The time has come, though it still seems like it should be 6 months away, for me to jam all my stuff into suitcases and ride off into the sunset in a blaze of glory. it seems like yesterday that i was walking through the Hamburg airport, finding Jan and Timo, and starting this whole experience.
the final games have been played, the season is over, the stats are up:
in both leagues combined (42 games):
HITTING
163 PA 137 AB 73 H 16 2B 5 3B 6 HR 52 R 67 RBI 10 K 16 BB 5 IBB 21 SB .533 AVG .854 SLG .558 OBP 1.412 OPS
PITCHING
33.2 IP 25 H 18 R 12 ER 44 K 26 BB 2 W 1 L 4 SV 3.25 ERA
Pitching could have been a little better, but hitting was pretty damn good considering i havent hit in 5 years and i've never hit with wood.
Though baseball was the avenue that got me here, and the job that paid me, it is not what i will remember most. Yeah, i will remember stealing home, horrible umpires, my last pitch being a walk off homer, and throwing a guy out at the plate and sprinting in to jump on the pile in Hamburg, but when i look back at these past 6 months, thats not what stands out in my mind. I will forever remember the crazy parties, as well as the low key nights. I will remember the beer...God, will i remember the beer. but more than anything i will remember the people that accompanied the nights and the beers. from the kids at the schools (most of them anyway) to the Wild Farmer families, from opponents to friends, everyone has been nothing but awesome.
and in much the same way as my first night here, we will be meeting at the sport house tonight to celebrate and have a few farewell drinks. but instead of talking about past memories and experiences in the States and in Baseball, we will laugh and reminisce about shared memories of the past 6 months. it will not be a conversation litered with phrases like, "this one time..." or "back in the States..." like it was in the beginning. No, this will be a conversation filled with phrases that conjure up feelings of lasting friendship, belonging, and familiarity like "Hey, you remember when we..." and "it was so funny when you..." it is conversations like these that i will miss, it is nights like these that i will miss, it is people like these that i will miss.
Dohren, you have been good to me, given me another chance to play baseball, a chance to see another part of the world, and friends that will last a life time. and for that I thank you.
Tschuss Ne,
A-Ron
P.S. I'd like to thank everyone that is reading this right now and has followed along with me on my journey. knowing that there were people out there that enjoyed the contents was what kept me writing.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
home stretch
things are pretty busy this week. we play our last 2nd man's game this weekend in Keil, and i guess i need to start packing up my stuff at some point. But im really in no mood to pack, i've packed up all my stuff a total of 7 times already since ive graduated and each time i seem to accumulate more shit. and this 8th time will be no different. i've gotten new stuff since ive been here so im going to have to leave some things here to make room. that should be fun. I really just do not like packing, especially when i have to worry about weight restrictions and extra baggage fees and everything. but its got to be done at some point so, all this complaining isnt helping me at all.
last weekend was one of the biggest parties of the year...i feel like i say that about every party we have, but this time i really mean it. the Erntefest (pronounced antefest meaning harvest party) is the last party of the year here in Dohren. it is in celebration of the harvest being over and celebrating a good crop. it started as just as a ritual for the farmers to get together and talk about their season and share tips and whatever, but the Dohren Youth Group quickly turned that into a party and a way to make some money for the club. so friday night, everyone that worked on setting everything up comes to the tent and has a little get together...you know, to make sure the keg taps are working and that everyone knows how to pour a proper cocktail... and since most of the guys on the baseball team are in the youth group, i was invited to join in the festivities and who would i be to turn down the invitation.
Saturday is the real party though. the crew gets there at 11 to get the food out, set up the booths for the pies and cakes and the DJ and warms up the dance floor. a little before 2 the lawn outside the tent is filled with tractors and trailers that have been decorated but different groups and families. there was a pirate float, a "man powered float" (that one had penises drawn all over it) all the floats are blaring different music from expensive sound systems, offering different drinks than the next, and battling for the title of best float. the best float wins a big prize with drinks and other things. at 2 there is a police led parade around dohren to show off the hard work put into the floats and to let the rest of the town know that the party is about to start. people lined the streets, kids especially, awaiting candy to be thrown from the floats. our float was too busy worrying about drinking to be bothered by throwing candy, but we were the lead float so we saw our function as the signal flare, introducing the other floats.
we got back to the tent around 4 and continued the festivities until the party officially began at 8. Toby, Brocky, and I wet to burgerking around 7:30 and grabbed a couple of burgers before heading back to the party. if we had gotten there 5 minutes earlier we wouldnt have had to pay cover, but since they had set up a booth at the gate, i got roped into paying 5 bucks to get in the door and they made me finish my coke and burger before i could come in....that really sucked because i wanted to save that burger for later. we partied and danced late into the night, until the DJ shut down the music and the lights came on. then we went to Tina's and had another beer.
Sunday we, me and jan, woke up on Tina's couches at 1 so we decided to take off and get back to the house. plus Jan had a soccer game he had to get to. as we were walking down the street toward home, comeone pulled out of the driveway headed in our direction. it wasnt a hassenpflug car, it was one i didnt recogize, but i recognized the guy sitting in the passenger seat. it was Thies and one of thier soccer teammates coming to pick up Jan for the game. better him than me, because that is the last thing i would have wanted to do, run around for 90 minutes slamming my head into a ball. no thank you.
with only 6 days left before i come back to the good ol US of A, the reality of this dream being over is starting to set in. as i'm coming up on my last of everything, my last weekend, my last pizza day, my last practice, i'm starting to come out of REM sleep, back through the cycles to consciousness. today was supposed to be my last day at school, but it was cancelled because the class was "out on a walk." wish i would have known about that so i could have slept in, but i had to get to school, sit and wait for them, knock on a window and ask another teacher where the class was before finally being told they were on a walk. and since David took me to school on his way to Tostedt, i was going to have to walk home. Luckily David saw me walking and picked me up, otherwise that would have sucked.
That is one thing i will not miss about being here. the Diekhof School was awful. the kids were little heathens. and the teachers would just stand there and watch it all happening. they watched as the kids would take balls and just throw them all over the field, watched as this one little girl, the devil reencarnated, took my jacket and ran off with it. she had been jumping all over me and tony all day and then after class when we were picking everything up, she swooped in and snagged my jacket. she tried shaking up a drink and having Tony open it. she was just horrible and the teacher never said anything, never did anything, just stood there watching it all.
in another class, there was a kid running over other kids, hogging the ball, yelling at his teammates. so then when the other kids on his team stopped giving him the ball, he started running them over too. this led to some shoving and teacher just calmly tried to talk to the kid. he was yelling back at her, at the top of his lungs. im sure it wasnt anything nice, but she just stood there like she had taken care of it. finally i just jumped in and said that we needed to take a break, let everyone cool down and she just looked at me like i was stupid. like there was no need to seperate these kids before something happened. so we sat in silence for 10 minutes or so, and that same kid was still yaping, chirping at the teacher. and whenever i would try to say something about the game we were playing, they would never translate and make things easier. they would let me struggle to show them how the game should go, struggle when the kids asked me questions. going to that school was never a good experience.
I am excited to get home though, see the family and friends, listen to some good country music. i havent heard county music in 6 months and its starting to get to me. and i know that there have been a bunch of new songs come out since i left, so its going to be like christmas when i get home and turn on the radio. and the first weeeknd i am home, it is the country music festival in chicago.
A-Ron
last weekend was one of the biggest parties of the year...i feel like i say that about every party we have, but this time i really mean it. the Erntefest (pronounced antefest meaning harvest party) is the last party of the year here in Dohren. it is in celebration of the harvest being over and celebrating a good crop. it started as just as a ritual for the farmers to get together and talk about their season and share tips and whatever, but the Dohren Youth Group quickly turned that into a party and a way to make some money for the club. so friday night, everyone that worked on setting everything up comes to the tent and has a little get together...you know, to make sure the keg taps are working and that everyone knows how to pour a proper cocktail... and since most of the guys on the baseball team are in the youth group, i was invited to join in the festivities and who would i be to turn down the invitation.
Saturday is the real party though. the crew gets there at 11 to get the food out, set up the booths for the pies and cakes and the DJ and warms up the dance floor. a little before 2 the lawn outside the tent is filled with tractors and trailers that have been decorated but different groups and families. there was a pirate float, a "man powered float" (that one had penises drawn all over it) all the floats are blaring different music from expensive sound systems, offering different drinks than the next, and battling for the title of best float. the best float wins a big prize with drinks and other things. at 2 there is a police led parade around dohren to show off the hard work put into the floats and to let the rest of the town know that the party is about to start. people lined the streets, kids especially, awaiting candy to be thrown from the floats. our float was too busy worrying about drinking to be bothered by throwing candy, but we were the lead float so we saw our function as the signal flare, introducing the other floats.
we got back to the tent around 4 and continued the festivities until the party officially began at 8. Toby, Brocky, and I wet to burgerking around 7:30 and grabbed a couple of burgers before heading back to the party. if we had gotten there 5 minutes earlier we wouldnt have had to pay cover, but since they had set up a booth at the gate, i got roped into paying 5 bucks to get in the door and they made me finish my coke and burger before i could come in....that really sucked because i wanted to save that burger for later. we partied and danced late into the night, until the DJ shut down the music and the lights came on. then we went to Tina's and had another beer.
Sunday we, me and jan, woke up on Tina's couches at 1 so we decided to take off and get back to the house. plus Jan had a soccer game he had to get to. as we were walking down the street toward home, comeone pulled out of the driveway headed in our direction. it wasnt a hassenpflug car, it was one i didnt recogize, but i recognized the guy sitting in the passenger seat. it was Thies and one of thier soccer teammates coming to pick up Jan for the game. better him than me, because that is the last thing i would have wanted to do, run around for 90 minutes slamming my head into a ball. no thank you.
with only 6 days left before i come back to the good ol US of A, the reality of this dream being over is starting to set in. as i'm coming up on my last of everything, my last weekend, my last pizza day, my last practice, i'm starting to come out of REM sleep, back through the cycles to consciousness. today was supposed to be my last day at school, but it was cancelled because the class was "out on a walk." wish i would have known about that so i could have slept in, but i had to get to school, sit and wait for them, knock on a window and ask another teacher where the class was before finally being told they were on a walk. and since David took me to school on his way to Tostedt, i was going to have to walk home. Luckily David saw me walking and picked me up, otherwise that would have sucked.
That is one thing i will not miss about being here. the Diekhof School was awful. the kids were little heathens. and the teachers would just stand there and watch it all happening. they watched as the kids would take balls and just throw them all over the field, watched as this one little girl, the devil reencarnated, took my jacket and ran off with it. she had been jumping all over me and tony all day and then after class when we were picking everything up, she swooped in and snagged my jacket. she tried shaking up a drink and having Tony open it. she was just horrible and the teacher never said anything, never did anything, just stood there watching it all.
in another class, there was a kid running over other kids, hogging the ball, yelling at his teammates. so then when the other kids on his team stopped giving him the ball, he started running them over too. this led to some shoving and teacher just calmly tried to talk to the kid. he was yelling back at her, at the top of his lungs. im sure it wasnt anything nice, but she just stood there like she had taken care of it. finally i just jumped in and said that we needed to take a break, let everyone cool down and she just looked at me like i was stupid. like there was no need to seperate these kids before something happened. so we sat in silence for 10 minutes or so, and that same kid was still yaping, chirping at the teacher. and whenever i would try to say something about the game we were playing, they would never translate and make things easier. they would let me struggle to show them how the game should go, struggle when the kids asked me questions. going to that school was never a good experience.
I am excited to get home though, see the family and friends, listen to some good country music. i havent heard county music in 6 months and its starting to get to me. and i know that there have been a bunch of new songs come out since i left, so its going to be like christmas when i get home and turn on the radio. and the first weeeknd i am home, it is the country music festival in chicago.
A-Ron
Friday, September 18, 2009
Sumthin Sirius!
I packed my bag the night before, there were 3 changes of boxers and socks, one pair of jeans, and 4 t-shirts. that’s all I figured I’d need for a 5 day trip through Europe, well that and the pair of shorts and long sleeved t-shirt I wore on the day it all began. I mean it’s the first weekend in September, still warm in America, why should it be any different any where in Europe. This may not sound like a lot, and it barely filled half of the backpack that I packed it in, but in my mind, anything else would have been overkill and just more weight. The limit for a carry-on for RyanAir is 54cm x 40cm x 20cm and it cant weight more than 10 kg. that’s not a very much stuff at all and I figured I was leaving myself room so I could buy something.
So it started Wednesday morning at 7:45. After a quick drive to the hamburg bus station, we boarded the bus headed for Lubeck airport, just outside of hamburg. Lubeck airport consists of nothing more than a huge tent and a runway. Which makes sense when you consider we paid 5 euros for this flight, there really was no overhead that they were trying to cover with ticket prices. But at the same time, considering we paid 5 bucks for this ticket, the airport being just a giant tent isn’t something that brings a comforting feeling to the stomach. We joked about going out to the runway and having to help the pilot duct tape the wings and throw the propeller…but really we were only half joking. We weren’t real sure what to expect. So when we walked onto the plane to see blue leather seats and pillows for everyone, we were pleasantly surprised. It was probably the nicest plane I’ve ever been on.
After a 1 hour flight through Germany, we landed outside of Frankfurt at the Frankfurt-Hahn airport. This place is about 150 km from Frankfurt though it shares half the same name, so despite an 8 hour layover, we couldn’t make it to the actual city. But much to our delight, there was a bar that served Weizenbier. 8 hours goes by pretty fast when your sipping down beers. Tony had to smoke a cigarette so we stood outside near the arrivals gate and watched as a big black Lincoln navigator pulled up and a big black dude got out. He was wearing a jersey of what I guess was some XFL team because the name on the back was “Sumthin
Sirius” and his number was ½. This became a popular saying throughout the rest of the trip.
As we settled into our seats in the back row of the plane, I was fully expecting to take a nap through the trip. But there were 2 guys sitting in front of us that worked for NATO and so we talked to them about Germany and baseball and where we should go in Rome considering we were only going to be there for a day. They said it was impossible to see everything in Rome in less than 3 days, but recommended the Colosseum and the Vatican, which is great because that’s where we were headed to begin with. They also gave us the name of a restaurant called Buttero, which means cowboy in Italian, that makes the best steak in all of Rome. It was close to our hostel but we didn’t have time that night or the next day to go there, but if I ever get back, I will look for it. We flew right over the city as we were on approach and got to see the city all lit up at night, and it was great to have those guys next to us so they could point everything out.
We landed and were first off the plane. We had to hurry and get to the bus terminal and buy a ticket that would take us to the actual city. Once at the main train/bus station, we headed to the hostel, checked in, and put our stuff away. It was about 11 pm so we went out and tried to find a bar or pub that was open on Wednesday night, but had to settle for a street side shack with some tables and chairs around it that called itself a bar. On our walk to the hostel we passed a few liquor stores and groceries and I all the beer I had seen was Peroni, so I figured this was the beer of Rome. And hey when in Rome…(I had to throw that in there somewhere) so we got a couple Pernois and sat down. It was alright, not the best beer I’ve ever had, but it went down. The next round was a Budweiser, an American Budweiser. When I was in the States, bud heavy always seemed to have a lot of taste, but now, it just doesn’t taste the way I remember it, I don’t know if you can describe a beer as bland, but that’s what it was. It just didn’t have the taste I remembered it having. I hope this is not a sign of things to come when I get home and drink American beers again.
We started the morning at the Colosseum, taking pictures and walking around, looking at what we’ve only seen in pictures. That things is much bigger in person, when you can look straight up and see the big arches and high walls. We were on a bit of a time crunch, seeing as how we had to walk across Rome to see the Vatican, so we couldn’t go in and take a tour or anything like that.
Looking at the map, we figured out a route that didn’t take us too much out of the way and we could go by and see the Pantheon as well. As we walked we saw a big museum with horses and all kind of big brass statutes in front of it. I’m not real sure which museum it was but the architecture was amazing. After a few hours of walking in 85 degree and 90 % humidity weather, my shirt was soaked with sweat and my feet were killing me. But we finally made it to the Vatican at around 1:00. I’ve seen pictures of the area in front of the church packed shoulder to shoulder with people, but on this day the people were relatively sparse. There were maybe 5 thousand people there but nothing close to the hundreds of thousands it can hold. We got to go as close as possible to the church without actually paying for a tour. They were setting up for some big event, there were huge Panasonic televisions everywhere and they were setting up something at the pillar as well, so there were barricades all over the place.
After lunch, we headed toward the bus station so we could get to the airport in time for our flight to Paris. Since we were there early, we took a sooner bus to the airport, this proved to be a good decision entertainment wise. We got to see a homeless man argue with another bum about lord knows what, but the police had to come and break it up. I wish I would have gotten pictures of this but I was afraid the more aggressive of the hobos would come attack me with his bottle of booze, so I kept the camera in my pocket. But the fun didn’t stop there. On the bus ride, about halfway to the airport, I heard the engine revving really loud when the driver would shift from 2nd gear. Since I had an aisle seat, I leaned over and watched as this guy tried to get the transmission into 3rd gear. For some reason, it wouldn’t go into gear, so he tried to just take it straight to 4th. 4th wouldn’t catch either, so he tried 5th, but that one would engage either. By this time we had lost speed so he put it back into 2nd. Again he tried to go into 3rd with no luck, and 4th, and 5th, so he was forced to go back into 2nd just to keep the bus moving at 20 mph. this went on for a good 15 minutes before he finally put it in 6th gear, and amazingly this worked, the bus rattled and sputtered for about a km but finally it picked up RPMs and we broke 30 mph just in time to pull into the airport parking lot. Tony later went out to smoke and said that they had gotten a different bus out there.
I had to change my shirt before getting on the plane because I had sweat rings around my shoulders where my back pack had been all day, and I didn’t want people to get the wrong impression of me. We again took our seats on the back of plane so we could make a clean getaway upon arrival in Paris. We flew into Paris at night, so the whole city was lit up, I couldn’t see the Eiffel tower but Tony said he saw the light on top of the tower from his window seat. We finally got to the city around 11 pm and still had to walk to our hostel about 8 km away. We knew that we were right on the other side of the Eiffel Tower from where we got dropped off so that was our marker, walk toward the tower. As we walked, it became apparent that we were in the nicer part of town. There were boutiques and nice restaurants lining the clean streets and then we turned the corner and there it was. Lit up like a Christmas tree, lighthouse style beacon radiating from atop, the Eiffel Tower stood out like a white guy in a 100 m dash. As we got closer and closer, the true size of the Tower became more and more real. I guess I never realized just how big it is, much like every other world monument that I’ve come across in my life. And seeing it all lit up at night was an amazing sight.
