[其他] 见证学习的过程，说说我们进行的教材学习片段（GLENCOE COURSE 1）

这本书，主要讲的是老师不在了，班上的同学靠自己定纪律，定规则，自己管理自己。

没错。

俺家就要求双语互译，都要地道才算。

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-14 12:43 编辑


我不要求儿子双语翻译地道。

我目的只一个：判断他有没有理解正确，就可以。

所以，这就要求我自己先要理解文章，那样的话，只要孩子一句话，一个字，甚至一个动作，一个表情什么的，我就能知道他理解得对不对了。

我们阅读的课文，几乎都是这样下来的。

另外，我也不希望儿子在阅读英文时，想着翻译成中文，这样会破坏孩子阅读的乐趣，也增加了阅读的难度。

学中文就看中文书，学英文就看英文书。

你可以大概说说概况，中文英文说，都可以。

但不必说得很完整，很地道。

是这本书吗？ 看封面题目下面还有一行字：Mr. Fabiano will be out today

难以教孩子啊

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-14 15:19 编辑

再引该课文里的一段，男孩穿着这件绿JACKET去上学，因为怕人嘲笑，他宁可不穿。
红字部分应该是冻得起“鸡皮疙瘩”的意思吧。

老外的毛孔大，不是鸡皮，成了鹅皮了。

Even though it was cold, I took off the jacket during lunch and played kickball in a thin shirt, my arms feeling like Braille from goose bumps.

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-14 15:39 编辑

还是这篇课文，红字部分的比喻，又有点费心思看了。

And so I went, in my guacamole-colored jacket. So embarrassed, so hurt, I couldn’t even do my homework. I received Cs on quizzes, and forgot the state capitals and the
rivers of South America, our friendly neighbor. Even the girls who had been friendly blew away like loose flowers to follow the boys in neat jackets.

这句的意思是 原来对他友好的女孩子也像散花一样去找衣着光鲜的男孩子了,还是心理刻画的句子  

除了这些教材，我还每天跟儿子看一本加拿大的教辅书，里面有科学、历史、数学、语言等。

尤其是历史部分，内容有限，只是几道题目，透过题目去了解，讲解历史，对我来说，也累的，呵呵！

我的要求也很简单，哪怕是熟悉几个专有名词，也是好的。

而且，我发觉加拿大出的题，是不以刁难孩子为目的的，很多答案，都半告诉，半考你的。

我们也是一页一页看完了G6。

比加州的教材，难度低多了。

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-14 17:39 编辑

红字部分的句子,都是描写的手法.看看我儿子的解释(蓝字),呵!

I blame that jacket for those bad years. I blame my mother for her bad taste and her cheap ways. It was a sad time for the heart. With a friend I spent my sixth-grade year in a tree in the alley, waiting for something good to happen to me in that jacket, which had become the ugly brother who tagged along wherever I went. And it was about that time that I began to grow. My chest puffed up with muscle and, strangely, a few more ribs. Even my hands, those fleshy hammers, showed bravely through the cuffs (意思就是他的身体变强壮了), the fingers already hardening for the coming fights. But that L- shaped rip on the left sleeve got bigger, bits of stuffing coughed out from its wound after a hard day of play. (衣服里的东西,掉出来了) I finally Scotch-taped it closed, but in rain or cold weather the tape peeled off like a scab and more stuffing fell out until that sleeve shriveled into a palsied (衣服里的东西出来,直到袖子没了) arm. That winter the elbows began to crack and whole chunks of green began to fall off. I showed the cracks to my mother, who always seemed to be at the stove with steamed-up glasses, and she said that there were children in Mexico who would love that jacket. I told her that this was America and yelled that Debbie, my sister, didn’t have a jacket like mine. I ran outside, ready to cry, and climbed the tree by the alley to think bad thoughts and watch my breath puff white and disappear.

我们在中国,学英语,要完全脱离中文,似乎有点不合实际,其实怎样"有中文",还是有区别的,我觉得孩子与家长之间的默契,还有家长对孩子的了解:承受力的了解,学习能力的了解.....这些都是需要细心体会的.

