Monday, July 16, 2012
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Monday, July 16, 2012
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
d5
Baseball adds to incoming 2012-13 class
Not so simple
ALICIA KOVALCHECK
E-MAILALICIAATALIMARKO@UMICH.EDU.
Michigan's co-Mr..
Baseball will enroll
in the fall
By COLLEEN THOMAS
Daily Sports Editor
New Michigan baseball head
coach Erik Bakich, known for
his excellent recruiting skills, is
already mak-
ing strides at the NOTEBOOK
helm of the Wol-
verines' program.
On Thursday, it was announced
that right-handed pitcher Alex
Daar will enroll at Michigan begin-
ning in the fall.
Daar joins nine other incoming
freshmen - including fellow pitch-
ers Jake Balicki and Tim Shannon
- to help a team that finished at the
bottom of the Big Ten standings.
Daar was the co-Mr. Baseball in
the state of Michigan in 2012, and
was selected to the All-State first
team and the MSHBCA Dream
Team. He attended University
Liggett, where he went 28-3 on
the mound in his last two seasons,
helping the Knights clinch a state
championship in 2011 and finish as
runners-up in 2012.
"We are thrilled to add Alex to
this year's recruiting class," Bakich
said in a statement released by the
Michigan athletic department on
Thursday. "He had a tremendous
amount of success on the field
this year and is very deserving of
the Mr. Baseball award. We look
forward to his contributions as a
pitcher in Maize and Blue."
Daar, Balicki and Shannon are
just three of the five pitchers that
will be added to Michigan's roster
in the fall. The Wolverines didn't
fare well on the mound in 2012,
sitting near the bottom of almost
every Big Ten pitching statistics
category.
FUTURE ACES: Sophomore
Trent Szkutnik is making a name
for himself in his summer appear-
ances.
Szkutnik pitched a no-hitter on
June 26, as he struck out 14 while
walking just two in his appearance
for the Dayton Docs. The Temper-
ance, Mich. native secured the
win as Dayton topped Grand Lake,
10-0.
As of July 11, Szkutnik is 3-2
with a 3.10 ERA while striking out
35 batters in 29 innings of work.
He was invited to the Great Lakes
League All-Star game as a part of
the 2012 Great Lakes Summer Col-
legiate League North All-Stars.
And two other pitchers look to
improve their game to help a Wol-
verines' staff that had one of the Big
Ten's worst ERAs.
Senior Ben Ballantine, pitching
for the Cotuit Kettleers in the Cape
Sophomore Trent Szkutnik was named to the Great Lakes League All-Star team for his summer work with the Dayton Docs.
Cod League, and sophomore Matt
Ogden, a hurler for Morehead City
in the Coastal Plain League, have
improved their game, as well.
In his June 19 appearance, Bal-
lantine went eight innings, giving
up just three runs.
Ogden fanned seven in his start
and has a 2.04 ERA.
SILVER SLUGGERS: Junior
Michael O'Neill and sophomore
Will Drake are picking up right
where they left off at the end of the
season.
O'Neill hit a grand slam in his
June 30 appearance with Fal-
mouth, accounting for four of the
eight runs in the Commodores' 8-2
win. As of July 1, the junior slugger
has four home runs and 11 RBIs in
the Cape Cod League.
Drake, after a fantastic fresh-
man campaign that was cut short
by injury, is hitting .286 with six
RBIs as a Member of the Dayton
Does.
In addition, senior Patrick Bion-
di was named Cape Cod Hitter of
the Week on July 8. Biondi boost-
ed his batting average with three
multi-hit games during the week.
He leads in the Cape Cod League
with his .404 batting average.
In June, state Sen. Bert Johnson
(D-Detroit) introduced a bill that
would raise Michigan's minimum
wage to $10 per
hour by 2015.
He claimed in
a press release
that a high-
er minimum
wage would
improve stan-
dards of living
and stimulate MATTHEW
job creation. ZABKA
At first glance,
this seems to
make sense. If
all workers who make the current
minimum wage of $7.40 per hour
instead made $10 per hour, their
standards of living would go up.
How coulddanybody be against
higher standards of living?
While Johnson goes on to imply
that Republicans' opposition to his
bill is hurting working families,
the economics of minimum wage
is - at least at first glance - coun-
terintuitive, and there are sound
economic reasons for opposing
higher minimum wage.
Every introductory econom-
ics textbook uses a basic example
- typically an employer who is
unwilling to hire an employee
for a certain wage - which dem-
onstrates that minimum wage
distorts market equilibriums.
In particular, minimum wage
increases unemployment.
Even worse, those hit hard-
est by minimum wage are almost
always the poor. Since Java pro-
grammers, rocket scientists and
professional football players have
more lucrative options, they aren't
willing to sweep floors for $6
per hour. When minimum wage
increases, it is the unskilled work-
ers who are left jobless.
Most economists follow this
standard theory, but to be fair, there
are a few scholars who believe that
increasing the minimum wage
does not increase unemployment.
While supporters of minimum
wage love to sing the praise of the
minority of economists who doubt
whether minimum wage increases
unemployment, these supporters'
actions often singa different tune.
Remember the Association for
Community Organizations for
Reform Now, the former collection
of community-based organizations
and frequent supporter of raising
the minimum wage? In the '90s,
ACORN filed a court brief seek-
ing to exempt itself from a new,
higher minimum wage that stated,
"The more that ACORN must pay
each individual outreach worker -
either because of minimum wage
or overtime requirements - the
fewer outreach workers it will be
able to hire." So ACORN support-
ed minimum wage - as long as it
didn't have to paytheir workers the
minimum wage.