After a few turns…and turn-arounds we finally got to our hostel, the 3 ducks. It has a bar attached to it, so we sat there and had a few brews before calling it a night. The Eiffel tower tours start at 9:30 so we figured getting there at 9 would put us close to the front of the line…we were mistaken. We were about 300 people back when we got there. I’ve heard of people sometimes waiting 5 hours to get up in the tower, and I was willing to wait, but not that long. But surprisingly enough, an hour after we got in line, we were up on the 2nd level, about to go to the top. They move people through that line!
After making it back down the tower in the diagonally moving elevator, we took off for the Notre Dame. Along the way we decided to hit up the MickyD’s and grab some grub. We walked toward the Notre Dame, thinking there had to be one somewhere and that is would magically pop out of no where and smack us in the face…we were right. The golden arches shone through in between the lamp posts and hordes of people and drew us in like bears to honey. On the way, we passed St. Michael’s, another big church in Paris that we had no idea we were even close to. Lucky for us, the McDonalds was close to the subway station we needed to get on to take us to the Notre Dame.
After walking around in front of the Notre Dame for a few minutes, and taking pictures of the kid feeding the birds out of his hand, we took off for the cemetery. Why the cemetery you ask. Jim Morrison is buried in Paris, at one of the big cemeteries so we decided to check it out as well. Now I was expecting a normal cemetery complete with head stones and the like, but what we found was a vast array of family monuments set up hundreds of years ago to house the remains of all that shared a surname. And im not talking small pieces of granite here either, these things were huge, like 20 ft high by 10 wide. So we looked at the map and found out where ol’ Jimbo was buried and headed that way. We weren’t quite sure we were in the right place, except for all the people stand around talking. And there, in between a couple of giant monuments, was a small head stone that read “James Morrison” … and whatever years, I don’t remember. We snapped a few quick pics and headed out, off to the station to hop a train to Amsterdam.
All of our travel to this point has been superb, we havent missed anything, havent been in the wrong place, we’ve cruised through these counties with not so much as the slightest inconvenience. So obviously this is where shit hit’s the fan. This is the one ticket we didn’t book together, sitting at the same computer. Tony handed his ticket to the man at the door of the train and he told him that he would need to go to the front ( we were in the very back at this point) and he told me to go into this door and take my seat to the left. I found seat 73 and sat down for 10 minutes before an elderly man came into the train and began walking my way. He looked at me as though he needed me to get up and allow him to take his spot next to the window, but this was not exactly the case. He said that he and his wife were supposed to be sitting next to each other and that I was not in the right car, we were in car 28 and I was supposed to be in 18. What a lying sack of $#!t that guy at the door was. So I grabbed my bag and began walking toward the front of the train. I got as far as car 24 before I found an employee of the train and I asked him to help me find my seat, though I figured I’d just have to keep going in the same direction for a few more cars. But that’s when he looked at my ticket and told me that I didn’t have a seat on this train. The conversation went as follows:
\Me: excuse me, is this the way to my seat?
Pierre: let me see your ticket. Sir, you don’t have a seat on this train.
Me: what do you mean? this train is going to Amsterdam right?
Pierre: no this train is going to Cologne.
Me: but the guy at door 28 looked at my ticket and told me to get on. Are you sure this isn’t going to Amsterdam?
Pierre: yes sir, this train is going to…just a sec (sticks his head around the corner and speaks in French, then turns back to me) Sir this train is indeed going to Cologne, and you do not have a seat on this train. You will have to wait until we get to Bruxsels and change trains there.
Me: what do you mean change trains? My tickets says Amsterdam and the marquee said this is the train I need to be on.
Pierre: Sir you are going to have to wait until we get to Bruxels, get off there and change trains. Now if you will excuse me, I have to get the food ready for 1st class.
So now I’m freaking out, Tony is lord knows where, I dontt have a cell phone and neither does he, so I cant call him to tell him that we have to get off the train and get on another one. So I take off in the same direction, looking for the head of curly hair leaned back against the seat, taking a nap. As I pass from car to car, I notice that ive entered into 1st class, I know tony didn’t get a first class ticket, but I had no idea of know what happened after we parted ways at the back of the bus platform. I walked until the end, car 19, so I turned and walked back the other way, past 24, the bar car, and all the way back up to 28 where I originally sat…still no tony. Now im really worried because I doubt he knows whats going on either and we have no way to get a hold of each other. Im thinking that once I get there, ill get off the train, buy a ticket to Amsterdam and meet tony there, at a sports bar we talked about going to to watch opening weekend of college football season.
As we were pulling into the station, Pierre came over to me and said that what I needed to do was to get off the train there and go to the first train, that was the one going to Amsterdam. So I got off the train and began walking toward the front, this is when I noticed that this train was actually 3 separate trains put together to make the trek to bruxels, before parting and going separate ways. This was a huge sigh of relief as I got onto the right train and promptly took my seat in 73. Now I still wasn’t sure that Tony was on this train, but I figured he was headed in the right direction seeing as how he was given proper instructions the first time around.
I was on the very front car of the train so when we got off in Amsterdam I stood, waiting for him to come to me from wherever it was that he was sitting. A couple of minutes passed and no one was left on the train, and still no Tony. I watched as the doors closed on the train and it started to pull away. This is when Tony came walking around the bend in the platform that was hidden by the train, much to my relief. He had been on the very back of the front car, I was near the front, and he had gotten off through the back door and started walking toward the back of the train looking for me. (I had gotten off the front door of the 1st car and had just stood there) Anyhow, we were both there and ready to get the party started.
We made it to the hostel, checked in, and headed to get some food and watch opening weekend of college football at the American sports bar in Liedersplein. The only game that was on was Georgia vs. Oklahoma State. We were not the only ones in the bar however. There was a big soccer match between Ecuador and some other south American country, and I was kicking myself for not having my Ecuador jersey on. I would have played that for all it was worth and tried to get some free drinks out of it, that’s for sure. They ended up losing, so my Ecuadorian comrades were not happy campers at the final whistle. As we were leaving the bar, we ran into a guy from Whales who was passing out cards for a pub crawl that goes on every night there in the area. We already had plans for Saturday night so we told him that we would be back on Sunday to see what it was all about. He gave us each a card that got us a dollar off admission, or a free t-shirt, whichever we wanted. But we hopped a train back to the red light district and spent the rest of our night there.
Sunday, we woke up and walked around a little bit, looking at souvenir shops and stuff. But we soon realized that they all sold the same stuff for the same price and it was pointless to go into another one, so what did we do…we found a bar and started drinking. We had a few hours to kill before the start of the pub crawl so we started early by have a few brews and watching cricket. We watched an entire match to 250 runs and tried to figure out the scoring system and some of the rules. After watching that match, I feel I at least have a better understanding of the game.
The pub crawl started at 8 so we hopped a train back to the Leidersplein and headed to the first bar. The 20 Euro entry fee got us free vodka shots all night, a free beer at each of the 6 bars, free entry to 2 dance clubs, and a free t-shirt…not a bad gig I’d say. The night started off pretty relaxed, just drinking beers and a few vodka shot, but as the night progressed, so too did the craziness. We forewent the beers and just had vodka and danced the night away…this made for a great hangover the next day.
On the bus on the way back to Hamburg, there was a guy that would not stop talking the entire 6 hours. He was talking to whoever would listen and about anything under the sun. at one point I heard him telling…for those of you playing along at home, he was speaking English, I haven’t miraculously learned fluent German or anything…a woman about a group of scientists that is trying to debunk Evolution. The best part of this story happened at a rest stop where the bus was turned off, so I was able to hear the entire explanation. It goes as follows:
“so these scientists have looked at fossil records and gathered some data and they have evidence that proves that Evolution isn’t the answer for how the world came to be. What happened was that the gravitational pull of the earth used to be much, much stronger, and every element on the periodic chart is actually a metal. so with increased gravity, it all condensed down and created new compounds that led to living things. Now these living things were much, much bigger than we are today, because the increase in gravity brought more elements together and was able to hold them together. This is where the dinosaurs come from. But [something] happed to throw earth farther away from the sun, which caused the gravity to weaken and therefore the bigger animals could not survive, because their internal workings couldn’t handle the decrease in pressure. Now the surprising thing in all this is that there were actually humans alive at this time, giant humans. They have actually found human footprints next to dinosaur prints that suggest that humans were 18 ft tall. My buddy was walking along the beach one day, when something washed up on land. He picked it up, im kidding you not, and it was a human skull. It measured 36 in around. He actually held this human head from millions of years ago in his hands. They have found pieces of these skulls and human bones in other places as well. They have actually pieced these ancient humans together and found that they sometimes had 36 fingers and toes, and extra limbs that have disappeared from the current gene pool. So as generations of humans were born into this environment with less gravity, they shrank, lost these extra appendages, and eventually over time became closer to the what we look like today.”
The woman he was talking to seemed pretty skeptical but she kept asking him questions about I, I think just to see what he would say next. As the bus started up and we took off, he was talking something about a house cat and a lion being one gene different from one another and something about genes switching on and off through time. I couldn’t really hear over the hum of the bus and the passing traffic. But I got a nice science lesson on the way home and now I feel a whole lot smarter….(sarcasm oozing off the page right here)
When we got to Hamburg, we had no cash, just a credit card and much to our delight, the ticket machine doesn’t take credit cards! And our phones are dead! And its midnight! I was able to turn my phone on and get Luis’s number and call on the phone of the guy that works at the Chinese buffet in the train station. If you are reading this, which I highly doubt, Thank you, you are a life saver. Luis came and picked us up and took us back to his house to crash for the night. It just so happened that Florida State was playing Miami in a Monday night college football game, which started at 1 am local time, so we watched as the U upset Florida State in what will go down as one of the great games in the cross-state rivalry. It came down to the last play of the game.
The next morning we got up and caught the train back to Tostedt and had to walk the 7 km back to Dohren. But it was great to be home.
We walked somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 km in 4 days and my feet still hurt.
That trip was Sumthin Sirius!
A-Ron
So it started Wednesday morning at 7:45. After a quick drive to the hamburg bus station, we boarded the bus headed for Lubeck airport, just outside of hamburg. Lubeck airport consists of nothing more than a huge tent and a runway. Which makes sense when you consider we paid 5 euros for this flight, there really was no overhead that they were trying to cover with ticket prices. But at the same time, considering we paid 5 bucks for this ticket, the airport being just a giant tent isn’t something that brings a comforting feeling to the stomach. We joked about going out to the runway and having to help the pilot duct tape the wings and throw the propeller…but really we were only half joking. We weren’t real sure what to expect. So when we walked onto the plane to see blue leather seats and pillows for everyone, we were pleasantly surprised. It was probably the nicest plane I’ve ever been on.
After a 1 hour flight through Germany, we landed outside of Frankfurt at the Frankfurt-Hahn airport. This place is about 150 km from Frankfurt though it shares half the same name, so despite an 8 hour layover, we couldn’t make it to the actual city. But much to our delight, there was a bar that served Weizenbier. 8 hours goes by pretty fast when your sipping down beers. Tony had to smoke a cigarette so we stood outside near the arrivals gate and watched as a big black Lincoln navigator pulled up and a big black dude got out. He was wearing a jersey of what I guess was some XFL team because the name on the back was “Sumthin
Sirius” and his number was ½. This became a popular saying throughout the rest of the trip.
As we settled into our seats in the back row of the plane, I was fully expecting to take a nap through the trip. But there were 2 guys sitting in front of us that worked for NATO and so we talked to them about Germany and baseball and where we should go in Rome considering we were only going to be there for a day. They said it was impossible to see everything in Rome in less than 3 days, but recommended the Colosseum and the Vatican, which is great because that’s where we were headed to begin with. They also gave us the name of a restaurant called Buttero, which means cowboy in Italian, that makes the best steak in all of Rome. It was close to our hostel but we didn’t have time that night or the next day to go there, but if I ever get back, I will look for it. We flew right over the city as we were on approach and got to see the city all lit up at night, and it was great to have those guys next to us so they could point everything out.
We landed and were first off the plane. We had to hurry and get to the bus terminal and buy a ticket that would take us to the actual city. Once at the main train/bus station, we headed to the hostel, checked in, and put our stuff away. It was about 11 pm so we went out and tried to find a bar or pub that was open on Wednesday night, but had to settle for a street side shack with some tables and chairs around it that called itself a bar. On our walk to the hostel we passed a few liquor stores and groceries and I all the beer I had seen was Peroni, so I figured this was the beer of Rome. And hey when in Rome…(I had to throw that in there somewhere) so we got a couple Pernois and sat down. It was alright, not the best beer I’ve ever had, but it went down. The next round was a Budweiser, an American Budweiser. When I was in the States, bud heavy always seemed to have a lot of taste, but now, it just doesn’t taste the way I remember it, I don’t know if you can describe a beer as bland, but that’s what it was. It just didn’t have the taste I remembered it having. I hope this is not a sign of things to come when I get home and drink American beers again.
We started the morning at the Colosseum, taking pictures and walking around, looking at what we’ve only seen in pictures. That things is much bigger in person, when you can look straight up and see the big arches and high walls. We were on a bit of a time crunch, seeing as how we had to walk across Rome to see the Vatican, so we couldn’t go in and take a tour or anything like that.
Looking at the map, we figured out a route that didn’t take us too much out of the way and we could go by and see the Pantheon as well. As we walked we saw a big museum with horses and all kind of big brass statutes in front of it. I’m not real sure which museum it was but the architecture was amazing. After a few hours of walking in 85 degree and 90 % humidity weather, my shirt was soaked with sweat and my feet were killing me. But we finally made it to the Vatican at around 1:00. I’ve seen pictures of the area in front of the church packed shoulder to shoulder with people, but on this day the people were relatively sparse. There were maybe 5 thousand people there but nothing close to the hundreds of thousands it can hold. We got to go as close as possible to the church without actually paying for a tour. They were setting up for some big event, there were huge Panasonic televisions everywhere and they were setting up something at the pillar as well, so there were barricades all over the place.
After lunch, we headed toward the bus station so we could get to the airport in time for our flight to Paris. Since we were there early, we took a sooner bus to the airport, this proved to be a good decision entertainment wise. We got to see a homeless man argue with another bum about lord knows what, but the police had to come and break it up. I wish I would have gotten pictures of this but I was afraid the more aggressive of the hobos would come attack me with his bottle of booze, so I kept the camera in my pocket. But the fun didn’t stop there. On the bus ride, about halfway to the airport, I heard the engine revving really loud when the driver would shift from 2nd gear. Since I had an aisle seat, I leaned over and watched as this guy tried to get the transmission into 3rd gear. For some reason, it wouldn’t go into gear, so he tried to just take it straight to 4th. 4th wouldn’t catch either, so he tried 5th, but that one would engage either. By this time we had lost speed so he put it back into 2nd. Again he tried to go into 3rd with no luck, and 4th, and 5th, so he was forced to go back into 2nd just to keep the bus moving at 20 mph. this went on for a good 15 minutes before he finally put it in 6th gear, and amazingly this worked, the bus rattled and sputtered for about a km but finally it picked up RPMs and we broke 30 mph just in time to pull into the airport parking lot. Tony later went out to smoke and said that they had gotten a different bus out there.
I had to change my shirt before getting on the plane because I had sweat rings around my shoulders where my back pack had been all day, and I didn’t want people to get the wrong impression of me. We again took our seats on the back of plane so we could make a clean getaway upon arrival in Paris. We flew into Paris at night, so the whole city was lit up, I couldn’t see the Eiffel tower but Tony said he saw the light on top of the tower from his window seat. We finally got to the city around 11 pm and still had to walk to our hostel about 8 km away. We knew that we were right on the other side of the Eiffel Tower from where we got dropped off so that was our marker, walk toward the tower. As we walked, it became apparent that we were in the nicer part of town. There were boutiques and nice restaurants lining the clean streets and then we turned the corner and there it was. Lit up like a Christmas tree, lighthouse style beacon radiating from atop, the Eiffel Tower stood out like a white guy in a 100 m dash. As we got closer and closer, the true size of the Tower became more and more real. I guess I never realized just how big it is, much like every other world monument that I’ve come across in my life. And seeing it all lit up at night was an amazing sight.
After a few turns…and turn-arounds we finally got to our hostel, the 3 ducks. It has a bar attached to it, so we sat there and had a few brews before calling it a night. The Eiffel tower tours start at 9:30 so we figured getting there at 9 would put us close to the front of the line…we were mistaken. We were about 300 people back when we got there. I’ve heard of people sometimes waiting 5 hours to get up in the tower, and I was willing to wait, but not that long. But surprisingly enough, an hour after we got in line, we were up on the 2nd level, about to go to the top. They move people through that line!
After making it back down the tower in the diagonally moving elevator, we took off for the Notre Dame. Along the way we decided to hit up the MickyD’s and grab some grub. We walked toward the Notre Dame, thinking there had to be one somewhere and that is would magically pop out of no where and smack us in the face…we were right. The golden arches shone through in between the lamp posts and hordes of people and drew us in like bears to honey. On the way, we passed St. Michael’s, another big church in Paris that we had no idea we were even close to. Lucky for us, the McDonalds was close to the subway station we needed to get on to take us to the Notre Dame.
After walking around in front of the Notre Dame for a few minutes, and taking pictures of the kid feeding the birds out of his hand, we took off for the cemetery. Why the cemetery you ask. Jim Morrison is buried in Paris, at one of the big cemeteries so we decided to check it out as well. Now I was expecting a normal cemetery complete with head stones and the like, but what we found was a vast array of family monuments set up hundreds of years ago to house the remains of all that shared a surname. And im not talking small pieces of granite here either, these things were huge, like 20 ft high by 10 wide. So we looked at the map and found out where ol’ Jimbo was buried and headed that way. We weren’t quite sure we were in the right place, except for all the people stand around talking. And there, in between a couple of giant monuments, was a small head stone that read “James Morrison” … and whatever years, I don’t remember. We snapped a few quick pics and headed out, off to the station to hop a train to Amsterdam.