本帖最后由 果果花儿 于 2012-6-14 17:53 编辑

那个大段大段的文字我看来真的好难懂哦，佩服david和david的妈妈啊！{:soso_e179:}

那个flying solo，我觉得solo就是单独一个人的意思，那么flying solo翻译的关键点就是：独自、飞。结合不同的语境就产生了不同的意思。

看了H版给的封面，我才明白为什么david给出了那个解释。翻译出那个意思的关键点应该并不是这两个单词，而是那个图和下面的那行小字。

换个语境，flying solo也许可以翻译成“单飞”“独自飞翔”甚至就是“独闯天下”，比如讲述一个小孩子离开父母，第一次独立去处理一些事情，参加一个独立的夏令营等等，也许都可以用这个题目。

同样的flying，在这两个语境中我觉得好似还有点差别。比如在老师外出的时候，这个flying可能更多的表示脱离了老师，孩子们无拘无束、把戏百出，快乐都快要飞起来了，也或者是冲破了规矩的那种“飞”。而小孩子离开父母的flying solo，指的更多的可能是“脱离了父母庇护、从老母鸡翅膀下离开、羽翼渐丰”的“单飞”。

大家看我儿子的那些翻译就知道，我们进行的理解，哪怕是用中文表达出来的，其实都是意会，而不是英语句子中的确切意思。

所以说，我的目标仅仅是阅读理解大概正确，就可以了。

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-14 22:44 编辑

I wore that thing for three years until the sleeves grew short and my forearms stuck out like the necks of turtles. All during that time no love came to me—no little dark girl in a Sunday dress she wore on Monday. At lunchtime I stayed with the ugly boys who leaned against the chainlink fence and looked around with propellers of grass spinning in our mouths. We saw girls walk by alone, saw couples, hand in hand, their heads like bookends pressing air together. We saw them and spun our propellers so fast our faces were blurs.

I was called to dinner: steam silvered my mother’s glasses as she said grace; my brother and sister with their heads bowed made ugly faces at their glasses of powdered milk. I gagged too, but eagerly ate big rips of buttered tortilla that held scooped-up beans. Finished, I went outside with my jacket across my arm. It was a cold sky. The faces of clouds were piled up, hurting. I climbed the fence, jumping down with a grunt. I started up the alley and soon slipped into my jacket, that green ugly brother who breathed over my shoulder that day and ever since.

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-14 23:25 编辑

来首诗吧。

The World Is Not a Pleasant Place to Be
by Nikki Glovanmi

the world is not a pleasant place
to be without
someone to hold and be held by

a river would stop
its flow if only
a stream were there
to receive it


an ocean would never laugh
if clouds weren’t there
to kiss her tears

the world is not
a pleasant place to be without
someone

List three synonyms
for the word “pleasant”. If you want to, use a thesaurus.
Why do you think the poet chose the
word “pleasant” instead of one of its synonyms?

Would the world be less pleasant without family, friends, or pets in your life?

no little dark girl in a Sunday dress she wore on Monday.

Ester  比他衣着更不合时宜的女孩子都看不上他。。。  

这个SUNDAY DRESS 和 MONDAY DRESS 什么区别？

本帖最后由 Ester 于 2012-6-15 15:23 编辑

Sunday dress是去教堂的，比较正式。（黑人女孩尤其重视这个，你读很多黑人作家的书，都会有周日去教堂穿上最好的衣服这种细节）。

如果一个女孩子周一穿周日穿的衣服，从另一个侧面说明可能也是一个因贫穷而衣著不合时宜或衣著寒酸的孩子。

这是我的理解。。。

-----------------

Sex and City 有一个细节，Carie周日去教堂外面觊觎Mr.Big陪他母亲去教堂，大家从教堂出来的时候，Carie 就注意到从教堂出来的人，身上都是designer 的衣服啥的，因为是个纽约的高尚社区教堂。所以Sunday dress是个传统。现在不少年轻人已经不再穿 Sunday Best，只要干净得体就行。

我跟儿子每天都要进行这个教材的，所以，虽然是不完整的，不连续的，我觉得有困惑的，或者有意思的，就帖上来。

见证在家和孩子一起看教材的过程吧。

欢迎有兴趣的朋友，经常来看看。

大家不要怕英文，英文总归是英文，其实英文背后的一些东西，跟英文一样重要。

GLENCOE是套不错的教材，我是指比加州，还详细的课文分析。

儿子这几天期末考试复习，作业N多，我们只好为复习让路了，自己在家学的好处就是随时随刻，能调整。

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-19 15:06 编辑

帖一篇，是我们将要学的课文，也是GLENCOE里的课文。讲述一个黑人棒球运动员的故事。
我一边看一边把不是很CLEAR的句子，或者我觉得描写比较地道的句子，用红色涂上。不是一下子能看完的。一段一段来。

P209 Satchel Paige by Bill Littlefield
Late in the afternoon of July 9, 1948, Leroy “Satchel” Paige began the long walk from the bullpen to the mound at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium. He didn’t hurry. He never hurried. As he said himself, he “kept the juices flowing by jangling gently” as he moved. The crowd roared its appreciation. This was the fellow they’d come to see.


