The drive to Hockenhiem began at 11 am on Thursday morning and was filled with rest stops and pull offs to the side of the road for pee breaks because in Germany it is legal to have open containers in cars and trust me there were plenty of them. I opened my first beer at around noon and we drank the entire 5 hour car ride to where we were staying., which was a sport house like ours…kind of. There was a track and a soccer field inside that…but that was on the other side of the parking lot. on our side was a couple pyramids, a big tire, a few hurdles, and some pens with water and food bowls. Yep a dog training club. But there was plenty of room and the house was perfect for what we needed and wanted. And surprising no dog shit…none.
Side Note: the father of the guy we were staying with owns his own distillery and was kind enough to bring some samples and show us how true drinkers take shots…but more on that later.
Schnops partook in the shots and had a few more beers before we put him to bed around 9. I’ve never, nor do I think I will ever again see a single man drink that much alcohol at one time. I applaud him and pray for his liver at the same time. During the week, Schnops is a mechanical engineer and one of the smartest guys I’m told I’ve met since I’ve been here…also one of the best paid. But on the weekends you don’t want to be American and around Schnops, Tony and I were favorite targets for fake head locks and wrestling moves, all done in good drunken fun of course. He also liked to yell in the lowest, scariest, death/heavy-metal-band-lead-singer voice I’ve ever heard.
After Dodging Schnops for the first part of the night, the music started and the dance party commenced. There was a lot of ACDC to get ready and rock in general, sprinkle in a few rap songs…both American and German, and late night the party turned to Tom “the Tiger” Jones and “The Lady is Mine.” we played it at least 10 times in the last two hours of the night. All and all a great kick off to the weekend.
At one point in the party, I’m not sure exactly when, Tony decided that he had had enough Johnny Walker and dancing and wanted to go to bed. Now any normal thinking person would have set up his bed in the corner of the room, or outside even, since it was a nice night. But not Tony, he grabbed a sleeping pad and a sleeping bag and put it right in the middle of the room, and I don’t just mean out away from the wall, I mean the exact middle of the room and laid down. About 3.67549 seconds later his eyes were closed and he was off dreaming about German beer. Needless to say, we had a field day with the drunk guy that still had his shoes on. We didn’t write on him or anything like that but I have pictures of bare asses in close proximity to Tony…and I’ll leave it at that.
Ok so that was Thursday. The next morning I woke up around 7...with schnops of all people, and took a shower. I needed to warm myself up since I slept outside that night sandwiched between two lounge chair cushions. Someone *cough* Tony* cough* took my sleeping bag and that was the only thing I could find that even vaguely resembled something suitable to sleep on. I was mistaken. But the shower was warm and just what the doctor ordered. Since no one was up yet I began walking down the street toward town. Since it was so early there wasn’t anything open except a coffee shop that also sold donuts. So I went in and bought a donut for a buck…one of the best donuts I’ve ever had. around 11 we went to take a tour of the distilery i mentioned earlier and take a few free shots. it was here that we learned that you first put your finger in the shot and taste it before actually taking it. if when you put your alcohol drenched finger in your mouth and it burns your tounge or lips, then you know it is not a high quality liquir. but after that you are supposed to take the shot in 2-3 sips instead of all at once. this lets you actually taste the liquir and appreciate it. I did not partake in this round of shots because i took them all Thursday night and i was positive i would have puked if i had taken shots at that point in the day.
I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves but suffice it to say that the ACDC concert was awesome. They definitely have some years on them but for a bunch of old guys, they can still rock and put on one hell of a show. Grizzly Adams in the one picture is a guy that was strung out on some kind of cocktail of drugs and saw us standing next to the porta-johns with beers and felt entitled to some so he stood there for a good 10 minutes waiting for Tony to pour him a beer. At $9 a liter, that wasn’t happening. But I wanted to always remember him so I took a picture of him…he is the same guy getting Chinese food in the later picture…I was convinced he was stalking us at this point.
After the concert we started walking to meet the bus, and we waited, and we waited, and it never came. So we started walking…this was a 15 km walk back to the sport house. After about 4 km we saw a bus sitting at a corner and sure enough it was the one we paid to pick us up AT the concert. He told us that he didn’t know where to pick us up…we called him a lot of names to make us feel better about him making us walk so far.
Saturday we cleaned up and 6 of us took off for Timo and Hassi’s grandparents’ house. This 3 hour drive was not as pleasant since I was so hungover… but having a couple beers on the drive helped a lot as did the short nap I took in the back seat. Once we got there we put our stuff in the room and took off to see a little bit of the city and get some bread for dinner. We found a pub and had a couple beers before walking through the park back home…I think it was the lack of sleep coupled with the slight buzz that made everything really funny by this point. We joked about girls that walked by, baseball, sexual exploits among other things.
Sunday it was off to Breunchweig to play them in a 1st man’s double header. Coming into the game they were unsuccessful in winning any of their previous 8 games of the season…our plan was to make sure they went to 0-10 on the season.
Their first pitcher was the hardest thrower we have faced all year but despite that, we put up 2 runs in the first on Tony’s first AB and hit in Germany. I on the other hand, was unable to reach base successfully in this game for my first hitless game of the year. 0-3. But we were able to scratch 3 more runs across and rode on the back of Thies all day. The kid threw another great game against a team that is a lot better than what their record shows. We won 5-3.