All of our travel to this point has been superb, we havent missed anything, havent been in the wrong place, we’ve cruised through these counties with not so much as the slightest inconvenience. So obviously this is where shit hit’s the fan. This is the one ticket we didn’t book together, sitting at the same computer. Tony handed his ticket to the man at the door of the train and he told him that he would need to go to the front ( we were in the very back at this point) and he told me to go into this door and take my seat to the left. I found seat 73 and sat down for 10 minutes before an elderly man came into the train and began walking my way. He looked at me as though he needed me to get up and allow him to take his spot next to the window, but this was not exactly the case. He said that he and his wife were supposed to be sitting next to each other and that I was not in the right car, we were in car 28 and I was supposed to be in 18. What a lying sack of $#!t that guy at the door was. So I grabbed my bag and began walking toward the front of the train. I got as far as car 24 before I found an employee of the train and I asked him to help me find my seat, though I figured I’d just have to keep going in the same direction for a few more cars. But that’s when he looked at my ticket and told me that I didn’t have a seat on this train. The conversation went as follows:
\Me: excuse me, is this the way to my seat?
Pierre: let me see your ticket. Sir, you don’t have a seat on this train.
Me: what do you mean? this train is going to Amsterdam right?
Pierre: no this train is going to Cologne.
Me: but the guy at door 28 looked at my ticket and told me to get on. Are you sure this isn’t going to Amsterdam?
Pierre: yes sir, this train is going to…just a sec (sticks his head around the corner and speaks in French, then turns back to me) Sir this train is indeed going to Cologne, and you do not have a seat on this train. You will have to wait until we get to Bruxsels and change trains there.
Me: what do you mean change trains? My tickets says Amsterdam and the marquee said this is the train I need to be on.
Pierre: Sir you are going to have to wait until we get to Bruxels, get off there and change trains. Now if you will excuse me, I have to get the food ready for 1st class.
So now I’m freaking out, Tony is lord knows where, I dontt have a cell phone and neither does he, so I cant call him to tell him that we have to get off the train and get on another one. So I take off in the same direction, looking for the head of curly hair leaned back against the seat, taking a nap. As I pass from car to car, I notice that ive entered into 1st class, I know tony didn’t get a first class ticket, but I had no idea of know what happened after we parted ways at the back of the bus platform. I walked until the end, car 19, so I turned and walked back the other way, past 24, the bar car, and all the way back up to 28 where I originally sat…still no tony. Now im really worried because I doubt he knows whats going on either and we have no way to get a hold of each other. Im thinking that once I get there, ill get off the train, buy a ticket to Amsterdam and meet tony there, at a sports bar we talked about going to to watch opening weekend of college football season.
As we were pulling into the station, Pierre came over to me and said that what I needed to do was to get off the train there and go to the first train, that was the one going to Amsterdam. So I got off the train and began walking toward the front, this is when I noticed that this train was actually 3 separate trains put together to make the trek to bruxels, before parting and going separate ways. This was a huge sigh of relief as I got onto the right train and promptly took my seat in 73. Now I still wasn’t sure that Tony was on this train, but I figured he was headed in the right direction seeing as how he was given proper instructions the first time around.
I was on the very front car of the train so when we got off in Amsterdam I stood, waiting for him to come to me from wherever it was that he was sitting. A couple of minutes passed and no one was left on the train, and still no Tony. I watched as the doors closed on the train and it started to pull away. This is when Tony came walking around the bend in the platform that was hidden by the train, much to my relief. He had been on the very back of the front car, I was near the front, and he had gotten off through the back door and started walking toward the back of the train looking for me. (I had gotten off the front door of the 1st car and had just stood there) Anyhow, we were both there and ready to get the party started.
We made it to the hostel, checked in, and headed to get some food and watch opening weekend of college football at the American sports bar in Liedersplein. The only game that was on was Georgia vs. Oklahoma State. We were not the only ones in the bar however. There was a big soccer match between Ecuador and some other south American country, and I was kicking myself for not having my Ecuador jersey on. I would have played that for all it was worth and tried to get some free drinks out of it, that’s for sure. They ended up losing, so my Ecuadorian comrades were not happy campers at the final whistle. As we were leaving the bar, we ran into a guy from Whales who was passing out cards for a pub crawl that goes on every night there in the area. We already had plans for Saturday night so we told him that we would be back on Sunday to see what it was all about. He gave us each a card that got us a dollar off admission, or a free t-shirt, whichever we wanted. But we hopped a train back to the red light district and spent the rest of our night there.
Sunday, we woke up and walked around a little bit, looking at souvenir shops and stuff. But we soon realized that they all sold the same stuff for the same price and it was pointless to go into another one, so what did we do…we found a bar and started drinking. We had a few hours to kill before the start of the pub crawl so we started early by have a few brews and watching cricket. We watched an entire match to 250 runs and tried to figure out the scoring system and some of the rules. After watching that match, I feel I at least have a better understanding of the game.
The pub crawl started at 8 so we hopped a train back to the Leidersplein and headed to the first bar. The 20 Euro entry fee got us free vodka shots all night, a free beer at each of the 6 bars, free entry to 2 dance clubs, and a free t-shirt…not a bad gig I’d say. The night started off pretty relaxed, just drinking beers and a few vodka shot, but as the night progressed, so too did the craziness. We forewent the beers and just had vodka and danced the night away…this made for a great hangover the next day.
On the bus on the way back to Hamburg, there was a guy that would not stop talking the entire 6 hours. He was talking to whoever would listen and about anything under the sun. at one point I heard him telling…for those of you playing along at home, he was speaking English, I haven’t miraculously learned fluent German or anything…a woman about a group of scientists that is trying to debunk Evolution. The best part of this story happened at a rest stop where the bus was turned off, so I was able to hear the entire explanation. It goes as follows:
“so these scientists have looked at fossil records and gathered some data and they have evidence that proves that Evolution isn’t the answer for how the world came to be. What happened was that the gravitational pull of the earth used to be much, much stronger, and every element on the periodic chart is actually a metal. so with increased gravity, it all condensed down and created new compounds that led to living things. Now these living things were much, much bigger than we are today, because the increase in gravity brought more elements together and was able to hold them together. This is where the dinosaurs come from. But [something] happed to throw earth farther away from the sun, which caused the gravity to weaken and therefore the bigger animals could not survive, because their internal workings couldn’t handle the decrease in pressure. Now the surprising thing in all this is that there were actually humans alive at this time, giant humans. They have actually found human footprints next to dinosaur prints that suggest that humans were 18 ft tall. My buddy was walking along the beach one day, when something washed up on land. He picked it up, im kidding you not, and it was a human skull. It measured 36 in around. He actually held this human head from millions of years ago in his hands. They have found pieces of these skulls and human bones in other places as well. They have actually pieced these ancient humans together and found that they sometimes had 36 fingers and toes, and extra limbs that have disappeared from the current gene pool. So as generations of humans were born into this environment with less gravity, they shrank, lost these extra appendages, and eventually over time became closer to the what we look like today.”
The woman he was talking to seemed pretty skeptical but she kept asking him questions about I, I think just to see what he would say next. As the bus started up and we took off, he was talking something about a house cat and a lion being one gene different from one another and something about genes switching on and off through time. I couldn’t really hear over the hum of the bus and the passing traffic. But I got a nice science lesson on the way home and now I feel a whole lot smarter….(sarcasm oozing off the page right here)
When we got to Hamburg, we had no cash, just a credit card and much to our delight, the ticket machine doesn’t take credit cards! And our phones are dead! And its midnight! I was able to turn my phone on and get Luis’s number and call on the phone of the guy that works at the Chinese buffet in the train station. If you are reading this, which I highly doubt, Thank you, you are a life saver. Luis came and picked us up and took us back to his house to crash for the night. It just so happened that Florida State was playing Miami in a Monday night college football game, which started at 1 am local time, so we watched as the U upset Florida State in what will go down as one of the great games in the cross-state rivalry. It came down to the last play of the game.
The next morning we got up and caught the train back to Tostedt and had to walk the 7 km back to Dohren. But it was great to be home.
We walked somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 km in 4 days and my feet still hurt.
That trip was Sumthin Sirius!
A-Ron
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
I tents this weekend to come desire past and drive indecent things: - P
this past weekend, with a Eurotrip looming on the horizon, was one where i wanted to take it easy and not spend any money.... it seems the socail calendar of Dohren had different plans for me. well at least in the way of taking it easy. I didnt spend much money, but we sure partied.
Friday was the championship for the Junior Team in a game against Bremen here in Dohren. If they won, they would be traveling down to Regensburg in late Sept. to play in the German Championships. Since David is the coach of this team, (he also plays) i had no responsibility except to consume a few beers and cheer on the team from outside the backstop...the first game i've just watched since being in Dohren. Daniel threw a hell of a game and held them to 2 runs in 5 innings, because thats all we would need to score 13. During the pyramid, champaign was brought out and showered on the young guys...most not even of age to drink, even by German standards. That set the tone for the rest of the night.
Friday was a birthday of a girl that lives in a neighboring town and a classmate of many of the guys on the team. she was coincidentally the ex-ex-girlfriend of Jan, though he was not in attendance due to a trip to Berlin with the youth group of Dohren. When we got there, there was a tent with tables and benches, and about 15 girls sitting, sipping on their drinks. there was no music and very few other guys...the latter was just fine wth me, but the former was a problem that needed to be fixed. In due time it was, the Wild Farmers, as i will call us, had a few drinks and were ready to get the party started so we played DJ around the stereo. the girls remained seated at the tables, so me and Tony decided that we would go over and see what the discussion was about. while it was nice to see some new faces and meet some new girls, they didnt seem to be too impressed with us 'Mericans. i'm pretty sure the conversation lasted about 10 minutes before they gave up translating and again talked with each other solely in German. we took that as our cue. as the night went on, they came out of their cozy seats on the wooden bench and joined the dance party that continued into the wee hours of the morning.
Saturday morning was the Youth Team's championship game and they but instead of just one team, they had to take down 2 in a final four of sorts. the first game was over by the time i got there but i was just in time to see the 2nd game that was tied at 2-2 in the 3rd, before the bases got loaded and one kid, who really never hits the ball all that great in practice, blasted one over the center field fence on a 3-2 count. that served to be the winning blow and the Wild Farmers are champs of the State Youth title.
Saturday, Bassi, one of the soccer players here in Dohren turned 30...and guess what...hes not married! as you might remember, Johst accomplished this feat earlier in the year, and it was a party for the ages. This one would prove to be no different. we met the parade at the firehouse/trainstation and the sawdust was already on the ground. this is where things differ a tad from Johst's task of sweeping it all up, there was this little girl of about 9-10 that kept helping Bassi. At first she just helped him gather it all up into a big pile, that we kept knocking over, but then she got smart and grabbed the trashbag the sawdust came in. and she was putting it all in the bag and guarding it with her life. now this didnt leave much for Bassi to sweep and it couldnt end in 20 minutes, we had to make this thing last. so Bassi's girlfriend got ahold of the bag and dug in the nails. Needless to say this upset the little girl but she was not detered for long, she soon found another bag and again helped out despite our pleas. but once again Bassi's girlfriend came in and ripped the bag. seeing that this wasnt going to be what helped end the misery, Bassi told the girl that he would give her something in his pocket...i couldnt tell what it was, but it looked like trading cards of some kind...if she would kiss him (it is tradition to sweep the streets until the birthday boy is kissed by a virgin)
We then walked down the street to the sporthouse and began the party. i wont go into all the gruesome details but it was a good one, and i was in bed by 12:30. Let's just say 30th birthday parties haven't been too good to me here in Germany. I mean i have a great time and all, but i pay for it later.
At 9 on sunday morning we had to pack up the cars and head to Kiel to play the Seahawks with the 2nd man's team. we had pretty much the normal squad back together this time, not the junior team that we had against Frohnau. I slept the entire way there, and im pretty sure everyone did except the driver...thank you Lowe. when we got there, the field was soaked, they were shoveling water off the field as we were walking up. there was standing water at all the bases and at home, the rest of the field looked fine...mainly because it was an all grass field that looked like it hadnt been cut that week. needless to say it was a slow infield, which accounted for 3 swinging bunts down the thirdbase line in the first inning. At shortstop, i was actually playing in front of the baseline and still had to come in on ground balls. the Seahawks were able to put up 9 runs on 3 walks, 3 swinging bunts, 3 errors, and possibly one of the worst calls ive ever seen in baseball. The only legit hit of the inning was actually foul, and the umpire originally called it right, throwing his hands up and pointing foul, but he never yelled anything, so the runners just kept running and so he then decided that it was a fair ball.
Now this umpire, the only one for our game because the other umipre went home because the team ahd originally said they wouldnt be able to play because of all the rain, might have been one of the worst of all time. and we let him know it after this first blown call with the foul ball call, and the other team let him know about it after he called a curveball that bounced before it got to the catcher for strike 3. Sometimes he would make a silent strike call, simply pointing to the side, as you do for a strike, and other times he would yell strike at the top of his lungs. it was very tough to know what the call was for us in the field, but especially for those at bat and the cather who had to ask constantly if the pitch was a ball or strike. we lost this game 10-0 and only got 2 hits in 4 innings...not a good start to the day. usually we get a half hour between games, to eat, make line ups, and to let the pitcher get ready. this moron gave me 10 minutes to eat and warm up to pitch the next game.
But thats not even the worst part about it. it got worse in the 2nd game. we had rain delays all through the 1st game. it would down pour for 10 minutes, enough to put more standing water on the field, then it would stop, then they would have to get the water off the field and put some more dirt in the holes at home. but that was never enough to cancel the game. Skip was the first batter in the 2nd game. he tried to bunt, but it went foul - strike 1. there was then a foul tip - strike 2. then there were 3 straight balls - 3 balls and 2 strikes. so when the next strike came in a little below the knees, everyone was surprised to hear the umpire say, "strike 2, full count". now for you keeping track at home, 3 strikes is an out in any league...except for this guy's. both teams had been warned already about arguing calls, so the 1st baseman began pleading his case, he did so politely but was quickly shot down by the umpire who INSISTED that the count before that last pitch had been 3 balls and 1 strike. so Skip got to see another pitch which was a ball, giving him a walk...He's the only guy i've ever seen turn a Strike Out into a Base on Balls, but thats why we call him The King.
Here is where all credibility for being a logical thinker goes out the window for this guy. as soon as Skip go to first, the clouds opened up for a good 20-25 minutes, this was the worst rain of the day so far, so again he sent us to the dugouts to wait it out. after the rain had run its course, the clouds broke and the sun came out. this is when any normal thinking human with any rational idea about baseball, would have said, "ok, back on the field." but Tweedle-Dee over here sat in the dugout for 10 minutes before Tony had to ask him what the deal was, where we playing or was he calling it. he looked at Tony as if he had 5 eyes. now getting a bit upset, Tony said quite loudly, "fucking ask him in German, Whats the decision man?" i wasnt going to put anything past this guy at this point, he had already asked us what we wanted to do about the games, though it is solely his discretion, and you never ask a team what they want to do about a rain out, especially the visiting team. but what came out of his mouth next was pure ignorance. He told Tony that we were going to WAIT for the next cloud to come in and see if it rained, if it rained, the game would be called, if not we would play. We were going to WAIT until the blue skies passed to see if the next cloud would bring rain. and thats exactly what we did. once the cloud was overhead, and it wasnt raining yet, we got back out the bats and Daniel went up to bat. After the 3 out of our half of the first, it was starting to sprikle so he yelled at the top of his lungs again, BALLGAME!
we packed up our stuff and got the hell out of there.
Today, i think i'm finished with my bat, the one that i've been turning on Johst's lathe for a good 4 months now. I got up theis morning and put the final touches on it, its not perfect by any means, there are a few minor blemishes in it, but considering i did it all by hand, i'm happy with it...hey, it looks like a bat and there's something to be said for that on the first try. I still need to paint it and put some stickers on it, but Johst ordered those for me today, so soon i'll be able to put it along side the DPU bat that's at home.
Thursday morning we leave for Rome and i'm pumped, this is going to be a great trip.
One month from today, i will be leaving this dream and heading back to reality...not sure how i feel about that.
A-Ron
Friday was the championship for the Junior Team in a game against Bremen here in Dohren. If they won, they would be traveling down to Regensburg in late Sept. to play in the German Championships. Since David is the coach of this team, (he also plays) i had no responsibility except to consume a few beers and cheer on the team from outside the backstop...the first game i've just watched since being in Dohren. Daniel threw a hell of a game and held them to 2 runs in 5 innings, because thats all we would need to score 13. During the pyramid, champaign was brought out and showered on the young guys...most not even of age to drink, even by German standards. That set the tone for the rest of the night.
Friday was a birthday of a girl that lives in a neighboring town and a classmate of many of the guys on the team. she was coincidentally the ex-ex-girlfriend of Jan, though he was not in attendance due to a trip to Berlin with the youth group of Dohren. When we got there, there was a tent with tables and benches, and about 15 girls sitting, sipping on their drinks. there was no music and very few other guys...the latter was just fine wth me, but the former was a problem that needed to be fixed. In due time it was, the Wild Farmers, as i will call us, had a few drinks and were ready to get the party started so we played DJ around the stereo. the girls remained seated at the tables, so me and Tony decided that we would go over and see what the discussion was about. while it was nice to see some new faces and meet some new girls, they didnt seem to be too impressed with us 'Mericans. i'm pretty sure the conversation lasted about 10 minutes before they gave up translating and again talked with each other solely in German. we took that as our cue. as the night went on, they came out of their cozy seats on the wooden bench and joined the dance party that continued into the wee hours of the morning.
Saturday morning was the Youth Team's championship game and they but instead of just one team, they had to take down 2 in a final four of sorts. the first game was over by the time i got there but i was just in time to see the 2nd game that was tied at 2-2 in the 3rd, before the bases got loaded and one kid, who really never hits the ball all that great in practice, blasted one over the center field fence on a 3-2 count. that served to be the winning blow and the Wild Farmers are champs of the State Youth title.
Saturday, Bassi, one of the soccer players here in Dohren turned 30...and guess what...hes not married! as you might remember, Johst accomplished this feat earlier in the year, and it was a party for the ages. This one would prove to be no different. we met the parade at the firehouse/trainstation and the sawdust was already on the ground. this is where things differ a tad from Johst's task of sweeping it all up, there was this little girl of about 9-10 that kept helping Bassi. At first she just helped him gather it all up into a big pile, that we kept knocking over, but then she got smart and grabbed the trashbag the sawdust came in. and she was putting it all in the bag and guarding it with her life. now this didnt leave much for Bassi to sweep and it couldnt end in 20 minutes, we had to make this thing last. so Bassi's girlfriend got ahold of the bag and dug in the nails. Needless to say this upset the little girl but she was not detered for long, she soon found another bag and again helped out despite our pleas. but once again Bassi's girlfriend came in and ripped the bag. seeing that this wasnt going to be what helped end the misery, Bassi told the girl that he would give her something in his pocket...i couldnt tell what it was, but it looked like trading cards of some kind...if she would kiss him (it is tradition to sweep the streets until the birthday boy is kissed by a virgin)
We then walked down the street to the sporthouse and began the party. i wont go into all the gruesome details but it was a good one, and i was in bed by 12:30. Let's just say 30th birthday parties haven't been too good to me here in Germany. I mean i have a great time and all, but i pay for it later.