When Satchel finally reached the mound, Cleveland manager Lou Boudreau took the ball from starting pitcher Bob Lemon, who would eventually be voted into the Hall of Fame but had tired that day, and gave it to Paige. Probably he said something like, “Shut ‘em down, Satchel.” Whatever he said, Paige had no doubt heard the words a thousand times. Though he was a rookie with the Indians that year, no pitcher in the history of baseball had ever been more thoroughly prepared for a job. He kicked at the rubber, looked in for the sign, and got set to throw. In a moment, twenty-odd years later than it should have happened, Satchel Paige would deliver his first pitch in the big leagues.


The tall, skinny kid named Leroy Paige became Satchel Paige one day at the railroad station in Mobile, Alabama. He was carrying bags for the folks getting on and off the trains, earning all the nickels and dimes he could to help feed his ten brothers and sisters. Eventually it occurred to him that if he slung a pole across his narrow shoulders and hung the bags, or satchels, on the ends of the pole, he could carry for more people at once and collect more nickels and dimes. It worked, but it looked a little funny. “You look like some kind of ol’ satchel tree,” one of his friends told him, and the nickname stuck.
Even in those days, before he was a teenager, Satchel Paige could throw hard and accurately. Years later, Paige swore that when his mother would send him out into the yard to get a chicken for dinner, he would brain the bird1 with a rock. “I used to kill flying birds with rocks, too,” he said. “Most people need shotguns to do what I did with rocks.”


It was not a talent that would go unnoticed for long. He was pitching for the semipro2 Mobile Tigers before he was eighteen . . . or maybe before he was sixteen, or before he was twelve. There is some confusion about exactly when Satchel Paige was born, and Satchel never did much to clarify the matter. But there never has been any confusion about whether he could pitch. His first steady job in baseball was with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts. He was paid fi fty dollars a month.
In the seasons that followed he would also pitch for the Birmingham Black Barons, the Nashville Elite Giants, the Baltimore Black Sox, the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and the Kansas City Monarchs, among other teams.


If those names are not as familiar sounding as those of the New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Dodgers, or the Boston Red Sox, it’s because they were all clubs in the Negro leagues, not the major leagues. Today the presence of black baseball players in the big leagues is taken for granted. Hank Aaron is the greatest of the home run hitters, and Rickey Henderson has stolen more bases than any other big leaguer. But before 1947, neither of them would have had the opportunity to do what they have done. Until Brooklyn Dodger general manager Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson, black players had no choice but to play for one of the all-black teams, and making that choice, they faced hardships no major-leaguer today could imagine.


Players in the Negro leagues crowded into broken-down cars and bumped over rutted roads to makeshift4 ball fields with lights so bad that every pitch was a potential weapon. Then they drove all night for an afternoon game three hundred miles away. On good days they played before big, appreciative crowds in parks they’d rented from the major league teams in Chicago, New York, or Pittsburgh. On bad days they learned that the team they were playing for was too broke to finish the season, and they would have to look for a healthier team that could use them, or else find a factory job.


It took talent, hard work, and a sense of humor to survive in the Negro leagues, and Satchel Paige had a lot of all three. But he didn’t just survive. He prospered. Everybody knows about the fastball, the curve, and the slider. But Satchel threw
a “bee” ball, which, he said, “would always be where I wanted it to be.” He featured a trouble ball, which, of course, gave the hitters a lot of trouble. Even the few who could see it couldn’t hit it. Sometimes he’d come at them with his hesitation pitch, a delivery so mysterious that the man at the plate would sometimes swing before the ball left Satchel’s hand.
Nor was pitching his sole triumph. Early in his career Satchel Paige began building a reputation as a storyteller, a spinner of tall tales as well as shutouts. He particularly liked to recall an occasion upon which he was asked to come on in relief of a pitcher who’d left men on fi rst and third with nobody out. “It was a tight situation,” Satchel would say.


