--w t -~ -~w-- WPFP q mw WV q IRW 1 13 TeMchgnDiy - . edne sda, .ctbr , 06 0 ' SB. - Intiative would affect students' ng hts to education Pack your bags. Here comes the bandwagon other suffers from a chronic but curable disease. There are no easy answers, and determining who is deserving requires considering the foundation of what we value - helping the poorest, bring- ing the greatest utility or freeing those who suffer from illness. According to MCRI proponents, however, it's simple. If one of those workers is slightly more qualified, he deserves it. Race, ethnicity and gen- der certainly have nothing to do with deserving. A few will concede that socioeconomic status may play a part, that those never had access to the same resources their wealthier peers did deserve a leg-up. Others won't go so far, demanding instead a completely merit-based system. Let all those who want to attend the University of Michigan grab hold of those bootstraps and pull. Then let admissions officials pour over each applicant's test scores, grades, curriculum, and accept, reject or wait list. But test scores can be misleading. Worried stu- dents with wealthy parents can hire a private tutor to provide 32 hours of top-notch ACT test prep through Kaplan for just $3400. Kaplan also offers an ACT course for the masses, guaranteed to boost your score - it only costs $700. But then, curriculum, GPA and those all-important leader- ship activities can be misleading as well. Some schools don't have Advanced Placement courses, the most fashionable predictor of academic suc- cess. Some students have to work part-time and can't run for president of the School Spirit Pep Club. At some point, there is subjectivity. At some See BEAM, page 9B LSA junior April Nilson, RC sophomore Caleb Davenport, LSA seniors Rachel Arnsdorf and Drew Guzman and LSA sophomore Kim Leung are just some of the students that would be affected by MRCI. andwagons are fun, right? The Boston Red Sox won the World Series two years ago. Next thing you know, every East Coaster - and let's face it, everyone who wanted to look like he was from the East Coast - was sporting their pre- faded BoSox hat to Econ 101. And when last year the Chicago White Sox won the Pennant, breaking yet another curse, nearly everyone acted like they had been dreaming Chicago would return to glory since Lit- tle League. So when the Tigers clinched their first playoff berth since 1987 against Kansas City nearly a week ago, I was sure that kids would be writing home, ask- ing their parents to mail them a Tigers cap and possibly a Rodri- guez jersey. But to my surprise, there wasn't much Tigers' frenzy. A couple more kids were doting T-shirts but on the whole, the stu- dent body didn't seem to care. Yesterday was different, though. It seemed you couldn't go a block without seeing some- one in a Tigers uniform. And given the enormous East Coast contingent here at the Univer- sity, you saw equally as many Yankees caps and tees - at least there wasn't as much BoSox par- aphernalia. What I want to know? Where the hell were all of these Tigers' fans this season? Even on the cusp of the best Tigers' season in years, there was a general sense of mal- aise among most of the student body about the Tigs. Sure, you could hear people talking about the big homerun Granderson hit the night before or the 20 game lead that "no one will ever catch;' but who knew about the sing- ing of UNC ace Andrew Miller? How about when we let go Dimi- tri Young? Any discussion about Matt Stairs or Brent Clevlen? It was still shocking when I made it to my first game this sum- mer and saw fans in the stands. I simply couldn't believe my eyes. The best part about going to Tigers' games when I was young- er was running to the front rows that were always empty. The fact is, only a few people on campus have been talking about the Tigers consistently. They are the same people who made it to a number of games this summer. The same ones who have been neglecting their home- work to watch games against Kansas City, Toronto and Texas - hell, the people who paid to go see these games. But if you think about it, can you really blame these people for not caring about the Tigs, and on a more upsetting level, not car- ing about baseball as a whole? Let's take a quick look at how America's pastime became a gothic sport in Detroit. The Tigers are essentially a dynasty. As one of the longest- standing major league teams, the Tigs have fallen into and out of glory throughout their his- tory. Having won nine American League Pennants since 1907 and four World Series titles dating back to 1935 (the latest being 1984), the Tigers have made their presence known throughout the game's history. But within the last 20 or so years, the Tigers have, and let's face it, been absolutely atro- cious..With many 100-loss sea- sons, there hasn't been much reason for Detroit youngsters to care about the sport - and since most of us weren't even born to see the last Tigers' Pennant, many probably never cared about them. They haven't even been respectable since