At 9 on sunday morning we had to pack up the cars and head to Kiel to play the Seahawks with the 2nd man's team. we had pretty much the normal squad back together this time, not the junior team that we had against Frohnau. I slept the entire way there, and im pretty sure everyone did except the driver...thank you Lowe. when we got there, the field was soaked, they were shoveling water off the field as we were walking up. there was standing water at all the bases and at home, the rest of the field looked fine...mainly because it was an all grass field that looked like it hadnt been cut that week. needless to say it was a slow infield, which accounted for 3 swinging bunts down the thirdbase line in the first inning. At shortstop, i was actually playing in front of the baseline and still had to come in on ground balls. the Seahawks were able to put up 9 runs on 3 walks, 3 swinging bunts, 3 errors, and possibly one of the worst calls ive ever seen in baseball. The only legit hit of the inning was actually foul, and the umpire originally called it right, throwing his hands up and pointing foul, but he never yelled anything, so the runners just kept running and so he then decided that it was a fair ball.
Now this umpire, the only one for our game because the other umipre went home because the team ahd originally said they wouldnt be able to play because of all the rain, might have been one of the worst of all time. and we let him know it after this first blown call with the foul ball call, and the other team let him know about it after he called a curveball that bounced before it got to the catcher for strike 3. Sometimes he would make a silent strike call, simply pointing to the side, as you do for a strike, and other times he would yell strike at the top of his lungs. it was very tough to know what the call was for us in the field, but especially for those at bat and the cather who had to ask constantly if the pitch was a ball or strike. we lost this game 10-0 and only got 2 hits in 4 innings...not a good start to the day. usually we get a half hour between games, to eat, make line ups, and to let the pitcher get ready. this moron gave me 10 minutes to eat and warm up to pitch the next game.
But thats not even the worst part about it. it got worse in the 2nd game. we had rain delays all through the 1st game. it would down pour for 10 minutes, enough to put more standing water on the field, then it would stop, then they would have to get the water off the field and put some more dirt in the holes at home. but that was never enough to cancel the game. Skip was the first batter in the 2nd game. he tried to bunt, but it went foul - strike 1. there was then a foul tip - strike 2. then there were 3 straight balls - 3 balls and 2 strikes. so when the next strike came in a little below the knees, everyone was surprised to hear the umpire say, "strike 2, full count". now for you keeping track at home, 3 strikes is an out in any league...except for this guy's. both teams had been warned already about arguing calls, so the 1st baseman began pleading his case, he did so politely but was quickly shot down by the umpire who INSISTED that the count before that last pitch had been 3 balls and 1 strike. so Skip got to see another pitch which was a ball, giving him a walk...He's the only guy i've ever seen turn a Strike Out into a Base on Balls, but thats why we call him The King.
Here is where all credibility for being a logical thinker goes out the window for this guy. as soon as Skip go to first, the clouds opened up for a good 20-25 minutes, this was the worst rain of the day so far, so again he sent us to the dugouts to wait it out. after the rain had run its course, the clouds broke and the sun came out. this is when any normal thinking human with any rational idea about baseball, would have said, "ok, back on the field." but Tweedle-Dee over here sat in the dugout for 10 minutes before Tony had to ask him what the deal was, where we playing or was he calling it. he looked at Tony as if he had 5 eyes. now getting a bit upset, Tony said quite loudly, "fucking ask him in German, Whats the decision man?" i wasnt going to put anything past this guy at this point, he had already asked us what we wanted to do about the games, though it is solely his discretion, and you never ask a team what they want to do about a rain out, especially the visiting team. but what came out of his mouth next was pure ignorance. He told Tony that we were going to WAIT for the next cloud to come in and see if it rained, if it rained, the game would be called, if not we would play. We were going to WAIT until the blue skies passed to see if the next cloud would bring rain. and thats exactly what we did. once the cloud was overhead, and it wasnt raining yet, we got back out the bats and Daniel went up to bat. After the 3 out of our half of the first, it was starting to sprikle so he yelled at the top of his lungs again, BALLGAME!
we packed up our stuff and got the hell out of there.
Today, i think i'm finished with my bat, the one that i've been turning on Johst's lathe for a good 4 months now. I got up theis morning and put the final touches on it, its not perfect by any means, there are a few minor blemishes in it, but considering i did it all by hand, i'm happy with it...hey, it looks like a bat and there's something to be said for that on the first try. I still need to paint it and put some stickers on it, but Johst ordered those for me today, so soon i'll be able to put it along side the DPU bat that's at home.
Thursday morning we leave for Rome and i'm pumped, this is going to be a great trip.
One month from today, i will be leaving this dream and heading back to reality...not sure how i feel about that.
A-Ron
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The Final Games
so it all came down to this, our last games of the season, games that HAD to be won, games against a team that had swept us at our place earlier in the year. it couldnt have been written any better.
With 2 wins over Hamburg and 1 Berlin Sluggers loss against Paderborn at any point in their 4 game set, the Wild Farmers would be movin' on up to the big leagues. but before we could worry about Berlin and Paderborn, we first had to take care of our own business. Henrik had told us earlier in the week that he was planning on coming and throwing a game for us over the weekend so that took a big pressure off our pitching staff which had been recently depleted due to injury and arm-overuse. Since Thies was our horse all year, winning 7 or our total of 14, we had no choice but to ride him one last time in the first game...its tough to sweep if you dont win the 1st one.
When we showed up at the field for batting practice, there was already a feeling throughout the team that this was going to be a good day. we'd had great practices in the week and we were prepared to kick some ass. and by the looks of thier hitters in BP, they didnt have the same confidence. there was no talking, no cheering for good hits, no friendly banter amongst teammates; they were on their heels already and we could smell it.
we had beers and Korn chilling the fridge in the dugout, thats how positive we were that we were going to win. we had bought champaign before the game and had it on ice, thats how confident we were. and it showed when we took infield, we were clean, crisp, and most of all, we were loud; cheering for good throws from the outfield, rooting on infielders as they made easy plays on balls hit softly to them as though they were game saving dives in the holes. We had come to play.
Thies threw a 2 hitter in the first game, allowing 2 unearned runs to touch home with a handfull of Ks. We had brought our bats with us, on the other hand, and we were ahead from the start and never looked back. it was a great start to the day, and if they weren't scared before, they definitely were now. they had been swept by the Sluggers the weekend before and were starring another one in the face this time around.
everyone knew what was at stake and despite it being the last game of the season, no one complained that i put the same lineup back out there for the 2nd game...never change a winning team...and this lineup was poised for one last big win. Henrik was on the bump in the night cap and began just as he had left off last weekend against Braunschwieg. he was pumping strikes and getting ground balls, we had a bit more trouble fielding them than i would have liked but the 4 double plays we turned helped get us out of jams. the momentum began to shift in the 3rd when they put up 3 runs, but as i said before, there was a different aura about this team than there had been in the middle of the season. before, we might have lost fight, might have packed it in, but not now, not in the most important game of our season. we responded in the top of the 4th with 5 runs of our own, and the threat had been squashed like the proverbial bug.
We were in the driver's seat and it stayed this way until the bottom of the 7th. Runners had reached base on a walk and an error with a steal in between. that gave them runners on 1st and 3rd with 1 down and down by 4. I had been patrolling right field all day. I had badly misjudged a ball over my head in the first game...thanks a little to the sun...only to turn and make a good relay throw to get the guy at the plate. early in the 2nd game i had fired a ball to third trying to get the tagging runner from 2nd but it was just a bit off line and he was safe by just a bit. So with 1 down in the bottom of the 7th and runners on 1st and 3rd, i wasnt expecting the runner, the same one i'd almost hosed at 3rd, to try to test me again. there was no way that he would even think about it, his run means nothing in the grand scheme of things and they'd still have a scoring opportunity with 2 down if i caught it and he didnt go. But as the ball was settling into my mit (for the 2nd out of the inning) i glanced at 3rd and saw him pumping for home...I couldnt believe it, and to be honest i was a bit offended, i know i've lost a bit on the ol wing since i last played in the outfield in highschool, but i still had plenty left in the tank and the best arm i'd seen in the German 2nd league. what an idiot! I came up firing a laser beam that flew just over Johst's head and was a perfect one hopper to Tony at home...its the kind of play you dream of making, the perfect scenario, the perfect read on the ball, the perfect line for the throw, the deafening noise of the 200 fans in attendence, the collective hold of the breath as the dust settles awaiting the call that could end the game or prolong it for one more out...and it was the perfect ending to an unforgetable season.
even though we got 2nd in the league, that pile at the end, the rush toward the middle of the field was one of champions. the pyramid had never been more fun...or more stable for that matter, and maybe thats because we were first leaguers now. and the champaign dousing that ensued was well deserved, we had run the gauntlet of 5 games in 7 days, we had won 8 of our last 10 (9 actually, but we had to forfeit one on account of a bonehead coaching move) and we deserved to celebrate...though some on the Stealers side of the fence seemed to think we were being "classless idiots." but we werent going to let them rain on our parade.
after a few beers on the field, we showered and loaded up the cars headed back to Dohren. That might have been the most fun car ride ever. we drank beers and sang songs like "Finger in the butt, Mexico"...or at least thats how they tell me it translates. By the time we had reached Dohren, the whole town had heard that we were going to the first league, a lot of that had to do with us putting our heads out the windows and screaming it from the mountain tops. that night was something called Kultnacht, or Cult Night, here in Dohren, but we used it as a platform to tell those who didnt know already and bask even more in the glory of our conquest.
the 2nd man's games on Sunday didnt go quite as well, actually they didnt go well at all. we lost the 1st game on a walk off 3-run jack in the bottom of the 7th...thats not exactly how i saw my last pitch of the day going, but thats how it ended. and the 2nd game was just a train wreck. But that is not how i will remember this weekend. I will always remember that throw, and that pile, and the joy on all the faces because i had been a part of the Farmer's team that was the first to make it to the 1st Bundesliga.
DOHREN IST DABEI!!!
A-Ron
With 2 wins over Hamburg and 1 Berlin Sluggers loss against Paderborn at any point in their 4 game set, the Wild Farmers would be movin' on up to the big leagues. but before we could worry about Berlin and Paderborn, we first had to take care of our own business. Henrik had told us earlier in the week that he was planning on coming and throwing a game for us over the weekend so that took a big pressure off our pitching staff which had been recently depleted due to injury and arm-overuse. Since Thies was our horse all year, winning 7 or our total of 14, we had no choice but to ride him one last time in the first game...its tough to sweep if you dont win the 1st one.
When we showed up at the field for batting practice, there was already a feeling throughout the team that this was going to be a good day. we'd had great practices in the week and we were prepared to kick some ass. and by the looks of thier hitters in BP, they didnt have the same confidence. there was no talking, no cheering for good hits, no friendly banter amongst teammates; they were on their heels already and we could smell it.
we had beers and Korn chilling the fridge in the dugout, thats how positive we were that we were going to win. we had bought champaign before the game and had it on ice, thats how confident we were. and it showed when we took infield, we were clean, crisp, and most of all, we were loud; cheering for good throws from the outfield, rooting on infielders as they made easy plays on balls hit softly to them as though they were game saving dives in the holes. We had come to play.
Thies threw a 2 hitter in the first game, allowing 2 unearned runs to touch home with a handfull of Ks. We had brought our bats with us, on the other hand, and we were ahead from the start and never looked back. it was a great start to the day, and if they weren't scared before, they definitely were now. they had been swept by the Sluggers the weekend before and were starring another one in the face this time around.
everyone knew what was at stake and despite it being the last game of the season, no one complained that i put the same lineup back out there for the 2nd game...never change a winning team...and this lineup was poised for one last big win. Henrik was on the bump in the night cap and began just as he had left off last weekend against Braunschwieg. he was pumping strikes and getting ground balls, we had a bit more trouble fielding them than i would have liked but the 4 double plays we turned helped get us out of jams. the momentum began to shift in the 3rd when they put up 3 runs, but as i said before, there was a different aura about this team than there had been in the middle of the season. before, we might have lost fight, might have packed it in, but not now, not in the most important game of our season. we responded in the top of the 4th with 5 runs of our own, and the threat had been squashed like the proverbial bug.
We were in the driver's seat and it stayed this way until the bottom of the 7th. Runners had reached base on a walk and an error with a steal in between. that gave them runners on 1st and 3rd with 1 down and down by 4. I had been patrolling right field all day. I had badly misjudged a ball over my head in the first game...thanks a little to the sun...only to turn and make a good relay throw to get the guy at the plate. early in the 2nd game i had fired a ball to third trying to get the tagging runner from 2nd but it was just a bit off line and he was safe by just a bit. So with 1 down in the bottom of the 7th and runners on 1st and 3rd, i wasnt expecting the runner, the same one i'd almost hosed at 3rd, to try to test me again. there was no way that he would even think about it, his run means nothing in the grand scheme of things and they'd still have a scoring opportunity with 2 down if i caught it and he didnt go. But as the ball was settling into my mit (for the 2nd out of the inning) i glanced at 3rd and saw him pumping for home...I couldnt believe it, and to be honest i was a bit offended, i know i've lost a bit on the ol wing since i last played in the outfield in highschool, but i still had plenty left in the tank and the best arm i'd seen in the German 2nd league. what an idiot! I came up firing a laser beam that flew just over Johst's head and was a perfect one hopper to Tony at home...its the kind of play you dream of making, the perfect scenario, the perfect read on the ball, the perfect line for the throw, the deafening noise of the 200 fans in attendence, the collective hold of the breath as the dust settles awaiting the call that could end the game or prolong it for one more out...and it was the perfect ending to an unforgetable season.
even though we got 2nd in the league, that pile at the end, the rush toward the middle of the field was one of champions. the pyramid had never been more fun...or more stable for that matter, and maybe thats because we were first leaguers now. and the champaign dousing that ensued was well deserved, we had run the gauntlet of 5 games in 7 days, we had won 8 of our last 10 (9 actually, but we had to forfeit one on account of a bonehead coaching move) and we deserved to celebrate...though some on the Stealers side of the fence seemed to think we were being "classless idiots." but we werent going to let them rain on our parade.
after a few beers on the field, we showered and loaded up the cars headed back to Dohren. That might have been the most fun car ride ever. we drank beers and sang songs like "Finger in the butt, Mexico"...or at least thats how they tell me it translates. By the time we had reached Dohren, the whole town had heard that we were going to the first league, a lot of that had to do with us putting our heads out the windows and screaming it from the mountain tops. that night was something called Kultnacht, or Cult Night, here in Dohren, but we used it as a platform to tell those who didnt know already and bask even more in the glory of our conquest.
the 2nd man's games on Sunday didnt go quite as well, actually they didnt go well at all. we lost the 1st game on a walk off 3-run jack in the bottom of the 7th...thats not exactly how i saw my last pitch of the day going, but thats how it ended. and the 2nd game was just a train wreck. But that is not how i will remember this weekend. I will always remember that throw, and that pile, and the joy on all the faces because i had been a part of the Farmer's team that was the first to make it to the 1st Bundesliga.
DOHREN IST DABEI!!!
A-Ron
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Reese and Weekend Sweep
After a brief trip home to Walkerton, Reese packed his bags and headed back for Korea, but not before a little detour to Dohren City to see the Wild Farmers. His plane landed at 10 am in Frankfurt and then he hopped on a train bound for Hamburg. I met him at the trainstation and we headed back to Dohren. There was one ultimatum laid down by guys on the team and it was that he would not be allowed to step foot on Dohren soil if he did not have dip with him. He did not disappoint. Since Reese was new to Germany and Dohren, I took him on the Dohren Tour around the city. That included stops at the baseball field and the DC bat factory where we saw johst turn a bat on the lathe. Later that evening we headed to dieckhof for an introduction to German beers and a Currywurst and Pommes, a dish that has become a staple for me everytime i go there. Actually i get it some much the waiter asked me if i wanted one before we ordered our first beer. Tony met us there later, after he was done with softball practice, and we shot the shit until around 12 when we headed back toward Dohren. We debated going home to bed or going to Krila's to have some more beers and watch baseball. Reese said that we should keep drinking since we were going to a Concentration Camp the next day and it wouldnt be appropriate to be chipper but rather we needed to look tired and irratible. So we went to Krila's to watch baseball since he's got ESPN America.
Wednesday Krila picked us up around 1 and we went to Bergen-Belsen, A POW camp that was later turned into a concentration camp by the Nazi regime. Now I had to learn about these camps when I was in school, and then they seemed so far away, so other-worldly. It was like something out of a fiction book and i couldnt believe that people would actually do something like that. And now that i have been there, seen the reminants of the buildings, walked on the same Earth that was once covered with the stench of death and dying and disease, it takes on a whole new realness. Though all of the buildings have been torn down since the camps closure in 1945, there are a few foundations of some of the bunk houses still remaining and 6-7 mass graves mounded up on the west side of the compound. This was the thing that was the most shocking to me, between the POW camp and later the concentration camp, somehting in the neighborhood of 52,000 people died at the camp or as a result of the injuries and disease of the camp. There was a video shot in 1945 when the British came and liberated the remaining prisoners and it shows hundreds of bodies being pushed around by a bulldoser in an effort to clean up the site. Anne Frank died in this camp just a few months before it was liberated.
Wednesday night we went to practice where Reese joined us and took some grounders and hit a little bit. I tried to talk him into dropping and driving for the fence but he assured me that that was not his game and proceeded to lace liners right over the 2nd baseman. We had some pizza and beers after practice, which is the norm for wednesdays.
Thursday we had to go to the school in Tostedt so Reese came along and we taught some younsters how to throw and catch...which is proving to be easier said than done, most of them arent grasping the concept and the teacher doesnt speak English very well so its been tough to get our point across to the kids. after our lesson at the Dieckhof School, we had to run over the Tostedt Real for an afterschool program. there are kids from all over the area that come and choose what sport they want to do. there is basketball (the coach for this one is a chick...if you can call her that...that is at least 6' 5" and 250 lbs) soccer, ping pong, karate, and baseball...we had one kid, but they sent us home anyway. we got beat by table tennis and karate...it was a sad day, but at the same time, we were all pretty tired and not in the mood to teach 1 kid baseball for 2 hours. so we got something to eat in Tostedt and came home and took a nap.