We only had a one-run lead, and that was looking mighty slim. But I had an idea. When I left the bench, I stuck a baseball in my pocket, so when the manager gave me the game ball on the mound, I had two. I went into my stretch just like usual. Then I threw one ball to fi rst and the other to third. It was a good pick-off move, you see, and it fooled the batter, too. He swung, even though there was no ball to swing at. Those boys at first and third were both out, of course, and the umpire5 called strike three on the batter, so that was it for the inning. It’s always good to save your
strength when you can.


Major-leaguers today make enough money so that they don’t have to work over the winter, but it hasn’t always been so. Big-leaguers and Negro-leaguers alike used to make extra money after their regular seasons ended by putting together makeshift teams and playing each other wherever they could draw a paying crowd. This practice was called barnstorming, and Satchel Paige was the world champion at it. For thirty years, from 1929 to 1958, he played baseball summer and winter. When it was too cold to play in the Negro league cities, he played in Cuba, Mexico, and the Dominican
Republic. In Venezuela he battled a boa constrictor in the outfi eld, or so he said, and in Ciudad Trujillo6 he dodged the machine-gun fi re of fans who’d bet on the losing team.


Throughout the early years of these adventures, the years of Satchel’s prime, he often barnstormed against the best white ballplayers of his day. St. Louis Cardinal great Dizzy Dean once told him, “You’re a better pitcher than I ever hope to be.” Paige beat Bob Feller and struck out Babe Ruth. And when Joe DiMaggio, considered by some the most multitalented ballplayer ever, beat out an infield hit against Paige in 1936, DiMaggio turned to his teammates and said, “Now I know I can make it with the Yankees. I finally got a hit off of ol’ Satch.”

Everywhere these confrontations took place, Satchel Paige would hear the same thing: “If only you were white, you’d be a star in the big leagues.” The fault, of course, was not with Satchel. The fault and the shame were with major league baseball, which stubbornly, stupidly clung to the same prejudice that characterized many institutions in the United States besides baseball. Prejudice has not yet disappeared from the game. Black players are far less likely than their white counterparts7 to be hired as managers or general managers. But today’s black players can thank Robinson, Paige, and a handful of other pioneers for the opportunities they enjoy.


Though the color line prevented Satchel Paige from pitching in the company his talent and hard work should have earned for him, he was not bitter or defeated. Ignorant white fans would sometimes taunt him, but he kept their insults in perspective. “Some of them would call you names,” he said of his early years on the road, “but most of them would cheer you.” Years later he worked to shrug off the pain caused by the restaurants that would not serve him, the hotels that would not rent him a room, the fans who would roar for his bee ball but would not acknowledge him on the street the next day. “Fans all holler the same at a ball game,” he would say, as if the racists8 and the racist system had never touched him at all.


When he finally got the chance to become the first black pitcher in the American League at age forty-two (or forty-six, or forty-eight), he made the most of it. On that first day in Cleveland, Satchel Paige did the job he’d never doubted he could do. First he smiled for all the photographers. Then he told the butterflies in his stomach to leave off their flapping around. Then he shut down the St. Louis Browns for two innings before being lifted for a pinch hitter.


And still there were doubters. “Sure,” they said to each other the next day when they read the sports section. “The old man could work two innings against the Browns. Who couldn’t?”  But Satchel Paige fooled ‘em, as he’d been fooling hitters for twenty-fi ve years and more. He won a game in relief six days later, his fi rst major league win. Then on August 3 he started a game against the Washington Senators before 72,000 people.


Paige went seven innings and won. In his next two starts he threw shutouts against the Chicago White Sox, and through the waning9 months of that summer, his only complaint was that he was “a little tired from underwork.” The routine on the major league level must have been pretty leisurely for a fellow who’d previously pitched four or five times a week.


Satchel Paige finished the 1948 season with six wins and only one loss. He’d allowed the opposing teams an average of just over two runs a game. Paige was named Rookie of the Year, an honor he might well have achieved twenty years earlier if he’d had the chance. The sports-writers of the day agreed that without Satchel’s contribution, the Indians, who won the pennant, would have fi nished second at best. Many of the writers were dismayed when Satchel appeared for only two-thirds of an inning in the World Series that fall. Paige, too, was disappointed that the manager hadn’t chosen to use him more, but he was calm in the face of what others might have considered an insult. The writers told him, “You sure take things good.” Satchel smiled and said, “Ain’t no other way to take them.”


