Unless you live in Australia you cannot appreciate the significance of a Sunday afternoon baseball game. Rugby is king in Australia, followed by cricket. There are touch-football leagues, lawn bowling clubs, junior and senior cricket teams and every town, village and hamlet has a rugby team, just as every town in Canada has a hockey team. But not baseball. Baseball is looked on with suspicion by cricket players and old-timers who view it as some flash American aphorism destined to corrupt gentlemen’s sport. Of course as soon as an Australian becomes involved with a winning baseball team, everybody and their dog will know everything about baseball, and claim they always had.
And so it was with a sense of anticipation I went to the grounds at Harrington, on the Tasman Sea, with a fresh breeze and clear bright sky. This must be the most sophisticated baseball venue on the East coast…having both a backstop and vague baselines. There is of course no pitcher’s mound, as they need the grounds for ‘real’ sports most of the time. I had come to watch the team I am thinking of joining. The team was only formed last week, and is wearing borrowed uniforms from a defunct team, the Marlins. Word is new uniforms are on the way, and the team will next appear as the Titans. A fine baseball name, not too in-your-face.
The rules are interesting: Full hardball rules…small ball, stealing, sliding. Games last 2 hours, when 2 hours is up, they finish the inning and that’s it. It’s a mixed team with no set number of male to female players and ages from 14 years old up! So we had the most interesting spectacle of a huge (he looked like Jaws in the James Bond films) 40 year old man pitching to a 5 foot tall, 14 year old girl…who happened to be my daughter. This great lumbering bear of a man flung his left arm around in something resembling a cross between a cricket bowl and someone throwing a rock at a crow. I will say this throwing technique does generate a lot of speed, I’d say he was hitting 60-70 MPH, unfortunately his accuracy suffers and his first pitch hit my daughter squarely on the left foot. He walked 5 others before he was replaced in the 5th inning.
The Marlins/Titan’s only run in seven innings of play was off a homerun on the opening pitch and they lost 5-1. All five runs against were preventable errors. The players seemed to be under the impression that runners automatically advance when the ball is hit…I routinely saw runners jogging home, with opposing players in possession of the ball just standing watching them. Several times there was confusion and the umpire either had to take players off who were out, or put players back on who had mistakenly left the field.
Yes…this sounds like my sort of team. I might just go up to practice on Wednesday for a closer look.
And so it was with a sense of anticipation I went to the grounds at Harrington, on the Tasman Sea, with a fresh breeze and clear bright sky. This must be the most sophisticated baseball venue on the East coast…having both a backstop and vague baselines. There is of course no pitcher’s mound, as they need the grounds for ‘real’ sports most of the time. I had come to watch the team I am thinking of joining. The team was only formed last week, and is wearing borrowed uniforms from a defunct team, the Marlins. Word is new uniforms are on the way, and the team will next appear as the Titans. A fine baseball name, not too in-your-face.
The rules are interesting: Full hardball rules…small ball, stealing, sliding. Games last 2 hours, when 2 hours is up, they finish the inning and that’s it. It’s a mixed team with no set number of male to female players and ages from 14 years old up! So we had the most interesting spectacle of a huge (he looked like Jaws in the James Bond films) 40 year old man pitching to a 5 foot tall, 14 year old girl…who happened to be my daughter. This great lumbering bear of a man flung his left arm around in something resembling a cross between a cricket bowl and someone throwing a rock at a crow. I will say this throwing technique does generate a lot of speed, I’d say he was hitting 60-70 MPH, unfortunately his accuracy suffers and his first pitch hit my daughter squarely on the left foot. He walked 5 others before he was replaced in the 5th inning.
The Marlins/Titan’s only run in seven innings of play was off a homerun on the opening pitch and they lost 5-1. All five runs against were preventable errors. The players seemed to be under the impression that runners automatically advance when the ball is hit…I routinely saw runners jogging home, with opposing players in possession of the ball just standing watching them. Several times there was confusion and the umpire either had to take players off who were out, or put players back on who had mistakenly left the field.
Yes…this sounds like my sort of team. I might just go up to practice on Wednesday for a closer look.
2 comments:
i've been holding my breath for as long as possible ......but the wife and kids are still here
c'mon, you could go longer. Try heroin.
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