Hasi made us reservation at the Beck's Brewery in Bremen for friday at 2 pm so we got to the train station in Tostedt at 12 to buy our ticket for the 12:10 train. it took at least 15 minutes for us to figure out how to get the right ticket and come to find out, there was no 12:10 train, the soonest one was 12:47. that put us in Bremen at 1:30 and we still didnt know how far it was to the brewery or exactly where it was. so when we got to the trainstation, we headed to an info desk and asked the best way to get there. at first they all looked at me like i was speaking a foreign language...wait...i guess i was, but they conversed for a few seconds and told us to get on the 1 tram toward Huchting. when we walked outside and found out where the tram was it was coming down the tracks. we jumped on and rode it with no idea what stop to get off, just that we were headed in the right direction. We figured the brewery would pop out and we would just know...we were right. we got off the tram and got the brewery with 10 minutes to spare.
the tour itself was like most others ive been on, no big differences between styles or ingredients, but thats not why i go, its the beer tasting after the tour thats the main attraction. at the tasting here, they give you 2 of their 3 brews and you are to distinguish between them. Tony and Reese agreed that the first one was Beck's and the 2nd was Hakke-Beck's. I thought it was the other way. Our guide said that the people that got it right would be given another beer...he gave Tony and Reese another one anyway! actually everyone gets 4 beers and then a beer for the road. we were pretty hungry so we decided to get back to the train station and see when our train left before trying to find some food. its a good thing we did because we just had enough time to get Burger King at the station before getting on the train. we got back with just long enough to get home and change before leaving for practice.
Saturday we had to make up our one game against Bremen at their place that got rained out last time. which was a good thing because we were losing bad that game. but we came in with a different intensity this time around. i could tell from batting practice that we knew we were going to win, there was a refreshed attitude among the team, the one that was there in the beginning of the season. the score was tied at 0-0 after the first inning but that would change in the 2nd and the 3rd and the 4th. Laser had a no hitter going through 4 innings and we were lighting up their pitcher. Laser's arm was bothering him, so i took him out and put myself on the mound. I dont know what it is but they hit me well for some reason. the first batter i faced got a hit and the post game show was cancelled for both teams. we won this game easily 8-2.
Sunday was a double header against the worst team in the league, Braunschweig. But depiste their record, we have never played 3 games in a weekend and were a bit worried about our pitching situation. Henrik helped us out big time by coming and giving us 4 solid innings. Tony came in in relief and held them to just 1 run. I hit a 3-run HR in the 1st, my 7th HR since being in Germany, and added an RBI single later in the game. we won this game by the mercy rule 11-1 in the 6th.
Thies started the 2nd game and threw a complete game, 7 innings 3 runs. again we scored 11 and i had a triple and a double in this game. that gave me a 1b, 2b, 3b, and HR on the day...the cycle. despite it coming in a double header, its the first time i've gotten all 4 in one day so i'm counting it. So despite all the worry and stress over finding out how we were going to find pitching for 3 games in a weekend, it ended up as best it could have. With those 3 wins, we are now in 2nd place in the league and have a possible chance at getting 1st if the 4 game series between Berlin and Paderborn plays out right.
After the game we had a BBQ to get rid of the leftovers from the Farmers Cup. there was all kinds of meats and beer, and salads, it was a feast. Henrik came back after tending to the farm and brought Charlie along. now this is the most skiddish dog i've ever met so you imagine my surprise when i called his name and he came right over to me and let me pet him. this was icing on the cake for the day. I was beginning to think it would never happen, but i can cross this one off my to-do list! Granted, he never came over and let me pet him again that day, but it did happen once and i'll take it.
A-Ron
in other world news: Congrats to Christie and Harris on their wedding. wish i could have been there guys.
AND Matt Walker has resigned from both the head baseball and football positions at DePauw University for personal reasons.
Wednesday Krila picked us up around 1 and we went to Bergen-Belsen, A POW camp that was later turned into a concentration camp by the Nazi regime. Now I had to learn about these camps when I was in school, and then they seemed so far away, so other-worldly. It was like something out of a fiction book and i couldnt believe that people would actually do something like that. And now that i have been there, seen the reminants of the buildings, walked on the same Earth that was once covered with the stench of death and dying and disease, it takes on a whole new realness. Though all of the buildings have been torn down since the camps closure in 1945, there are a few foundations of some of the bunk houses still remaining and 6-7 mass graves mounded up on the west side of the compound. This was the thing that was the most shocking to me, between the POW camp and later the concentration camp, somehting in the neighborhood of 52,000 people died at the camp or as a result of the injuries and disease of the camp. There was a video shot in 1945 when the British came and liberated the remaining prisoners and it shows hundreds of bodies being pushed around by a bulldoser in an effort to clean up the site. Anne Frank died in this camp just a few months before it was liberated.
Wednesday night we went to practice where Reese joined us and took some grounders and hit a little bit. I tried to talk him into dropping and driving for the fence but he assured me that that was not his game and proceeded to lace liners right over the 2nd baseman. We had some pizza and beers after practice, which is the norm for wednesdays.
Thursday we had to go to the school in Tostedt so Reese came along and we taught some younsters how to throw and catch...which is proving to be easier said than done, most of them arent grasping the concept and the teacher doesnt speak English very well so its been tough to get our point across to the kids. after our lesson at the Dieckhof School, we had to run over the Tostedt Real for an afterschool program. there are kids from all over the area that come and choose what sport they want to do. there is basketball (the coach for this one is a chick...if you can call her that...that is at least 6' 5" and 250 lbs) soccer, ping pong, karate, and baseball...we had one kid, but they sent us home anyway. we got beat by table tennis and karate...it was a sad day, but at the same time, we were all pretty tired and not in the mood to teach 1 kid baseball for 2 hours. so we got something to eat in Tostedt and came home and took a nap.
Hasi made us reservation at the Beck's Brewery in Bremen for friday at 2 pm so we got to the train station in Tostedt at 12 to buy our ticket for the 12:10 train. it took at least 15 minutes for us to figure out how to get the right ticket and come to find out, there was no 12:10 train, the soonest one was 12:47. that put us in Bremen at 1:30 and we still didnt know how far it was to the brewery or exactly where it was. so when we got to the trainstation, we headed to an info desk and asked the best way to get there. at first they all looked at me like i was speaking a foreign language...wait...i guess i was, but they conversed for a few seconds and told us to get on the 1 tram toward Huchting. when we walked outside and found out where the tram was it was coming down the tracks. we jumped on and rode it with no idea what stop to get off, just that we were headed in the right direction. We figured the brewery would pop out and we would just know...we were right. we got off the tram and got the brewery with 10 minutes to spare.
the tour itself was like most others ive been on, no big differences between styles or ingredients, but thats not why i go, its the beer tasting after the tour thats the main attraction. at the tasting here, they give you 2 of their 3 brews and you are to distinguish between them. Tony and Reese agreed that the first one was Beck's and the 2nd was Hakke-Beck's. I thought it was the other way. Our guide said that the people that got it right would be given another beer...he gave Tony and Reese another one anyway! actually everyone gets 4 beers and then a beer for the road. we were pretty hungry so we decided to get back to the train station and see when our train left before trying to find some food. its a good thing we did because we just had enough time to get Burger King at the station before getting on the train. we got back with just long enough to get home and change before leaving for practice.
Saturday we had to make up our one game against Bremen at their place that got rained out last time. which was a good thing because we were losing bad that game. but we came in with a different intensity this time around. i could tell from batting practice that we knew we were going to win, there was a refreshed attitude among the team, the one that was there in the beginning of the season. the score was tied at 0-0 after the first inning but that would change in the 2nd and the 3rd and the 4th. Laser had a no hitter going through 4 innings and we were lighting up their pitcher. Laser's arm was bothering him, so i took him out and put myself on the mound. I dont know what it is but they hit me well for some reason. the first batter i faced got a hit and the post game show was cancelled for both teams. we won this game easily 8-2.
Sunday was a double header against the worst team in the league, Braunschweig. But depiste their record, we have never played 3 games in a weekend and were a bit worried about our pitching situation. Henrik helped us out big time by coming and giving us 4 solid innings. Tony came in in relief and held them to just 1 run. I hit a 3-run HR in the 1st, my 7th HR since being in Germany, and added an RBI single later in the game. we won this game by the mercy rule 11-1 in the 6th.
Thies started the 2nd game and threw a complete game, 7 innings 3 runs. again we scored 11 and i had a triple and a double in this game. that gave me a 1b, 2b, 3b, and HR on the day...the cycle. despite it coming in a double header, its the first time i've gotten all 4 in one day so i'm counting it. So despite all the worry and stress over finding out how we were going to find pitching for 3 games in a weekend, it ended up as best it could have. With those 3 wins, we are now in 2nd place in the league and have a possible chance at getting 1st if the 4 game series between Berlin and Paderborn plays out right.
After the game we had a BBQ to get rid of the leftovers from the Farmers Cup. there was all kinds of meats and beer, and salads, it was a feast. Henrik came back after tending to the farm and brought Charlie along. now this is the most skiddish dog i've ever met so you imagine my surprise when i called his name and he came right over to me and let me pet him. this was icing on the cake for the day. I was beginning to think it would never happen, but i can cross this one off my to-do list! Granted, he never came over and let me pet him again that day, but it did happen once and i'll take it.
A-Ron
in other world news: Congrats to Christie and Harris on their wedding. wish i could have been there guys.
AND Matt Walker has resigned from both the head baseball and football positions at DePauw University for personal reasons.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
The Boys from Bakersfield
2 cars pulled out of the Hassenpflug dirveway thursday evening, packed to the gills with fishing gear, bags, and 8 guys ready to have the adventure of a lifetime. Sweden is an 8 hour trip from the friendly confines of Dohren City, so leaving at 8 pm would put us there just as the fishing would start getting good. (the sun rises at 4 am there...and it doesnt really get dark until 11)
the excitement grew as we passed by Hamburg and no traffic jam, (quite a rarity since the Autobahn is torn to hell on the A1) we made great time to Kiel, and were crossing into Denmark in no time. The first ferry was a 40 minute trip across the Baltic Sea. it was crammed with cars, we were actually the last cars to get on. so we headed up to the ol poop deck and watched as ships passed in the night. since we had been in the car for about 4 hours, we were a little slap happy and began doing Titanic scenes, like "i'm the king of the world" and spitting over the side of the boat. we got some weird looks from the other passengers. this is also where we bought 12 cases of "Probably the best beer in the World" (Carlsburg) to go along with 2.5 cases of Astra we stuffed into our bags and the 7 bottles of liquir...so really the cars werent too packed to the gills when we left, but they definitely rode a little lower after coming off the ferry.
Denmark isnt a very fun place to drive through, it reminds me a lot of Indiana actually; flat farm lands for miles in every direction. but after 2 hours of driving, we made it to the next ferry, the one to take us to the promise land, just in time to see the gate go down and it sail away. so we had to wait for it to go over and come back...this was just enough time to start a dance party outside the cars. Thies also showed us how Rigs, his uncle's dog, pulled his hamstring once. this is truely indescribable, but i think you can picture it in your head...not the dog pulling a hamstring, but a guy on all fours reinacting it outside the 1st car in a line of 15 waiting to get on the ferry at midnight. this ferry had a much better viewing deck, which afforded us another golden opportunity to do the "king of the world" scene from titanic.
Once in Sweden, we had another couple of hours until we got to the lake house. and this part of the drive was marked by random spot lights lighting up trees in the forest, a giant elk statue, and stories of sexual conquests told just to keep Thies awake as he drove. we pulled into the house right at 4 am, exactly 8 hours from when we started, a new record. while most guys unpacked and headed to bed, Tony, Hubi, and I stayed awake and headed out to the boat with our fishing gear. it was quite chilly and it started raining after a while so we headed in empty handed around 6.
Flankey Ball is a game that I had come to despise, I hadnt won...hell i hadnt even knocked over a can in the entire 6 games that i'd played. but this is the tradition in Sweden, so when in Rome, right? so the stage was set, 4 teams battling for the right not to have to do dishes that night. (spaghetti was on the menu) Team USA consisting of...well i think you can figure that one out, took home the trophy and my thoughts about the game have changed a bit...its actually a simple game if you knock over the cans. Lowe (pronounced Loova) and Nico were the unfortunate pair that lost both games and had to clean up that night.
After a good meal, we sat around the table and played our first of many rounds of poker. Its a good thing someone brought chips and cards, because it would have made for some boring evenings otherwise. Everyone pretty much played every hand dealt, but i think it had more to do with the fact that they were "erotic cards" and had naked women on them, more so than them actually being good hands.
Saturday, we had decided, would be the day that we would go to Jonkeping and go to a bar instead of drinking at the house. we needed to see these Swedish women for ourselves. Timo, Nico, and Tony went early to see the town, while Thies, Lowe, Jan, Hubi, and I waited around a little bit longer...and by waited around i mean we pregamed. we got to the town around 6-6:30 and it was a ghost town, there was nothing opened and no one was around. but we had a case of beer with us so we found a parking lot (empty of course) and called the other guys to come meet us there. the 4 of us, Lowe had to drive, had almost finished the beer by the time the others got there, but they had a case too, so the party continued. we decided that if we were going to go out to these bars, we needed a back story...all great bar visits start with these kind of conversations. so we come up with the story that we were all high school friends from Bakersfield, CA there together celebrating Tony's bachelor party. so here is the line up:
Tony: plays wide reciever for arena football in Kansas City
Jan: shortstop for Tokyo Giants. leads the league in errors. He was our stoner friend in school.
Thies: Plays hockey for the Anaheim Ducks.
Nico: point guard for the Knicks
Hubi aka Sebastion Walsh: brother to Kerry Walsh and also a pro volleyball player
Me: Bomb dropper for the Mets
Timo: plays alongside Tiger Woods for Team Nike. he was taking meds to rehab a knee so no drinking for him
Toward the end of our 2nd case of beer, Thies decided he wanted to say something, "Hey i have a question. I'm hungry. Let's go to McDonalds."
The rest of the group, "Thies, that was actually 2 statements. you didnt ask a question anywhere in there."
this became a common saying throughout the rest of the trip. as did, "i'm not from California, I'm from Anaheim." again, thank you thies.
so now that we had our story straight, we did finally go to McDonalds, and then off to paint the town red. we walked along the strip until we fould a place that was having some kind of party on the roof with a live band. so we headed in and when we got up the stairs, we saw that everyone there was dressed up very nice in shirts and ties and we came strolling in wearing t-shirts and shorts. they were all dancing and singing though, so we thought why not stay and see where this takes us. We found the bar and ordered a drink. 49 krown for a beer, that equates to 5 euros a beer, which when compared to the dollar is something like 8 bucks. but we got a beer and headed up to the dance floor. it was filled with older women and they took to us like ducks to water. we were dancing and singing along and just loving life. then the band took a break, and just as they left the roof and the door closed behind them, a drunk guy crashed into the mixing board and fell to the ground with it. but he didnt seem to break anything because the band came back out and continued on. The singer called up a girl, we think it was her birthday or something, and then looked around and grabbed Hubi and they danced for about 5 seconds of the song before the girl was bombarded by her friends and hubi came back to our circle.
an older man came up to us, asking what we were there for, and we told him that we were celebrating Tony's bachelor party, and he said that there was a place down the way that was more our age group. he sounded sincere about it, but talking about the conversation later, we thought that we might have been impeding on his game a little bit by dacing with all the women, so thats why he told us to leave. but we walked down to where he told us and found a line halfway around the block to get into the bar, Twin Cities. and we found out that there was a cover charge as well. so i went up to a group of girls and asked them if they knew of any other place we could go to hang out and drink some beers. they told us about a bar on the other side of the big hotel infront of us and that they would come with us. we gave them our bullshit story about being from Bakersfield and playing all of our sports, and they bought it...hook, line, and sinker! well...that is until some of the guys started speaking German and one of the girls asked Tony, "are your friends German?" "Uh no, they spent a few years in Germany though, so they like to take German to each other."
This made the girls leave, and there we were sitting on the corner of the street, wondering what to do next. there was some discussion, but since the drivers wanted to leave, we all had to go home with them.
Sunday was yet another day on the lake, trying to catch those pesky pike. I'm pretty sure they were holding on deeper cover, in the cooler water, but since we didnt have a depth finder or anything like that, it was impossible to find the fish. we were able to catch 4 pike, ranging from 30cm to 59cm, throughout the 5 days. but they were just shore runners alone, searching for some smaller bait fish. Lowe did have 2 fish on that threw the hook and got away, but the 4 we caught were grilled up and devoured.
on Monday, we went swimming at the jumping tower...i say we because we all went, but only Nico, Hubi, Thies, and Lowe got in the water. it was way too cold for me. but they all climbed up the tower, and took a jump. Nico and Hubi went up to the 10 meter platform and did perfect backflips, and didnt even make a splash when they hit the water. it was like they water opened up and just swallowed them, no disturbance whatsoever...or at least thats how we are all going to tell the story.
the rest of the trip is littered with poker, long hours spent at Pike Tongue and Killer Pike Island, beers, and songs with innappropriate lyrics that i wont mention here, though i will never forget them. we also ran out of beer on sunday night, so we had to go buy more for monday evening festivities. Beer is very expensive in Sweden but we found the cheapest, most alcohol percentage we could and got 3 cases. the same amount of money would have bought 14 bottles of korn here in germany, so thats roughly 70 euros for 3 cases of half liters. Harboes is a danish beer, and not one i'd never really like to drink again. it had a bad taste going down, and not a real good after taste either...pretty much it was just bad beer. But beggers cant be choosers so i drank it anyway.
4:30 wednesday morning rolled around pretty quickly and we were packing up and heading home. we cleaned pretty much all day tuesday so we could get up and go wednesday morning so we were on the road by 5 am. we had practice that night at 7 and wanted to get back, unpacked, and rested a little before hitting the field.
Hubi made a 1-hour video of the entire trip, i hope we burns it to a CD so i can have visuals of this entire thing.
It was a tiring trip and now i need a vacation from my vacation.
A-Ron
the excitement grew as we passed by Hamburg and no traffic jam, (quite a rarity since the Autobahn is torn to hell on the A1) we made great time to Kiel, and were crossing into Denmark in no time. The first ferry was a 40 minute trip across the Baltic Sea. it was crammed with cars, we were actually the last cars to get on. so we headed up to the ol poop deck and watched as ships passed in the night. since we had been in the car for about 4 hours, we were a little slap happy and began doing Titanic scenes, like "i'm the king of the world" and spitting over the side of the boat. we got some weird looks from the other passengers. this is also where we bought 12 cases of "Probably the best beer in the World" (Carlsburg) to go along with 2.5 cases of Astra we stuffed into our bags and the 7 bottles of liquir...so really the cars werent too packed to the gills when we left, but they definitely rode a little lower after coming off the ferry.