Satchel Paige outlasted the rule that said he couldn’t play in the big leagues because he was black. Then he made fools of the people who said he couldn’t get major league hitters out because he was too old. But his big league numbers over several years—twenty-eight wins and thirty-two saves—don’t begin to tell the story of Paige’s unparalleled career. Playing for teams that no longer exist in leagues that came and went with the seasons, Satchel Paige pitched in some 2,500 baseball games. Nobody has ever pitched in more. And he had such fun at it. Sometimes he’d accept offers to pitch in two cities on the same day. He’d strike out the side for three innings in one game, then fold his long legs into his car and race down the road toward the next ballpark. If the police could catch him, they would stop him for speeding. But when they recognized him, as often as not they’d escort him to the second game with sirens howling, well aware that there might be a riot in the park if Satchel Paige didn’t show up as advertised. Once he’d arrived, he’d instruct his  infielders and outfielders to sit down for an inning, then he’d strike out the side again.


For his talent, his energy, and his showmanship, Satchel Paige was the most famous of the Negro league players, but when he got some measure of recognition in the majors, he urged the writers to remember that there had been lots of other great ballplayers in those Negro league games. He named them, and he told their stories. He made their exploits alive and real for generations of fans who’d never have known.


In 1971, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, inducted Satchel Paige. The action was part of the Hall’s attempt to remedy baseball’s shame, the color line. The idea was to honor Paige and some of the other great Negro league players like Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell, however late that honor might come. Satchel Paige could have rejected that gesture. He could have told the baseball establishment that what it was doing was too little, too late. But when the time came for Satchel Paige to speak to the crowd gathered in front of the Hall of Fame to celebrate his triumphs,
he told the people, “I am the proudest man on the face of the earth today.”


Satchel Paige, whose autobiography was entitled Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever, died in Kansas City in 1982. He left behind a legend as large as that of anyone who ever played the game, as well as a long list of achievements celebrated in story and song —and in at least one fine poem, by Samuel Allen:


To Satch
Sometimes I feel like I will never stop
Just go on forever
Till one fi ne mornin’
I’m gonna reach up and grab me a handfulla stars
Swing out my long lean leg
And whip three hot strikes burnin’ down the heavens
And look over at God and say
How about that!

先帖上文章，大家一起看看，一起交流交流。

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-19 21:59 编辑

Late in the afternoon of July 9, 1948, Leroy “Satchel” Paige began the long walk from the bullpen to the mound at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium. He didn’t hurry. He never hurried. As he said himself, he “kept the juices flowing by jangling gently” as he moved. The crowd roared its appreciation. This was the fellow they’d come to see.


When Satchel finally reached the mound, Cleveland manager Lou Boudreau took the ball from starting pitcher Bob Lemon, who would eventually be voted into the Hall of Fame but had tired that day, and gave it to Paige. Probably he said something like, “Shut ‘em down, Satchel.” Whatever he said, Paige had no doubt heard the words a thousand times. Though he was a rookie with the Indians that year, no pitcher in the history of baseball had ever been more thoroughly prepared for a job.（打算问问儿子）He kicked at the rubber, looked in for the sign, and got set to throw. In a moment, twenty-odd years later than it should have happened, Satchel Paige would deliver his first pitch in the big leagues.


The tall, skinny kid named Leroy Paige became Satchel Paige one day at the railroad station in Mobile, Alabama. He was carrying bags for the folks getting on and off the trains, earning all the nickels and dimes he could to help feed his ten brothers and sisters. Eventually it occurred to him that if he slung a pole across his narrow shoulders and hung the bags, or satchels, on the ends of the pole, he could carry for more people at once and collect more nickels and dimes. It worked, but it looked a little funny. “You look like some kind of ol’ satchel tree,” one of his friends told him, and the nickname stuck.
Even in those days, before he was a teenager, Satchel Paige could throw hard and accurately. Years later, Paige swore that when his mother would send him out into the yard to get a chicken for dinner, he would brain the bird ( means to “hit it in the head.”)with a rock. “I used to kill flying birds with rocks, too,” he said. “Most people need shotguns to do what I did with rocks.”