the late '80s. Sure, they had their top-notch players and an iconic manager in Sparky Anderson, but besides that, there really wasn't any rea- son to pay much attention to our feline friends - and speaking of feline heroes, when are the Lions going to be relevant? Back to baseball. It's nearly impossible to blame everyone for the lack of interest in the Tigers. To be honest, since the Major League strike in 1994 that cre- ated the first cancellation of the World Series since 1904, base- ball has been on the decline alto- gether. Fans stopped caring for their hometown teams and the game in general. A gentleman's game in con- temporary society simply isn't possible. The pace of the game is slower than the largest sports in the United States (football and basketball). Most people don't have the patience for the game, while most kids don't want to play it - especially those banished to the outfield at a time when most kids can't hit the ball past the pitcher. And who could really blame them? Baseball is mostly the pitcher/ hitter battle. If you don't under- stand it, or if you're not directly involved in it, the game really can be boring. But as a former pitcher, base- ball has always been extremely intricate and almost always enthralling. Watching how cer- tain hitters are fielded or what offensive moves and chances a manager takes is the heart of the game and surprisingly interest- ing. But I can certainly under- stand why people might not care about the game. In the days of yore, when fami- lies averaged somewhere around four children and everyone loved double-headers, peanuts and a good game of catch, it was easy for the neighborhood to get a drop in game going. Because it really does take 18 players to have a good game of baseball. There's no way to play a five vs. five game. This only adds to the decline of the game where sports like basketball and football are much easier to put ennifer Gratz's prominence in the campaign for the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative is curi- ous: Few ballot initiatives draw so heavily on the story of one person. Gratz has a reason to be upset. Back in 1995, the eager high school senior applied to the University and didn't get in. At the time, the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts used an admissions process that was later deemed unconstitutional - namely, a point system that gave each applicant a score based on all sorts of factors, including SAT or ACT score, GPA, legacy or athlete status, socio-economic status and, of course, race. Gratz had her day in court, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that indeed, the system was unconsti- tutional. The University could have all the "com- pelling interest in diversity" that it wanted, but the explicit use of points was, well, too much. The end result of the case was not only that thousands of applicants have to write a few more essays - It was her partnership with Ward Connerly to put an end to affirmative action programs in college admissions and in the public sector entirely. The argument goes that by considering race in college admissions, universities are practicing discrimination, letting immutable factors like race trump merit. That is, in a nation that should be together on a whim. But now that my time is long since past, my Little League championship - that I pitch a complete game for - and all- star games a distant memory, I'm left another one in a dying breed of die-hard baseball fans. At least when I'm old enough to join some softball beer league, there will be some intense games. But until then, I know who my Tiger is - for the record it's a tie between Curtis Granderson and Craig Monroe, with honor- able mention going to Marcus Thames for playing "Shoulder Lean" before his at-bats. And if you want to find me, I'll be the kid with the Tigers hat on during the off-season. aspiring to be a true "meritocracy," we are holding ourselves back by selecting undeserving students from underrepresented minority groups over deserving students. But how do we decide who is deserving? Some would say that a high school class president from a wealthy sub- urb who graduates at the top of his class and volunteers some 20 hours a week deserves to go to the Univer- sity. I would say that the 5-year-old enrolling in kindergarten at Detroit Public Schools deserves to receive an education that gives him a chance to go to college. Statistically speak- ing, the first student has an excellent chance of attending a good college. The second student doesn't. Deserving is complex. In his book "Democracy and Freedom," Amartya Sen uses the parable of a woman who can employ one of three quali- fied people. One man is by far the poorest; one man is the unhappi- est, having just lost his job; and the }TART A NEW o-r FRATERNITY AT MICHIGAN DEL Leave Your egwy Become a Thunding Fathei S 1 7 . 4 ( 9 3i551s 9g . o del ts8. ne8t Who wants you hired or rejected based on your skin color? Accept the challenge. Go to RaceFreeZone.com (paid for by Race Free Zone, 652 N. Adams, Owosso, MI 48867)