Denmark isnt a very fun place to drive through, it reminds me a lot of Indiana actually; flat farm lands for miles in every direction. but after 2 hours of driving, we made it to the next ferry, the one to take us to the promise land, just in time to see the gate go down and it sail away. so we had to wait for it to go over and come back...this was just enough time to start a dance party outside the cars. Thies also showed us how Rigs, his uncle's dog, pulled his hamstring once. this is truely indescribable, but i think you can picture it in your head...not the dog pulling a hamstring, but a guy on all fours reinacting it outside the 1st car in a line of 15 waiting to get on the ferry at midnight. this ferry had a much better viewing deck, which afforded us another golden opportunity to do the "king of the world" scene from titanic.
Once in Sweden, we had another couple of hours until we got to the lake house. and this part of the drive was marked by random spot lights lighting up trees in the forest, a giant elk statue, and stories of sexual conquests told just to keep Thies awake as he drove. we pulled into the house right at 4 am, exactly 8 hours from when we started, a new record. while most guys unpacked and headed to bed, Tony, Hubi, and I stayed awake and headed out to the boat with our fishing gear. it was quite chilly and it started raining after a while so we headed in empty handed around 6.
Flankey Ball is a game that I had come to despise, I hadnt won...hell i hadnt even knocked over a can in the entire 6 games that i'd played. but this is the tradition in Sweden, so when in Rome, right? so the stage was set, 4 teams battling for the right not to have to do dishes that night. (spaghetti was on the menu) Team USA consisting of...well i think you can figure that one out, took home the trophy and my thoughts about the game have changed a bit...its actually a simple game if you knock over the cans. Lowe (pronounced Loova) and Nico were the unfortunate pair that lost both games and had to clean up that night.
After a good meal, we sat around the table and played our first of many rounds of poker. Its a good thing someone brought chips and cards, because it would have made for some boring evenings otherwise. Everyone pretty much played every hand dealt, but i think it had more to do with the fact that they were "erotic cards" and had naked women on them, more so than them actually being good hands.
Saturday, we had decided, would be the day that we would go to Jonkeping and go to a bar instead of drinking at the house. we needed to see these Swedish women for ourselves. Timo, Nico, and Tony went early to see the town, while Thies, Lowe, Jan, Hubi, and I waited around a little bit longer...and by waited around i mean we pregamed. we got to the town around 6-6:30 and it was a ghost town, there was nothing opened and no one was around. but we had a case of beer with us so we found a parking lot (empty of course) and called the other guys to come meet us there. the 4 of us, Lowe had to drive, had almost finished the beer by the time the others got there, but they had a case too, so the party continued. we decided that if we were going to go out to these bars, we needed a back story...all great bar visits start with these kind of conversations. so we come up with the story that we were all high school friends from Bakersfield, CA there together celebrating Tony's bachelor party. so here is the line up:
Tony: plays wide reciever for arena football in Kansas City
Jan: shortstop for Tokyo Giants. leads the league in errors. He was our stoner friend in school.
Thies: Plays hockey for the Anaheim Ducks.
Nico: point guard for the Knicks
Hubi aka Sebastion Walsh: brother to Kerry Walsh and also a pro volleyball player
Me: Bomb dropper for the Mets
Timo: plays alongside Tiger Woods for Team Nike. he was taking meds to rehab a knee so no drinking for him
Toward the end of our 2nd case of beer, Thies decided he wanted to say something, "Hey i have a question. I'm hungry. Let's go to McDonalds."
The rest of the group, "Thies, that was actually 2 statements. you didnt ask a question anywhere in there."
this became a common saying throughout the rest of the trip. as did, "i'm not from California, I'm from Anaheim." again, thank you thies.
so now that we had our story straight, we did finally go to McDonalds, and then off to paint the town red. we walked along the strip until we fould a place that was having some kind of party on the roof with a live band. so we headed in and when we got up the stairs, we saw that everyone there was dressed up very nice in shirts and ties and we came strolling in wearing t-shirts and shorts. they were all dancing and singing though, so we thought why not stay and see where this takes us. We found the bar and ordered a drink. 49 krown for a beer, that equates to 5 euros a beer, which when compared to the dollar is something like 8 bucks. but we got a beer and headed up to the dance floor. it was filled with older women and they took to us like ducks to water. we were dancing and singing along and just loving life. then the band took a break, and just as they left the roof and the door closed behind them, a drunk guy crashed into the mixing board and fell to the ground with it. but he didnt seem to break anything because the band came back out and continued on. The singer called up a girl, we think it was her birthday or something, and then looked around and grabbed Hubi and they danced for about 5 seconds of the song before the girl was bombarded by her friends and hubi came back to our circle.
an older man came up to us, asking what we were there for, and we told him that we were celebrating Tony's bachelor party, and he said that there was a place down the way that was more our age group. he sounded sincere about it, but talking about the conversation later, we thought that we might have been impeding on his game a little bit by dacing with all the women, so thats why he told us to leave. but we walked down to where he told us and found a line halfway around the block to get into the bar, Twin Cities. and we found out that there was a cover charge as well. so i went up to a group of girls and asked them if they knew of any other place we could go to hang out and drink some beers. they told us about a bar on the other side of the big hotel infront of us and that they would come with us. we gave them our bullshit story about being from Bakersfield and playing all of our sports, and they bought it...hook, line, and sinker! well...that is until some of the guys started speaking German and one of the girls asked Tony, "are your friends German?" "Uh no, they spent a few years in Germany though, so they like to take German to each other."
This made the girls leave, and there we were sitting on the corner of the street, wondering what to do next. there was some discussion, but since the drivers wanted to leave, we all had to go home with them.
Sunday was yet another day on the lake, trying to catch those pesky pike. I'm pretty sure they were holding on deeper cover, in the cooler water, but since we didnt have a depth finder or anything like that, it was impossible to find the fish. we were able to catch 4 pike, ranging from 30cm to 59cm, throughout the 5 days. but they were just shore runners alone, searching for some smaller bait fish. Lowe did have 2 fish on that threw the hook and got away, but the 4 we caught were grilled up and devoured.
on Monday, we went swimming at the jumping tower...i say we because we all went, but only Nico, Hubi, Thies, and Lowe got in the water. it was way too cold for me. but they all climbed up the tower, and took a jump. Nico and Hubi went up to the 10 meter platform and did perfect backflips, and didnt even make a splash when they hit the water. it was like they water opened up and just swallowed them, no disturbance whatsoever...or at least thats how we are all going to tell the story.
the rest of the trip is littered with poker, long hours spent at Pike Tongue and Killer Pike Island, beers, and songs with innappropriate lyrics that i wont mention here, though i will never forget them. we also ran out of beer on sunday night, so we had to go buy more for monday evening festivities. Beer is very expensive in Sweden but we found the cheapest, most alcohol percentage we could and got 3 cases. the same amount of money would have bought 14 bottles of korn here in germany, so thats roughly 70 euros for 3 cases of half liters. Harboes is a danish beer, and not one i'd never really like to drink again. it had a bad taste going down, and not a real good after taste either...pretty much it was just bad beer. But beggers cant be choosers so i drank it anyway.
4:30 wednesday morning rolled around pretty quickly and we were packing up and heading home. we cleaned pretty much all day tuesday so we could get up and go wednesday morning so we were on the road by 5 am. we had practice that night at 7 and wanted to get back, unpacked, and rested a little before hitting the field.
Hubi made a 1-hour video of the entire trip, i hope we burns it to a CD so i can have visuals of this entire thing.
It was a tiring trip and now i need a vacation from my vacation.
A-Ron
Monday, July 27, 2009
Farmers Cup XIX
the recipe for Great weekend is:
4 parts alcohol
2 parts random hook ups
2 parts dancing
sprinkle on a bit of rain
mix with 3 parts baseball
Cook on High heat for 72 hours
Things started around noon for me and most the other Wild Farmers. that is to say that we were at the field doing some last minute things in preparation for this extravaganza, and since there were more than 1 of us with the same goal in mind, it was a reason for celebration and libations. so as most of these get-togethers tend to go, we drank some beers and watched as the responsible ones did most of the work. since it was friday and most normal people have to work, the real party didnt start up until around 4 or so. we stood by the beer tent, welcoming all the other teams, sizing them up, them doing the same with us i'm sure.
the tournament kicked off at 6:30 with us playing the Hamburg Boys (this is the '96 hamburg all star team that Johst played for back in the day...'96 to be exact) Despite most of them not playing in for 10 years or so, there actually were a couple that are still playing, they played pretty good ball and hit a lot better than i thought they would. Johst got the the start for them and struck me out on 3 pitches in my only at bat of the game but we were able to win the game and put ourselves in a good place to be in the championship on sunday.
Friday night there was a Flanky ball tournament on the soccer field, under the lights. there were 16 teams in the tournament, and team Sweden, consisting of Thies, Jan, Hubi, Tony, and myself came out on top, though i didnt know this until the next day because i only played the first game...which is fine because to be honest i suck at that game anyway.
Saturday at 11 we continued play against the Dodgers. they were considered the weakest team in the tournament, so i dont know what that says about us because they ended up beating us 3-1. this is about the time that the rains really started coming down. it had been raining all tournament but the field was taking it pretty well. but about 12 noon on saturday, the skies opened up and it poured. we had to sponge water off the field so we could keep playing. the batter's boxes were soaked and there was standing water covering pretty much all of the field...but the show must go on.
we ended saturday 2-2, which was good for the 3rd place game on sunday starting at 2:00. But Saturday night was again a big party, bigger than friday even. and party we did. Tony ended up with his shirt off at one point and Hinzy was doing the running man on the floor. needless to say, the Farmers were tht highlight of the party and i give us the funnest team award with no real contenders for 2nd. at around 5, the sun was coming up and there were only a handful of us left, 2 of which were getting into a heated argument about politics. Me and Luis decided that burgerking was the next move for us, so we headed out. I thought i could remember the back way to get there, but the more and more we went, the more i realized that i was just getting us lost. Luis had to call Kirsten and finally get the real directions. I had a Whopper.
Sunday we came up against one of our friendly teams, Ingostadt, some of whom played with us in the memmingen tournament earlier this year. We lost this game 3-2 on a 2 RBI walk off single. so we got 4th place in the tournament.
Pulheim was the eventual winner, beating Dominican Power in the final, 3-1.
things were lost, and things were gained, now i need a vacation...Sweden in 4 days!
A-Ron
4 parts alcohol
2 parts random hook ups
2 parts dancing
sprinkle on a bit of rain
mix with 3 parts baseball
Cook on High heat for 72 hours
Things started around noon for me and most the other Wild Farmers. that is to say that we were at the field doing some last minute things in preparation for this extravaganza, and since there were more than 1 of us with the same goal in mind, it was a reason for celebration and libations. so as most of these get-togethers tend to go, we drank some beers and watched as the responsible ones did most of the work. since it was friday and most normal people have to work, the real party didnt start up until around 4 or so. we stood by the beer tent, welcoming all the other teams, sizing them up, them doing the same with us i'm sure.
the tournament kicked off at 6:30 with us playing the Hamburg Boys (this is the '96 hamburg all star team that Johst played for back in the day...'96 to be exact) Despite most of them not playing in for 10 years or so, there actually were a couple that are still playing, they played pretty good ball and hit a lot better than i thought they would. Johst got the the start for them and struck me out on 3 pitches in my only at bat of the game but we were able to win the game and put ourselves in a good place to be in the championship on sunday.
Friday night there was a Flanky ball tournament on the soccer field, under the lights. there were 16 teams in the tournament, and team Sweden, consisting of Thies, Jan, Hubi, Tony, and myself came out on top, though i didnt know this until the next day because i only played the first game...which is fine because to be honest i suck at that game anyway.
Saturday at 11 we continued play against the Dodgers. they were considered the weakest team in the tournament, so i dont know what that says about us because they ended up beating us 3-1. this is about the time that the rains really started coming down. it had been raining all tournament but the field was taking it pretty well. but about 12 noon on saturday, the skies opened up and it poured. we had to sponge water off the field so we could keep playing. the batter's boxes were soaked and there was standing water covering pretty much all of the field...but the show must go on.
we ended saturday 2-2, which was good for the 3rd place game on sunday starting at 2:00. But Saturday night was again a big party, bigger than friday even. and party we did. Tony ended up with his shirt off at one point and Hinzy was doing the running man on the floor. needless to say, the Farmers were tht highlight of the party and i give us the funnest team award with no real contenders for 2nd. at around 5, the sun was coming up and there were only a handful of us left, 2 of which were getting into a heated argument about politics. Me and Luis decided that burgerking was the next move for us, so we headed out. I thought i could remember the back way to get there, but the more and more we went, the more i realized that i was just getting us lost. Luis had to call Kirsten and finally get the real directions. I had a Whopper.
Sunday we came up against one of our friendly teams, Ingostadt, some of whom played with us in the memmingen tournament earlier this year. We lost this game 3-2 on a 2 RBI walk off single. so we got 4th place in the tournament.
Pulheim was the eventual winner, beating Dominican Power in the final, 3-1.
things were lost, and things were gained, now i need a vacation...Sweden in 4 days!
A-Ron
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
to all my friends
July 6th was a long time ago, calendar-ly speaking, but it feels like yesterday that we were listening to country music and drinking Jose at the snow dome. Its been a busy couple of weeks, action packed and not a whole lot of time to write. But here’s a rundown of everything that has happened.
That next week I had to stain the 4 huge barn doors so they looked good for the wedding reception that next weekend. I ran out of stain after the first door and when Annegret went to buy more, she got a different, lighter stain so the other 3 doors are a different color. Funny story about staining those doors…Thursday night we were out partying and drinking and I woke up Friday; 5:30 and in my sleepy, half drunken haze, I rushed to get dressed and ran out the door. I walked to the Dallmann house, determined to get the last 2 doors painted and to practice in an hour and a half. I passed Jorgen at the farm and waved hello, briskly passing in a rush. I got to the barn and gathered my things. I had ran out of stain the day before so I was searching for the new can when I again pulled out my phone to see just how much time I had…it was only at this point, 15 minutes after I first looked at my phone that I realized that it was in fact 5:30 AM and not 5:30 PM like I had originally thought. For some reason I slipped back into US time and didn’t even think about the fact that for the last 4 months I’ve been using a 24 hour system of telling time. Moral of this story is that I’m an idiot. But I went back home, laughing at myself and went back to bed.
The wedding on Saturday was a bit different than in America. Instead of the groom waiting with the rest of the wedding party at the alter as the bride strolls down the aisle, the bride and groom walked down the aisle together, following the priest. And there was no wedding party. It was a 45 minute ceremony, all in German except for a couple of songs that were sung in English. Immediately following the ceremony, we returned to our house to change. The invitation said that the reception was an “elegant rock party.” Rock (with an ‘o’ with the 2 dots above it) when translated to English means skirt. So about 25 of us went out and bought skirts to wear to the party as a joke. We met at Thies’s house and walked over together in a big group, all wearing skirts and ties…it was truly a sight to behold. The reception itself was awesome, the food was phenomenal, the live band, a band from Tostedt Johst and Hasi used to listen to when they were younger, was great, and the beer was free…what more could you ask for. It was one of the best wedding receptions I’ve ever been to and one I will never forget.
The next weekend we traveled to Berlin to play the Challengers. I found out a new rule at this doubleheader, Americans cant play both Shortstop and Catcher at the same time…who knew. So even though we lost the game, it goes down as a forfeit because I was in the 6 spot and Tony was behind the dish. The 2nd game went better for us, we won 12-5...well that’s what the scoreboard showed anyway. But another bonehead managerial move by yours truly put 4 jumpers in that game at the same time…another rule that I never had to worry about until that game and it also went down as a forfeit. During the 1st inning of the 2nd game, Tony was covering 2nd on a double play and the throw took him into the path of the runner and when the dust cleared he had a spike-sized hole in the back of his hand and deep scratches up his forearm. The runner didn’t slide and stepped right on his hand. He had to leave the field and go to the hospital where he got 2 stitches. Later in the 3rd, Heinzy laid down a beautiful bunt and the first baseman was across the base when he went to catch the throw and Heinzy had no choice but to lower his shoulder and run the guy over. He knocked the guy out cold and he too had to be taken to the hospital.
Last weekend we played Hamburg Knights at home in a 2nd man’s game. They kicked our asses in our first meeting at their place, and this time was no different. In the double header we totaled 3 hits. I had 1, and it was a shot that traveled somewhere in the neighborhood of 400ft down the left field line. It is probably the farthest ball I have ever hit. And it was with a wooden bat that Igl told me before the game “doesn’t have any pop.” I beg to differ.
Sunday we traveled to Bremen to take on the Dockers. We swept them at our place and we were looking to do the same this go around. We won the first game 12-7 behind Thies’s arm and a total of 4 hits. They had 6 errors and walked in at least 4 runs. I was 2-3 with 6 RBIs in the first game. The nightcap went a bit differently though. Daniel couldn’t get us out of the 1st inning so I had to come in from right and get 3 outs in the inning. We were able to tie it up in our half of the 2nd but they dinked a couple hits over the 2nd baseman in the home half, and that coupled with us throwing the ball all over God’s creation led to 4 runs…but that’s when the Rain Gods got together with the Baseball Gods and gave us a much needed break. It poured for 45 minutes, the field was practically underwater and before it had even stopped raining, they were out on the field trying to pick up the water with buckets and shovels. We were all laughing and making fun of them because they were fighting a losing battle they never had a chance at winning. The umpires came out and made the decision to call the game, but their coach was pleading for “10 more minutes.” the umpire wasn’t budging and he looked at me and asked what I thought. I told him that I didn’t think 10 minutes would help anything, it was still raining, and they were just ruining their field…I couldn’t tell him that we were completely out of pitching at that point and there was no way in hell I was going to get back on that field if there was a chance for a rainout. I would have been an idiot to have agreed to play that game. So we have to make it up the 8th of august.