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-19 16:56 编辑

It was not a talent that would go unnoticed for long. He was pitching for the semipro（means he has another job except as a pitcher) Mobile Tigers before he was eighteen . . . or maybe before he was sixteen, or before he was twelve. There is some confusion about exactly when Satchel Paige was born, and Satchel never did much to clarify(means clear about) the matter. But there never has been any confusion about whether he could pitch. His first steady job in baseball was with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts. He was paid fi fty dollars a month.
In the seasons that followed he would also pitch for the Birmingham Black Barons, the Nashville Elite Giants, the Baltimore Black Sox, the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and the Kansas City Monarchs, among other teams.

If those names are not as familiar sounding as those of the New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Dodgers, or the Boston Red Sox, it’s because they were all clubs in the Negro leagues, not the major leagues. Today the presence of black baseball players in the big leagues is taken for granted. Hank Aaron is the greatest of the home run hitters, and Rickey Henderson has stolen more bases than any other big leaguer. But before 1947, neither of them would have had the opportunity to do what they have done. Until Brooklyn Dodger general manager Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson, black players had no choice but to play for one of the all-black teams, and making that choice, they faced hardships no major-leaguer today could imagine.

Players in the Negro leagues crowded into broken-down cars and bumped over rutted roads to makeshift (means fit to) ball fields with lights so bad that every pitch was a potential weapon. （指球场条件不好，随时有危险发生。不知道这个理解对不对）Then they drove all night for an afternoon game three hundred miles away. On good days they played before big, appreciative crowds in parks they’d rented from the major league teams in Chicago, New York, or Pittsburgh. On bad days they learned that the team they were playing for was too broke to finish the season, and they would have to look for a healthier team that could use them, or else find a factory job.

大家一起来看吧，红字部分，我也是根据上下文这么理解的，不知道合理不合理，大家有什么不理解的，我们一起来说说，在英语上，只要是中国人，都不敢说自己英语好的，不必顾忌，至少我觉得学习就是学习。

看得有点费劲，尤其是这样一篇内容上我也不是很熟悉的课文，棒球运动，不懂的哎，黑人歧视，其实我了解的也不是很多。

在加州G6的课文里有讲过一篇黑人女孩上白人学校的课文，课文中说，那是第一个黑人孩子上白人的学校。

这套教材里的前几课里，有一篇也讲到一个黑人妇女，第一位女亿万富翁。

关于种族人物的故事，加州也好，GLENCOE里，还是篇幅比较多的（相对来说）。

我来给你加加油啊，像我们这种连门都没摸到的，学习都谈不上。{:soso_e127:}

Ester: no pitcher.....:没人比他更胜任pitcher这个位置。  发表于 半小时前

You are right connect with context. Thanks!

认真学习了，感悟很深刻。楼主的话语始终是很淡然低调，心态很平和

顶一个！我就稀饭这样的。不过High5和安妮鲜花的理论也是我努力地力量源泉。

本帖最后由 charlenedavid 于 2012-6-22 14:18 编辑

52楼里的课文，我和儿子今天看了如下部分：
蓝字部分是儿子的理解（不一定正确），红字部分是儿子也不理解的。
我们不是逐字逐句翻译的，都是看大概意思，我会拿几句，问问儿子，或几个单词问问。我要做的事情是，看看孩子有没有理解这篇文章。
P209 Satchel Paige by Bill Littlefield

Late in the afternoon of July 9, 1948, Leroy “Satchel” Paige began the long walk from the bullpen to the mound at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium. He didn’t hurry. He never hurried. As he said himself, he “kept the juices flowing by jangling gently” as he moved. The crowd roared its appreciation. This was the fellow they’d come to see.


When Satchel finally reached the mound, Cleveland manager Lou Boudreau took the ball from starting pitcher Bob Lemon, who would eventually be voted into the Hall of Fame but had tired that day, and gave it to Paige. Probably he said something like, “Shut ‘em down, Satchel.” “打败他们”。Whatever he said, Paige had no doubt heard the words a thousand times. Though he was a rookie with the Indians that year, no pitcher in the history of baseball had ever been more thoroughly prepared for a job.在棒球历史上，还没有哪个pitcher像他这么有把握。He kicked at the rubber, looked in for the sign, and got set to throw. In a moment, twenty-odd years later than it should have happened, 这一刻，20多年后才发生。Satchel Paige would deliver his first pitch in the big leagues.


