from the senate. While this law is not without humor by today&39; s standards, it clearly shows an awareness of the problem in times gone by.
In today&39; s society, suicide is much more prevalent than we want to admit. Why do people try to take their own lives?
The motives for suicide can be categorized into areas such as a failure, wrath(暴怒), the needfor attention, stress, and so on. However, the qualities of a person who wants to take his own life change from person to person, making it difficult to depict(描写)the typical victim. To make the problem even more confusing, people will often camouflage(掩盖)their true feelings, thus causing their friends to disregard problems that should be viewed as serious.
In the United States, a network of centers has been created to attempt to prevent suicides.People who are bitter, worded, or depressed are encouraged to contact workers at these centers. These workers, often trained volunteers, offer benevolent advice to the callers, trying to help the callers to see that suicide as a solutions to problems is an illusion. The accomplishments of these centers, insofar(到这个程度)as their effectiveness to reduce suicide is concerned, are minimal However, they have helped a lot of people with a wide variety of problems.So, in the somewhat amorphous(难以名状的)area of man helping his fellow man, they are certainly a success.
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the article?
A.The classical Greeks did not know the existence of suicide
B.Suicide has always been prevalent in all parts of the world
C.In today’s society, there are quite a number of people who commit suicide
D.Nowadays suicide is not as common as it was in the past
Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a motive for suicide?A.Insanity
B.Pressure
C.The need for attention
D.Great anger
Which of the following statements is NOT true?A.People who want to take their own lives often disguise their feelings
B.It is difficult to describe what kind of people tend to commit suicide
C.Suicide has been a problem in most societies since ancient times
D.People who commit suicide all share certain characteristics
The word “benevolent” means ()A.relevant
B.kind
C.serious
D.effective
The third paragraph mainly tells us that ()A.a network of centers has been quite effective in reducing suicide
B.a network of centers has been quite successful in reducing suicide
C.people are making efforts to help those who tend to commit suicide and in a way, they are successful
D.in theUnited States, people who want to commit suicide call a network of centers to get help