It is finally here, the weekend I’ve heard so much about, a major selling point for the Farmers. The 19th edition of this grand production is finally upon us, we have been playing all season for this very moment. The Farmers Cup is the Mecca of baseball prowess, the standard is set at this tournament, and it is where heroes are born and legends are made. An international crowd gathers around the diamond to watch the players perform at the highest level and achieve the unthinkable. But you wont find water, or even Gatorade (actually I’ve yet to see a Gatorade since I’ve been here, and I’m starting to crave one now actually. I Orange G2 would really hit the spot about now) in the dugouts. No, the sports drink of choice at the Farmer’s Cup is good ol’, straight from the tap, beer. It is frowned upon at this venue if you do not start your day with a cool glass of Weitzen. it’s a hangover’s best friend and it makes free swingers out of the most patient hitters. It truly is what the tournament is all about, and I cant even begin to describe how excited I am to experience this first hand.
T-Minus 39 hours.
A-Ron
That next week I had to stain the 4 huge barn doors so they looked good for the wedding reception that next weekend. I ran out of stain after the first door and when Annegret went to buy more, she got a different, lighter stain so the other 3 doors are a different color. Funny story about staining those doors…Thursday night we were out partying and drinking and I woke up Friday; 5:30 and in my sleepy, half drunken haze, I rushed to get dressed and ran out the door. I walked to the Dallmann house, determined to get the last 2 doors painted and to practice in an hour and a half. I passed Jorgen at the farm and waved hello, briskly passing in a rush. I got to the barn and gathered my things. I had ran out of stain the day before so I was searching for the new can when I again pulled out my phone to see just how much time I had…it was only at this point, 15 minutes after I first looked at my phone that I realized that it was in fact 5:30 AM and not 5:30 PM like I had originally thought. For some reason I slipped back into US time and didn’t even think about the fact that for the last 4 months I’ve been using a 24 hour system of telling time. Moral of this story is that I’m an idiot. But I went back home, laughing at myself and went back to bed.
The wedding on Saturday was a bit different than in America. Instead of the groom waiting with the rest of the wedding party at the alter as the bride strolls down the aisle, the bride and groom walked down the aisle together, following the priest. And there was no wedding party. It was a 45 minute ceremony, all in German except for a couple of songs that were sung in English. Immediately following the ceremony, we returned to our house to change. The invitation said that the reception was an “elegant rock party.” Rock (with an ‘o’ with the 2 dots above it) when translated to English means skirt. So about 25 of us went out and bought skirts to wear to the party as a joke. We met at Thies’s house and walked over together in a big group, all wearing skirts and ties…it was truly a sight to behold. The reception itself was awesome, the food was phenomenal, the live band, a band from Tostedt Johst and Hasi used to listen to when they were younger, was great, and the beer was free…what more could you ask for. It was one of the best wedding receptions I’ve ever been to and one I will never forget.
The next weekend we traveled to Berlin to play the Challengers. I found out a new rule at this doubleheader, Americans cant play both Shortstop and Catcher at the same time…who knew. So even though we lost the game, it goes down as a forfeit because I was in the 6 spot and Tony was behind the dish. The 2nd game went better for us, we won 12-5...well that’s what the scoreboard showed anyway. But another bonehead managerial move by yours truly put 4 jumpers in that game at the same time…another rule that I never had to worry about until that game and it also went down as a forfeit. During the 1st inning of the 2nd game, Tony was covering 2nd on a double play and the throw took him into the path of the runner and when the dust cleared he had a spike-sized hole in the back of his hand and deep scratches up his forearm. The runner didn’t slide and stepped right on his hand. He had to leave the field and go to the hospital where he got 2 stitches. Later in the 3rd, Heinzy laid down a beautiful bunt and the first baseman was across the base when he went to catch the throw and Heinzy had no choice but to lower his shoulder and run the guy over. He knocked the guy out cold and he too had to be taken to the hospital.
Last weekend we played Hamburg Knights at home in a 2nd man’s game. They kicked our asses in our first meeting at their place, and this time was no different. In the double header we totaled 3 hits. I had 1, and it was a shot that traveled somewhere in the neighborhood of 400ft down the left field line. It is probably the farthest ball I have ever hit. And it was with a wooden bat that Igl told me before the game “doesn’t have any pop.” I beg to differ.
Sunday we traveled to Bremen to take on the Dockers. We swept them at our place and we were looking to do the same this go around. We won the first game 12-7 behind Thies’s arm and a total of 4 hits. They had 6 errors and walked in at least 4 runs. I was 2-3 with 6 RBIs in the first game. The nightcap went a bit differently though. Daniel couldn’t get us out of the 1st inning so I had to come in from right and get 3 outs in the inning. We were able to tie it up in our half of the 2nd but they dinked a couple hits over the 2nd baseman in the home half, and that coupled with us throwing the ball all over God’s creation led to 4 runs…but that’s when the Rain Gods got together with the Baseball Gods and gave us a much needed break. It poured for 45 minutes, the field was practically underwater and before it had even stopped raining, they were out on the field trying to pick up the water with buckets and shovels. We were all laughing and making fun of them because they were fighting a losing battle they never had a chance at winning. The umpires came out and made the decision to call the game, but their coach was pleading for “10 more minutes.” the umpire wasn’t budging and he looked at me and asked what I thought. I told him that I didn’t think 10 minutes would help anything, it was still raining, and they were just ruining their field…I couldn’t tell him that we were completely out of pitching at that point and there was no way in hell I was going to get back on that field if there was a chance for a rainout. I would have been an idiot to have agreed to play that game. So we have to make it up the 8th of august.
It is finally here, the weekend I’ve heard so much about, a major selling point for the Farmers. The 19th edition of this grand production is finally upon us, we have been playing all season for this very moment. The Farmers Cup is the Mecca of baseball prowess, the standard is set at this tournament, and it is where heroes are born and legends are made. An international crowd gathers around the diamond to watch the players perform at the highest level and achieve the unthinkable. But you wont find water, or even Gatorade (actually I’ve yet to see a Gatorade since I’ve been here, and I’m starting to crave one now actually. I Orange G2 would really hit the spot about now) in the dugouts. No, the sports drink of choice at the Farmer’s Cup is good ol’, straight from the tap, beer. It is frowned upon at this venue if you do not start your day with a cool glass of Weitzen. it’s a hangover’s best friend and it makes free swingers out of the most patient hitters. It truly is what the tournament is all about, and I cant even begin to describe how excited I am to experience this first hand.
T-Minus 39 hours.
A-Ron
Monday, July 6, 2009
We may not have seen any fireworks, but we sure created some
Man oh man, a lot has happened since I last wrote. I will start in chronological order. Tuesday night, after cutting the grass here at the Hassenpflug house, we met up at Johst’s place and headed out for Diekoff, the bar in Tostedt. This was no ordinary trip to the bar though, it was hotter than snot that day and for some reason this brought out all the little green bugs. I swallowed at least 4 on the ride to the bar, and coughed back up 7 more. We had to put our heads down and focus on the front tire of the bike just so we wouldn’t get these damn little things in our eyes. And it was no better once we got to the bar, we had to have two coasters, one to put the glass on and another to cover the top so no bugs would fly in. but after the sun went down it got a lot better…either that or I was too drunk to care about them anymore.
Tuesday night was also the night that Volkdaddy came back to Tostedt. He is the Father of the Farmers and a legend around these parts. It was him, along with a few others that watched the movie Major League and decided to bring baseball to Dohren. He has been in Japan working for something like 8 years now and he is back in town for the month. We sat and talked to him for a while about the start of the Wild Farmers and how they came to be and the progression of the team from what it was then to what it has become. He told us that when they first decided to start this thing, they drove to Hamburg on their mopeds to get equipment (this doesn’t sound too bad until you consider that its about a 50 km drive on the Autobahn, cars whizzing by at 180 kmph…that’s about 115 mph). The first catchers’ gear was a motorcycle helmet and a back pack put on backwards…there were no shin guards. We sat and asked him about players when they were younger and how they have changed…and how most have stayed exactly the same. Since Tony didn’t have any cash on him, I picked up the tab for the 16 beers and the plate of food that I had. I was expecting 30 or 35 but nope, 23 euros is what it came out to be, the food was 5 euros so we got 16 beers for 18 euros…I didn’t want to argue with the man so I paid my tab and was merrily on my way.
Cut to Wednesday morning at 9 am. Since it was so hot that day we decided to have youth practice in the morning. This was after we had a 2 hour practice on Monday too. Usually the youth teams practice 4 hours a week, so it was weird that Antje set the practice for 9-12 on this day. And before the practice even started, she was already talking about practicing again on Friday. They don’t have a game for 6 weeks because of summer break and now she wants to have all these practices. But we practiced all 3 hours on Wednesday and came to a consensus that we would forego baseball on Friday and hit up the local pool instead.
Now cut to Thursday night. Me, Tony, Mitch, and Brocky were on the train at 9:10 pm on our way to meet Toby in Hamburg for a night on the town. The last train from Hamburg home is at 12:40 am or something like that and the first train in the morning runs at 5:15...I’ll let you guess which one we took. But when we first got there, we headed to a place called Saucalitos for half price night. Normally I’d say 5,50 euros for a cocktail is a bit steep, but not when they come in .5 liter glasses and are usually 11,00. And we’re talking about cocktails that are mixed at 50/50. It was well worth it and the scenery was the best I’ve seen so far. The chicks at this place were all hot, but they seemed to be going for the more slicked-back-hair-and-opened-collar-so-everyone-can-see-my-chest-hair Italian look than the I-wore-a-t-shirt-and-sneakers-to-the-trendy-club Americans of the bunch. But that was fine, we were having more fun watching the old man that looked like Colonel Sanders dance in the middle of everyone, flailing his body like a madman.
After this place closed we headed to the Keets and a bar called Thomas Reed. It was an Irish pub that wasn’t too crowded so we hopped in and grabbed a table. They also had karaoke going since it was Thursday and I couldn’t help myself. Me and Tony looked at their catalog and decided on “Eye of The Tiger” as our debut single off our new album, I only sing when the music is loud enough to drown out the sound of my voice. We’re still working on the cover art, but be on the lookout around Christmas, it’s going to make a real stocking stuffer. We still had a few hours to kill before our train left the station so we went to Hubert Street and did some window shopping. One girl told us she loved America, but I think if we would have said we were from North Korea she would have told us she loved that place too.
We made it on the train at promptly 5:15 on our way to Tostedt and in 5 hours we were to be up and at the field to meet the youth players to take them to the swimming pool. Needless to say, I didn’t make it in the water though it was a gorgeous day for it, no instead I laid under a tree and slept the entire time.
I was able to keep my eyes open long enough to do a bit of people watching towards the end and boy was it entertaining. There were 6-7 year old kids running around stark naked like it was completely normal. I saw a girl change into 3 different swim suits in the span of 10 minutes. But this was not the kicker of the afternoon, not by a long shot. Directly across from us was an older couple, I’ll say mid 70s sitting under their umbrella enjoying the day like the rest of us. Then the decided to get up and take a dip in the pool. It was bad enough that the man was wearing a Speedo, but hey that’s the European style, so whatever. And the woman was wearing a bikini, no big deal. But it was after the man got out and walked back over to his stuff that things got interesting. Apparently changing your swim suit after you get wet is a German way of life, I don’t know. But the man grabbed his robe and changed Speedos, right there in the middle of everyone. Me and Tony laughed at this for a while. But then the train wreck occurred, the woman came back to her chair and began untying the back of her top…no way, this isn’t happening right now…she’s not gonna do what I think she’s going to do, right? Surely she’ll put on her robe too…then she turned around, facing the rest of the pool side patrons with nothing on but her high waisted granny bikini bottoms and a smile. Tits just flapping in the wind and not a care in the world. I couldn’t believe it, Tony had to turn away, but it was like a train wreck, I just had to see what this old woman was going to do next. The best part of this whole thing was that the man was just staring off into the distance, not watching or telling her to put those thing away or anything. Luckily the woman put on a robe before she took off anything else. But like the other girl, she changed again in like another 15 minutes. I don’t know why you would even bring 3 suits to the pool in the first place.
Friday night we took it pretty easy, it was Henrik’s birthday so we went over to his place and had a beer before we took off for the Diekoff again. We had a couple more beers there and some food, then we came back and went to bed, we had to play a 1st man’s game on Saturday against the Sluggers of Berlin.
Saturday was an interesting day for me at the plate. In my first at bat I hit a liner up the middle for a base hit. And then I was intentionally walked in my next 2 at bats. I’ve never been intentionally walked before…except for last weekend, but I mean before coming to Germany…but I guess I was never leading the league in hitting before coming to Germany either. Each time I got walked it loaded the bases and Tony was able to drive in a run behind me, so really it didn’t do anything for them, it wasn’t a very good strategy to pitch around me like that. The 2nd game went exactly the same way, they walked me 2 more times, so now I lead the league in intentional walks and I doubled my walk total for the season. It really did piss me off though, I just wanted to hit, I had a great round of BP before the game and I was very confident going into the game…but they just took that bat out of my hands. I ended the day being 1-4 because I was trying to hit a homerun in the only times they let me hit and I popped out to the left fielder. But we won both games and everybody got to play so it was a good team effort and a good way to start off the 4th of July. But the real fun was yet to come.
It was Johst’s last week of freedom, he’s getting married on Friday, so this was his bachelor party. We dressed him up in a skiing suit and took him to the snow dome up the road. He’s not a big skier, he has two left feet when it comes to stuff like that is what he says. But watching him come down the slopes was entertaining and really quite impressive considering he’d never done it before. Once the ski part closed down, it was time for American Country/ whiskey night at the adjoining bar. Me and Tony were more than excited to hear some country music and drink some whiskey on the 4th. But once we got there, the DJ only had Chattahoochee by Alan Jackson…not that that is a bad song by any means, but it was the only real country song he had. The rest was…I really don’t know how to classify it, but it wasn’t Garth Brooks, which is what we kept asking the guy to play. But either he didn’t understand us, or he didn’t care that what he was playing was not country music and not a good representation of the genre. But nonetheless, we line danced and did the electric slide and there were actually a group of German’s there that could line dance with the best of them. They were clicking heels and docy doeing all night long. But the best part of the night was when the live band started to play, No Fucking Shit was their name and they had a midget as a lead singer/harmonica player. It was a sight to see but not much to listen to. There were some go-go dancers that came later and were dancing, and they laid an American flag on the ground and were dancing on it, which in my drunken state…they had 1 euro Cuervo shots all night…I had my fair share…I did not approve of, and I caused a bit of a ruckus.
Sunday the 2nd team had a game against the Wizards also of Berlin. They haven’t won a game all year but I was a bit worried that they might pull one out of us on that day because most everyone was still intoxicated from the night before. But Daniel threw well in the first game and we were able to put up more runs than they did in the allotted amount of innings. The 2nd game got out to a shaky start as they put up 8 in the top of the first. But we answered back with 5 in our half of the inning. It was a hot, muggy day and with the hangover that I know everyone had, it was miserable to say the least. Its hard to imagine that we won the game 22-14 in 7 innings. We had a chance to end it early with a runner on 3rd and no one out, but we were unable to get the run across and had to play all 7 innings.
I got fooled on the hidden ball trick in the 4th but was called safe by the umpire because he said that time had been called. I’ll explain what happened and you be the judge: I got a hit to right and ran to 1st, I turned to give my batting gloves to the 1st base coach and then walked off the bag to take my lead… I figured the pitcher had the ball and I was just a step off the bag. that’s when I noticed the 1st baseman lunge at me and tag me with his glove. I tried to get back but I wasn’t quick enough, so I’m hanging my head, thinking I just got caught by this shitty team on the hidden ball trick, when I hear SAFE! I looked up in disbelief, unsure what to make of this, it was at this point that I finally shifted my foot to touch the 1st base. I didn’t know if maybe the umpire had a bad angle and just thought I made it back or what, but then he said that Time had been called and the play was over. I don’t think this is right, I think I should have been out, but I don’t make up the rules, the umpire does. I later came around to score!
This was the first 4th of July without seeing fireworks, but in the words of one great Wild Farmer, “we sure created some.”
A-Ron
P.S. Congratulations to Matto and Melissa, I heard the wedding was a blast.
Tuesday night was also the night that Volkdaddy came back to Tostedt. He is the Father of the Farmers and a legend around these parts. It was him, along with a few others that watched the movie Major League and decided to bring baseball to Dohren. He has been in Japan working for something like 8 years now and he is back in town for the month. We sat and talked to him for a while about the start of the Wild Farmers and how they came to be and the progression of the team from what it was then to what it has become. He told us that when they first decided to start this thing, they drove to Hamburg on their mopeds to get equipment (this doesn’t sound too bad until you consider that its about a 50 km drive on the Autobahn, cars whizzing by at 180 kmph…that’s about 115 mph). The first catchers’ gear was a motorcycle helmet and a back pack put on backwards…there were no shin guards. We sat and asked him about players when they were younger and how they have changed…and how most have stayed exactly the same. Since Tony didn’t have any cash on him, I picked up the tab for the 16 beers and the plate of food that I had. I was expecting 30 or 35 but nope, 23 euros is what it came out to be, the food was 5 euros so we got 16 beers for 18 euros…I didn’t want to argue with the man so I paid my tab and was merrily on my way.
Cut to Wednesday morning at 9 am. Since it was so hot that day we decided to have youth practice in the morning. This was after we had a 2 hour practice on Monday too. Usually the youth teams practice 4 hours a week, so it was weird that Antje set the practice for 9-12 on this day. And before the practice even started, she was already talking about practicing again on Friday. They don’t have a game for 6 weeks because of summer break and now she wants to have all these practices. But we practiced all 3 hours on Wednesday and came to a consensus that we would forego baseball on Friday and hit up the local pool instead.
Now cut to Thursday night. Me, Tony, Mitch, and Brocky were on the train at 9:10 pm on our way to meet Toby in Hamburg for a night on the town. The last train from Hamburg home is at 12:40 am or something like that and the first train in the morning runs at 5:15...I’ll let you guess which one we took. But when we first got there, we headed to a place called Saucalitos for half price night. Normally I’d say 5,50 euros for a cocktail is a bit steep, but not when they come in .5 liter glasses and are usually 11,00. And we’re talking about cocktails that are mixed at 50/50. It was well worth it and the scenery was the best I’ve seen so far. The chicks at this place were all hot, but they seemed to be going for the more slicked-back-hair-and-opened-collar-so-everyone-can-see-my-chest-hair Italian look than the I-wore-a-t-shirt-and-sneakers-to-the-trendy-club Americans of the bunch. But that was fine, we were having more fun watching the old man that looked like Colonel Sanders dance in the middle of everyone, flailing his body like a madman.