The tall, skinny kid named Leroy Paige became Satchel Paige one day at the railroad station in Mobile, Alabama. He was carrying bags for the folks getting on and off the trains, earning all the nickels and dimes he could to help feed his ten brothers and sisters. Eventually it occurred to him that if he slung a pole across his narrow shoulders and hung the bags, or satchels, on the ends of the pole, he could carry for more people at once and collect more nickels and dimes. It worked, but it looked a little funny. “You look like some kind of ol’ satchel tree,” one of his friends told him, and the nickname stuck.
Even in those days, before he was a teenager, Satchel Paige could throw hard and accurately. Years later, Paige swore that when his mother would send him out into the yard to get a chicken for dinner, he would brain the bird with a rock. “I used to kill flying birds with rocks, too,” he said. “Most people need shotguns to do what I did with rocks.”


It was not a talent that would go unnoticed for long. 他是个有才华的人，不会很长时间不被注意的He was pitching for the semipro2 Mobile Tigers before he was eighteen . . . or maybe before he was sixteen, or before he was twelve. There is some confusion about exactly when Satchel Paige was born, and Satchel never did much to clarify the matter. But there never has been any confusion about whether he could pitch. His first steady job in baseball was with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts. He was paid fifty dollars a month.
In the seasons that followed he would also pitch for the Birmingham Black Barons, the Nashville Elite Giants, the Baltimore Black Sox, the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and the Kansas City Monarchs, among other teams.


If those names are not as familiar sounding as those of the New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Dodgers, or the Boston Red Sox, it’s because they were all clubs in the Negro leagues, not the major leagues. Today the presence of black baseball players in the big leagues is taken for granted. Hank Aaron is the greatest of the home run hitters, and Rickey Henderson has stolen more bases than any other big leaguer. But before 1947, neither of them would have had the opportunity to do what they have done. Until Brooklyn Dodger general manager Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson, black players had no choice but to play for one of the all-black teams, and making that choice, they faced hardships no major-leaguer today could imagine.


Players in the Negro leagues crowded into broken-down cars and bumped over rutted roads to makeshift4 ball fields with lights so bad that every pitch was a potential weapon.他们挤在破的卡车里，把路压平，好做球场用，在灯光不好的时候练球，会有很多危险。Then they drove all night for an afternoon game three hundred miles away. On good days they played before big, appreciative crowds in parks they’d rented from the major league teams in Chicago, New York, or Pittsburgh. On bad days they learned that the team they were playing for was too broke to finish the season, and they would have to look for a healthier team that could use them, or else find a factory job.


It took talent, hard work, and a sense of humor to survive in the Negro leagues, and Satchel Paige had a lot of all three. But he didn’t just survive. He prospered. Everybody knows about the fastball, the curve, and the slider. But Satchel threw
a “bee” ball, which, he said, “would always be where I wanted it to be.” He featured a trouble ball, which, of course, gave the hitters a lot of trouble. Even the few who could see it couldn’t hit it. Sometimes he’d come at them with his hesitation pitch, a delivery so mysterious that the man at the plate would sometimes swing before the ball left Satchel’s hand.
Nor was pitching his sole triumph. Early in his career Satchel Paige began building a reputation as a storyteller, a spinner of tall tales as well as shutouts. He particularly liked to recall an occasion upon which he was asked to come on in relief of a pitcher who’d left men on first and third with nobody out. （这句没懂）“It was a tight situation,” Satchel would say.


We only had a one-run lead, and that was looking mighty slim. But I had an idea. When I left the bench, I stuck a baseball in my pocket, so when the manager gave me the game ball on the mound, I had two. I went into my stretch just like usual. Then I threw one ball to first and the other to third. It was a good pick-off move, you see, and it fooled the batter, too. He swung, even though there was no ball to swing at. Those boys at first and third were both out, of course, and the umpire called strike three on the batter, so that was it for the inning. It’s always good to save your strength when you can.


Major-leaguers today make enough money so that they don’t have to work over the winter, but it hasn’t always been so. Big-leaguers and Negro-leaguers alike used to make extra money after their regular seasons ended by putting together makeshift teams and playing each other wherever they could draw a paying crowd. This practice was called barnstorming, and Satchel Paige was the world champion at it. For thirty years, from 1929 to 1958, he played baseball summer and winter. When it was too cold to play in the Negro league cities, he played in Cuba, Mexico, and the Dominican
Republic. In Venezuela he battled a boa constrictor in the outfield, or so he said, and in Ciudad Trujillo he dodged the machine-gun fire of fans who’d bet on the losing team.