The minimum
wage increases
unemployment.
More recently, the last national
minimum wage increase applied
to all U.S. states and territories -
except for a special exception for
the tiny island territory of Ameri-
can Samoa, 40 percent of whose
workforce worked in the tuna
canning industry. Some specu-
late that since the tuna canneries'
firms were based in then-Speaker
of the House Nancy Pelosi's (D-
Calif.) district, she inserted the
special provision to avoid what
she knew would lead to a less com-
petitive tuna industry. When the
press pointed out this exception,
an embarrassed Pelosi asked Con-
gress to include Samoa in the mini-
mum wage increase.
Whether the former speaker
was responsible for the attempted
kickback may never be known, but
the effect that a higher minimum
wage is having on the no longer
exempt American Samoa is cer-
tain. In 2010, Chicken of the Sea
closed its canning facility and dis-
placed more than 2,000 workers,
a whopping 3 percent of American
Samoa's population. In one of its
last acts, the 2010 Congress - over-
whelmingly filled with representa-
tives who have loudly supported a
higher minimum wage - quietly
voted 386-5 to delay any further
minimum wage increase for Amer-
ican Samoa.
Both economic theory and real-
life observations suggest that rais-
ing the minimum wage increases
unemployment, but it's hard to
fault policy makers like Johnson for
seeking to increase the minimum
wage when that's what his constit-
uents want. So it's important for
citizens to be either informedvot-
ers or uninformed non-voters.
Matthew Zabka can be reached
at mzbka@umich.edu . Follow him
on Twitter at @MatthewZabka.
.4
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HEATHER BURCHAM I
Through maize-colored glasses.
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All utilities, High-speed Internet
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Phone: (734) 662-4414 (extOO)
Big Ten, Pac-12 call off agreement
By COLLEEN THOMAS
Daily Sports Editor
The Big Ten and Pac-12 sched-
uling agreement that was planned
to begin in 2017 was called off on
Friday.
Scheduling issues involving a
few Pac-12 teams hindered the
collaboration, which included
a 12-game round-robin football
schedule, matchups involving
other sports and an agreement
betweenthe two conferences' tele-
vision networks.
"We are disappointed to
announce today that the Big Ten
Pac-12 strategic collaboration
announced jointly in December
2011 unfortunately will not be
consummated," said'Big Ten com-
missioner Jim Delany in a press .
release on Friday. "We recently
learned from Pac-12 commissioner
Larry Scott that the complications
associated with coordinating a
non-conference football schedule
for 24 teams across two confer-
ences proved to be too difficult.
Those complications, among other
things, included the Pac-12's nine-
game conference schedule and
previous non-conference commit-
ments."
He added: First seen on
"A - great
effort. was -the game
made by both
conference staffs to create football
schedules that would address the
variety of complexities, but in the
end, we were just not able to do so.
While everyone at the Big Ten is
disappointed by the news, we look
forward to continuing the historic
partnership that we have with the
Pac-12 and to working together on
other matters in the future."
Michigan released its 2014-16
non-conference schedules on June
27, where the Wolverines would
play a home-and-home series
against Utah in addition to games
against Colorado and Oregon
State.
But the Wolverines will keep its
2014-16 non-conference schedules,
keeping the Utes, Buffalo and Bea-
vers on their schedule in future
years.
Since this deal is suspended,
the.Big Ten will look to expand its
conference schedule from eight to
nine games or will reach out to col-
laborate with other conferences.
Nine Big Ten games would
eliminate any discrepancies in
naming a conference champion,
but a deal with another conference
could potentially boost a resume
for the future playoff selection
committee.
From my first football game to my last appearance
at the Big House, where I processed across the field in
my cap and gown along with thousands of my peers,
I've felt a mounting feeling of University of Michi-
gan pride. I've recognized the blue blood coursing
through my veins with each day spent sitting in class
in East Hall or Mason Hall, walking across the Diag
and eating lunch at the Union, transforming me into a
pure-bred Wolverine. I've never felt so much a part of
something greater than myself than when I sat in the
stands on April 22, 2012 listening to Dr. Sanjay Gupta
give the commencement address.
Fast forward about two and a half months as I walk
across campus on my way to the bank from my Ker-
rytown apartment. The buildings that once appeared
mountainous and awe-inspiring now seem a bit aver-
age, even flawed. In the quiet heat of summer, the city
ofAnn Arbor seems to engulf and overpower the cam-
pus, where the campus always seemed to stand pow-
erfully above the rest of the city. I feel like an adult
returning to her favorite childhood amusement park.
In many ways, I remembered it to be bigger and more
exciting "back then." I see students in "High School.
Class of 2010" t-shirts, relishing their summer campus
experience, and I suddenly feel so much older than I
did on April 22. I wonder when the maize and blue
chapter of my life ended and this new one began.
Since graduating, I've felt very conflicted about
leaving Michigan in the fall to go to graduate school
in Massachusetts. I've been very hesitant to leave this
place and the life that I love here in Ann Arbor. Yet,
walking past the Diag once more, on my way back to
my apartment, I realize that I'm finally a victor. I've
conquered this great mountain in my life: a University
of Michigan education. Where these buildings and
this campus once seemed so huge and daunting - as I
stood at the foot of my undergraduate career, looking
up -they now seem small andunimpressive asI stand
at the summit of the mountain looking down at all that
I've accomplished. Now that I've been able to remove
my maize-colored glasses, I can pass them on to the
next generation of Wolverines so they can also fall in
love with the beauty and wonder of the University of
Michigan. Finally, it's time to move forward.
Heather Burcham is a 2012 University alum.
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