After this place closed we headed to the Keets and a bar called Thomas Reed. It was an Irish pub that wasn’t too crowded so we hopped in and grabbed a table. They also had karaoke going since it was Thursday and I couldn’t help myself. Me and Tony looked at their catalog and decided on “Eye of The Tiger” as our debut single off our new album, I only sing when the music is loud enough to drown out the sound of my voice. We’re still working on the cover art, but be on the lookout around Christmas, it’s going to make a real stocking stuffer. We still had a few hours to kill before our train left the station so we went to Hubert Street and did some window shopping. One girl told us she loved America, but I think if we would have said we were from North Korea she would have told us she loved that place too.
We made it on the train at promptly 5:15 on our way to Tostedt and in 5 hours we were to be up and at the field to meet the youth players to take them to the swimming pool. Needless to say, I didn’t make it in the water though it was a gorgeous day for it, no instead I laid under a tree and slept the entire time.
I was able to keep my eyes open long enough to do a bit of people watching towards the end and boy was it entertaining. There were 6-7 year old kids running around stark naked like it was completely normal. I saw a girl change into 3 different swim suits in the span of 10 minutes. But this was not the kicker of the afternoon, not by a long shot. Directly across from us was an older couple, I’ll say mid 70s sitting under their umbrella enjoying the day like the rest of us. Then the decided to get up and take a dip in the pool. It was bad enough that the man was wearing a Speedo, but hey that’s the European style, so whatever. And the woman was wearing a bikini, no big deal. But it was after the man got out and walked back over to his stuff that things got interesting. Apparently changing your swim suit after you get wet is a German way of life, I don’t know. But the man grabbed his robe and changed Speedos, right there in the middle of everyone. Me and Tony laughed at this for a while. But then the train wreck occurred, the woman came back to her chair and began untying the back of her top…no way, this isn’t happening right now…she’s not gonna do what I think she’s going to do, right? Surely she’ll put on her robe too…then she turned around, facing the rest of the pool side patrons with nothing on but her high waisted granny bikini bottoms and a smile. Tits just flapping in the wind and not a care in the world. I couldn’t believe it, Tony had to turn away, but it was like a train wreck, I just had to see what this old woman was going to do next. The best part of this whole thing was that the man was just staring off into the distance, not watching or telling her to put those thing away or anything. Luckily the woman put on a robe before she took off anything else. But like the other girl, she changed again in like another 15 minutes. I don’t know why you would even bring 3 suits to the pool in the first place.
Friday night we took it pretty easy, it was Henrik’s birthday so we went over to his place and had a beer before we took off for the Diekoff again. We had a couple more beers there and some food, then we came back and went to bed, we had to play a 1st man’s game on Saturday against the Sluggers of Berlin.
Saturday was an interesting day for me at the plate. In my first at bat I hit a liner up the middle for a base hit. And then I was intentionally walked in my next 2 at bats. I’ve never been intentionally walked before…except for last weekend, but I mean before coming to Germany…but I guess I was never leading the league in hitting before coming to Germany either. Each time I got walked it loaded the bases and Tony was able to drive in a run behind me, so really it didn’t do anything for them, it wasn’t a very good strategy to pitch around me like that. The 2nd game went exactly the same way, they walked me 2 more times, so now I lead the league in intentional walks and I doubled my walk total for the season. It really did piss me off though, I just wanted to hit, I had a great round of BP before the game and I was very confident going into the game…but they just took that bat out of my hands. I ended the day being 1-4 because I was trying to hit a homerun in the only times they let me hit and I popped out to the left fielder. But we won both games and everybody got to play so it was a good team effort and a good way to start off the 4th of July. But the real fun was yet to come.
It was Johst’s last week of freedom, he’s getting married on Friday, so this was his bachelor party. We dressed him up in a skiing suit and took him to the snow dome up the road. He’s not a big skier, he has two left feet when it comes to stuff like that is what he says. But watching him come down the slopes was entertaining and really quite impressive considering he’d never done it before. Once the ski part closed down, it was time for American Country/ whiskey night at the adjoining bar. Me and Tony were more than excited to hear some country music and drink some whiskey on the 4th. But once we got there, the DJ only had Chattahoochee by Alan Jackson…not that that is a bad song by any means, but it was the only real country song he had. The rest was…I really don’t know how to classify it, but it wasn’t Garth Brooks, which is what we kept asking the guy to play. But either he didn’t understand us, or he didn’t care that what he was playing was not country music and not a good representation of the genre. But nonetheless, we line danced and did the electric slide and there were actually a group of German’s there that could line dance with the best of them. They were clicking heels and docy doeing all night long. But the best part of the night was when the live band started to play, No Fucking Shit was their name and they had a midget as a lead singer/harmonica player. It was a sight to see but not much to listen to. There were some go-go dancers that came later and were dancing, and they laid an American flag on the ground and were dancing on it, which in my drunken state…they had 1 euro Cuervo shots all night…I had my fair share…I did not approve of, and I caused a bit of a ruckus.
Sunday the 2nd team had a game against the Wizards also of Berlin. They haven’t won a game all year but I was a bit worried that they might pull one out of us on that day because most everyone was still intoxicated from the night before. But Daniel threw well in the first game and we were able to put up more runs than they did in the allotted amount of innings. The 2nd game got out to a shaky start as they put up 8 in the top of the first. But we answered back with 5 in our half of the inning. It was a hot, muggy day and with the hangover that I know everyone had, it was miserable to say the least. Its hard to imagine that we won the game 22-14 in 7 innings. We had a chance to end it early with a runner on 3rd and no one out, but we were unable to get the run across and had to play all 7 innings.
I got fooled on the hidden ball trick in the 4th but was called safe by the umpire because he said that time had been called. I’ll explain what happened and you be the judge: I got a hit to right and ran to 1st, I turned to give my batting gloves to the 1st base coach and then walked off the bag to take my lead… I figured the pitcher had the ball and I was just a step off the bag. that’s when I noticed the 1st baseman lunge at me and tag me with his glove. I tried to get back but I wasn’t quick enough, so I’m hanging my head, thinking I just got caught by this shitty team on the hidden ball trick, when I hear SAFE! I looked up in disbelief, unsure what to make of this, it was at this point that I finally shifted my foot to touch the 1st base. I didn’t know if maybe the umpire had a bad angle and just thought I made it back or what, but then he said that Time had been called and the play was over. I don’t think this is right, I think I should have been out, but I don’t make up the rules, the umpire does. I later came around to score!
This was the first 4th of July without seeing fireworks, but in the words of one great Wild Farmer, “we sure created some.”
A-Ron
P.S. Congratulations to Matto and Melissa, I heard the wedding was a blast.
Monday, June 29, 2009
The Adventures of Skippy
Since I did such a wonderful job painting Henrik’s place, his parents have commissioned me to do some painting around their house. So Friday I woke up around 10 and headed over to see what was in store for me. I was under the impression it was painting a ceiling or something in the house but when I got there I was told that it was the soffets around the house that needed the fresh coat of paint. Easy enough, just sweep away the cob webs and slap the paint on and smooth it out…that’s what I tend to do any thing I paint, and my clothes are proof of that, I usually have as much paint on me as is on what I’m painting. This job has been no different, I have grey paint all over my shirt, shorts, arms, and hair even. I’ve worked there Friday, and today, and I’m thinking that I should be able to finish up tomorrow since I don’t have practice or anything in the evening. It will be a nice cushion on my pocket too.
Friday night when I went to practice, I had no idea what I was going to do that night. There were no plans that I had heard of and there was no talk of a party or anything like that. It wasn’t until after practice that I came to my attention that there was a big celebration in Tostedt for some girl’s 18th birthday. I had no idea who this girl was, why should I, and apparently we weren’t officially invited, but once it got late enough no one would care anyway. So we went to Toby’s house to pre-party and then headed to the middle of nowhere to a big barn and joined in the celebration. The deal was that when you bring a bottle of something to drink, you add it to the pile and then you get to drink for free…we didn’t bring a bottle but we took full advantage of those that did.
Saturday was a 2nd mans’ game in Luneburg, a team that we played in the first preseason games of the year. We had to stop at McDonalds on the way so everyone could grab a much needed burger and sober up before we got there.
The first game saw Thies on the mound and he threw a great game, striking out 6 and walking maybe 1. I started the game at short but was moved to 2nd after the first because I hurt my shin riding home the night before and it was still a bit tender. Game 2 had Daniel starting on the bump and me again at Shortstop. This game was a bit closer and I came in in the 4th and started where I left off last weekend, throwing strikes. It feels a lot better to throw strikes and get ahead that’s for damn sure. They made it close in the end though, we were up by 2 going into the bottom of the 7th and they got runners on 2nd and 3rd before I struck out the last 2 guys to end the game. I hit the ball hard all day and ended up 5-6 on the day. That brought up my average from .668 or whatever it was. We were also able to pick up their signs in the 2nd inning of the 1st game which made for an easy day of throwing guys out and playing the bunt perfectly.
After the game, Luneburg has a tradition of challenging the other team to a case race between 9 guys. In all the years they have done this, they have only been beaten 1 time…that team was never seen or heard from again. They dominate everyone in this 3rd game of the day. To be honest I wasn’t in much of a mood to chug a beer, especially from a bottle, but when I Rome. So we brought our 9 sweet dudes up against their 9 sweet dudes and much to my surprise we only drank the 2 cases, there was no race, no chugging, just guys talking about the games and having a few beers. I really was kind of excited to see Hinzy, the guy with the long hair on their team chug a beer. I’ve heard its one of the 8 wonders of the world actually.
Saturday night after getting back from the games, we headed to Toby’s to celebrate his parents being out of town…always a great reason to celebrate. Most of the baseball guys were there and we tried playing Flanky ball, a game where you stand up 3 beer cans in the middle of 2 teams and throw a crushed can at them. When your team knocks over the cans, you chug until the other team stands the knocked over cans back up and gets the ball and all teammates back across the line on their side. First team to finish all their beers wins. It has much potential to be a really fun game, but we were not good at it at all on this day and it took forever to knock the cans over…we were actually using water bottles and they didn’t fall unless you hit it right on the top of the bottle. So after one game of Flanky ball we surrounded the patio table and played a game called Meyern, but since I was playing and I’m writing this, it will be referred to as Meyers.
Basically you have two dice in a cup and you roll and you get a number, 31, 54, 65 etc. the higher the number the better the roll, but doubles (11, 22, 55) beat numbers and a Meyers (21) beats double 6s. But a Double Meyers (42) beats everything. So the first guy rolls and gets a number, the next guy has to roll better, but you keep the dice covered so if in fact you don’t have a higher number than the 1st guy, you lie. The 3rd guy then has the option of rolling a higher number than what guy 2 said he rolled or call roller 2 a liar and look at the dice. If man 3 was right and it was a lie, then guy 2 drinks, but guy 2 told the truth, guy 3 drinks. If a Meyers or Double Meyers is rolled by anyone , the person preceding him in turn has to drink. We played that 1 drink was a count to 3 and a Double Meyers was a 6 count. it’s a pretty fun game, especially when everyone starts getting drunk and lying. There were also some times that people weren’t paying attention and didn’t call out guys on blatant lies. 31 in the lowest number you can roll because the bigger of the two dice is always the first number, and it happened more than once that the 4th person to roll would pass the dice and say 31, obviously he can’t have the lowest roll in the game if the numbers have to go up and he was the 4th roll.
I’m sure that that explanation was more confusing than it was helpful but I will know what it means when I look back at this in 40 years and want to relive my pro-ball days. But we played late into the night, drinking beers until they ran out and then turning to korn and cola. Bifi and Skippy were hilarious, talking shit to one another about who could drink more and who was better at the game. But Bifi fell asleep in the chair and didn’t wake up until he randomly sat up and puked all over himself. That’s when we decided that it was time for the young crowd to go home. We cleaned up Bifi and put him in the car, but Skip was a bit harder to get rounded up. First he ran and hid in the bushes because he didn’t want to leave, he wanted to stay up with us, but we caught him and dragged him to the car too. The whole time he was swearing that, “I only be drunk cola.” that’s a direct quote. It was quite funny to hear a drunk 14 year old kid yelling in English. But we finally got him in the car and got him home. But apparently that still didn’t stop him, I found out today that he so was determined to get back to the party that he ran back toward Toby’s. but in his effort he got lost and ended up in Daniel’s garden around the corner. He had to call his dad to come pick him up. Skippy is the man.
Today is finally started to feel like summer, the sun was shining, the air was hot and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was probably 75 degree but for here that is pretty hot. Later in the week it is supposed to approach 90, and its pretty muggy around here so it’s going to feel just like the dog days of summer back home in Indiana. It’s hot, Don. You can say that again. It‘s hot, Don (for you that don’t live in Evansville, that is a local car commercial. Its kinda become a summer anthem around Southern Indiana)
Since school is out for the summer, my days are pretty wide open and I’ve decided that I need a hobby. I think I’m going to head to the local watering hole and see about how much it would be to get a line wet. I need to start practicing for Sweden if they are counting on me to catch all the food. There is also a swimming lake nearby that we’re thinking of visiting as well.
A-Ron
Friday night when I went to practice, I had no idea what I was going to do that night. There were no plans that I had heard of and there was no talk of a party or anything like that. It wasn’t until after practice that I came to my attention that there was a big celebration in Tostedt for some girl’s 18th birthday. I had no idea who this girl was, why should I, and apparently we weren’t officially invited, but once it got late enough no one would care anyway. So we went to Toby’s house to pre-party and then headed to the middle of nowhere to a big barn and joined in the celebration. The deal was that when you bring a bottle of something to drink, you add it to the pile and then you get to drink for free…we didn’t bring a bottle but we took full advantage of those that did.
Saturday was a 2nd mans’ game in Luneburg, a team that we played in the first preseason games of the year. We had to stop at McDonalds on the way so everyone could grab a much needed burger and sober up before we got there.
The first game saw Thies on the mound and he threw a great game, striking out 6 and walking maybe 1. I started the game at short but was moved to 2nd after the first because I hurt my shin riding home the night before and it was still a bit tender. Game 2 had Daniel starting on the bump and me again at Shortstop. This game was a bit closer and I came in in the 4th and started where I left off last weekend, throwing strikes. It feels a lot better to throw strikes and get ahead that’s for damn sure. They made it close in the end though, we were up by 2 going into the bottom of the 7th and they got runners on 2nd and 3rd before I struck out the last 2 guys to end the game. I hit the ball hard all day and ended up 5-6 on the day. That brought up my average from .668 or whatever it was. We were also able to pick up their signs in the 2nd inning of the 1st game which made for an easy day of throwing guys out and playing the bunt perfectly.
After the game, Luneburg has a tradition of challenging the other team to a case race between 9 guys. In all the years they have done this, they have only been beaten 1 time…that team was never seen or heard from again. They dominate everyone in this 3rd game of the day. To be honest I wasn’t in much of a mood to chug a beer, especially from a bottle, but when I Rome. So we brought our 9 sweet dudes up against their 9 sweet dudes and much to my surprise we only drank the 2 cases, there was no race, no chugging, just guys talking about the games and having a few beers. I really was kind of excited to see Hinzy, the guy with the long hair on their team chug a beer. I’ve heard its one of the 8 wonders of the world actually.
Saturday night after getting back from the games, we headed to Toby’s to celebrate his parents being out of town…always a great reason to celebrate. Most of the baseball guys were there and we tried playing Flanky ball, a game where you stand up 3 beer cans in the middle of 2 teams and throw a crushed can at them. When your team knocks over the cans, you chug until the other team stands the knocked over cans back up and gets the ball and all teammates back across the line on their side. First team to finish all their beers wins. It has much potential to be a really fun game, but we were not good at it at all on this day and it took forever to knock the cans over…we were actually using water bottles and they didn’t fall unless you hit it right on the top of the bottle. So after one game of Flanky ball we surrounded the patio table and played a game called Meyern, but since I was playing and I’m writing this, it will be referred to as Meyers.
Basically you have two dice in a cup and you roll and you get a number, 31, 54, 65 etc. the higher the number the better the roll, but doubles (11, 22, 55) beat numbers and a Meyers (21) beats double 6s. But a Double Meyers (42) beats everything. So the first guy rolls and gets a number, the next guy has to roll better, but you keep the dice covered so if in fact you don’t have a higher number than the 1st guy, you lie. The 3rd guy then has the option of rolling a higher number than what guy 2 said he rolled or call roller 2 a liar and look at the dice. If man 3 was right and it was a lie, then guy 2 drinks, but guy 2 told the truth, guy 3 drinks. If a Meyers or Double Meyers is rolled by anyone , the person preceding him in turn has to drink. We played that 1 drink was a count to 3 and a Double Meyers was a 6 count. it’s a pretty fun game, especially when everyone starts getting drunk and lying. There were also some times that people weren’t paying attention and didn’t call out guys on blatant lies. 31 in the lowest number you can roll because the bigger of the two dice is always the first number, and it happened more than once that the 4th person to roll would pass the dice and say 31, obviously he can’t have the lowest roll in the game if the numbers have to go up and he was the 4th roll.
I’m sure that that explanation was more confusing than it was helpful but I will know what it means when I look back at this in 40 years and want to relive my pro-ball days. But we played late into the night, drinking beers until they ran out and then turning to korn and cola. Bifi and Skippy were hilarious, talking shit to one another about who could drink more and who was better at the game. But Bifi fell asleep in the chair and didn’t wake up until he randomly sat up and puked all over himself. That’s when we decided that it was time for the young crowd to go home. We cleaned up Bifi and put him in the car, but Skip was a bit harder to get rounded up. First he ran and hid in the bushes because he didn’t want to leave, he wanted to stay up with us, but we caught him and dragged him to the car too. The whole time he was swearing that, “I only be drunk cola.” that’s a direct quote. It was quite funny to hear a drunk 14 year old kid yelling in English. But we finally got him in the car and got him home. But apparently that still didn’t stop him, I found out today that he so was determined to get back to the party that he ran back toward Toby’s. but in his effort he got lost and ended up in Daniel’s garden around the corner. He had to call his dad to come pick him up. Skippy is the man.
Today is finally started to feel like summer, the sun was shining, the air was hot and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was probably 75 degree but for here that is pretty hot. Later in the week it is supposed to approach 90, and its pretty muggy around here so it’s going to feel just like the dog days of summer back home in Indiana. It’s hot, Don. You can say that again. It‘s hot, Don (for you that don’t live in Evansville, that is a local car commercial. Its kinda become a summer anthem around Southern Indiana)
Since school is out for the summer, my days are pretty wide open and I’ve decided that I need a hobby. I think I’m going to head to the local watering hole and see about how much it would be to get a line wet. I need to start practicing for Sweden if they are counting on me to catch all the food. There is also a swimming lake nearby that we’re thinking of visiting as well.
A-Ron
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