A Wild Week on the Diamond

So it was another interesting week on the baseball field for me down here in Australia. Unfortunately I was on the losing end of 3 different games! I’ll start first with the game that I pitched in on Friday night. We were playing at baseball park which is the main field (and the nicest field by far) in the city of Perth. Since it’s the nicest field, everybody in the league likes to play there so they pack as many games in their as possible. We had the early 6:30 game on Friday night, and one of the stipulations of playing at baseball park is that there is a 2 hour time limit or 7 inning limit, whatever comes first. So I was scheduled to pitch in relief that night. Our pitcher was throwing very well but was nearing his pitch limit in the 4th inning so I was either coming in during that inning or starting the 5th. He made it through the 4th and I enter the bottom of the 5th inning with a 1-0 lead. Well apparently we also hadn’t given up a hit yet, which I had no clue about. Well I proceeded to walk/hit the bases loaded and then hit two more batters and they won the game. I recorded two outs but walked 2 guys and beaned 3 others and they one the game as the 2 hour time limit was up. So I was part of a no-hitter where we lost and I was the losing pitcher. Haha I was mad at the time, but all I can do is laugh about it now. On Saturday my U-16 team suffered a big loss where we were defeated 23-12, we were down by 1 going into the last inning and gave up 9 runs. Yesterday my U-18 teams had one of the worst losses I’ve ever been a part of, we had a 14-2 lead going into the last inning, and gave up 13 runs in the last inning to lose it!!!! We made 6 errors to help their cause! In both instances the fact that they have weird pitch count rules for their junior players down here hurt my teams. Both of the teams only carry 10 players, but if the pitcher throws more then a certain amount of pitches he has to exit the game, and can’t even play the field. Yesterday my next best pitcher was playing a level higher, so I had to use someone new on the mound and we consequently blew it. All we can do is learn from it, and I actually think we have the best U-18 team in the league as long as yesterdays shenanigans don’t affect us too much. Also one of the more interesting things I’ve seen on a field occurred during that game, as all of a sudden the whole left side of our infield and left fielder took off running in the middle of an at bat. Apparently a huge swarm of bees was passing through, which I guess was totally normal. Our state league team also played yesterday and pulled away with a 5-2 win, it was nice to notch a “W” as we had been struggling. We are now 2-4. It is crazy when we win, as it is tradition to sing a victory song in the locker room after the game. Reminds me of high school football and singing the fight song after wins.
We made it out to the beach last Monday and plan on going again today or tomorrow. The beaches from what I’ve seen our absolutely gorgeous, and have white sand up and down them. Very cool stuff.
Marshall and I got another roommate last week, a guy from Cornell named David Bredhoff. He is older, Marshalls age 28. Didn’t play ball after college for like 3 years but played in the German league this past summer and had some kind of connection to a guy on our team, and since I was the only import they invited him down since you can have 3 total. He’s a decent little player and should help us out. Either way its nice to have another guy in the house and just another American around. The guy has some amazing stories as after he graduated college he worked in President Clintons office in NYC as an intern and also spent like 18 months in Africa with the peace corps. Well that’s all I’ll write for now, I’m going to include some Australian slang at the end of this to give you guys a taste of what I have to translate haha. The guys get on us when we ask them what something means. Its all good fun.
Bloke- a man, guy. That bloke over there is a good one to have on your team.
Get on the piss- To go out drinking for the night. That bloke had a gutful of piss last night.
Avo- the afternoon. What do you have going on this avo?
Yep- The say yep instead of okay.
Bucks Night- A bachelor party. Which I was able to see in person, as we were able to meet up with the club members one night for the tale end of one of the guys bachelor parties. We ended up at a pub that has 144 different beers around the world and if the group tries everyone the groom gets his name on the wall. Needless to say Trevor Smales has his name on the wall. (Their were like over 30 of us in the group)
Too Easy- I hear this saying all the time. Its what they say when you make an agreement or schedule to do something. Like they would end a phone call where you said you were meeting at 6 pm and they end it with “too easy mate”.
Mate- that’s your friend