The 2nd game started a bit differently, they scored one in each of the first two innings off of me because I couldn’t throw a fastball for a strike to save my life. I walked another 5 or something so I took myself out after just 2 innings and put in Laser. This turned out to be a great managerial move because he shut them out the rest of the game. Oh and he hit a HR in his first at bat with his own DC bat…and it was a bomb too. I was able to drive in 2 runs in this game on one a sacrifice and a triple in my last at bat. I think the shadows were messing with all of us a little bit, trees hang over the field down the leftfield line and throughout the afternoon the shadows crept across the infield. but we wont hits game 6-2.
But getting 2 wins was what we needed because Hamburg won 2 this weekend too and we are tied atop the standings at 8-2. Next weekend we have a tournament in Munich that doesn’t count for our record in the league, but in 2 weeks we meet Hamburg in for 1st place. From what I can tell they are a damn good team and will be a true test for the Farmers. But I’m confident we have a team that can sweep them. From the other teams we’ve played I’ve learned that pitching is at a premium here and we right now we have more good pitching than I know what to do with.
ok i uploaded a few picture but it will take way too long to put all of them on here so i tried to pick out the good ones.
A-Ron
There is a guy that was on the trip with us, a huge heavy metal fan and quite the drinker, hereafter referred to by his nick name, Schnops (fitting to say the least) Now Schnops started and finished an entire liter of Bacardi Rum by himself on this 5 hour adventure and was quite sauced by they time we got there but still up walking around and still functioning. To drink an entire liter of alcohol in one sitting is quite impressive by any standard but good ol Schnops didn’t stop there, oh no, not by a long shot…no pun intended. We arrived around 5 or so, having not eaten since we left Dohren so we fired up the grill and put on some meat. at this point schnops turned to beer, probably the best decision he made all night, but that by no means he drank them slow. He had a couple before dinner, with dinner, and then after dinner the shots flowed like wine.
Side Note: the father of the guy we were staying with owns his own distillery and was kind enough to bring some samples and show us how true drinkers take shots…but more on that later.
Schnops partook in the shots and had a few more beers before we put him to bed around 9. I’ve never, nor do I think I will ever again see a single man drink that much alcohol at one time. I applaud him and pray for his liver at the same time. During the week, Schnops is a mechanical engineer and one of the smartest guys I’m told I’ve met since I’ve been here…also one of the best paid. But on the weekends you don’t want to be American and around Schnops, Tony and I were favorite targets for fake head locks and wrestling moves, all done in good drunken fun of course. He also liked to yell in the lowest, scariest, death/heavy-metal-band-lead-singer voice I’ve ever heard.
After Dodging Schnops for the first part of the night, the music started and the dance party commenced. There was a lot of ACDC to get ready and rock in general, sprinkle in a few rap songs…both American and German, and late night the party turned to Tom “the Tiger” Jones and “The Lady is Mine.” we played it at least 10 times in the last two hours of the night. All and all a great kick off to the weekend.
At one point in the party, I’m not sure exactly when, Tony decided that he had had enough Johnny Walker and dancing and wanted to go to bed. Now any normal thinking person would have set up his bed in the corner of the room, or outside even, since it was a nice night. But not Tony, he grabbed a sleeping pad and a sleeping bag and put it right in the middle of the room, and I don’t just mean out away from the wall, I mean the exact middle of the room and laid down. About 3.67549 seconds later his eyes were closed and he was off dreaming about German beer. Needless to say, we had a field day with the drunk guy that still had his shoes on. We didn’t write on him or anything like that but I have pictures of bare asses in close proximity to Tony…and I’ll leave it at that.Ok so that was Thursday. The next morning I woke up around 7...with schnops of all people, and took a shower. I needed to warm myself up since I slept outside that night sandwiched between two lounge chair cushions. Someone *cough* Tony* cough* took my sleeping bag and that was the only thing I could find that even vaguely resembled something suitable to sleep on. I was mistaken. But the shower was warm and just what the doctor ordered. Since no one was up yet I began walking down the street toward town. Since it was so early there wasn’t anything open except a coffee shop that also sold donuts. So I went in and bought a donut for a buck…one of the best donuts I’ve ever had. around 11 we went to take a tour of the distilery i mentioned earlier and take a few free shots. it was here that we learned that you first put your finger in the shot and taste it before actually taking it. if when you put your alcohol drenched finger in your mouth and it burns your tounge or lips, then you know it is not a high quality liquir. but after that you are supposed to take the shot in 2-3 sips instead of all at once. this lets you actually taste the liquir and appreciate it. I did not partake in this round of shots because i took them all Thursday night and i was positive i would have puked if i had taken shots at that point in the day.
I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves but suffice it to say that the ACDC concert was awesome. They definitely have some years on them but for a bunch of old guys, they can still rock and put on one hell of a show. Grizzly Adams in the one picture is a guy that was strung out on some kind of cocktail of drugs and saw us standing next to the porta-johns with beers and felt entitled to some so he stood there for a good 10 minutes waiting for Tony to pour him a beer. At $9 a liter, that wasn’t happening. But I wanted to always remember him so I took a picture of him…he is the same guy getting Chinese food in the later picture…I was convinced he was stalking us at this point.
After the concert we started walking to meet the bus, and we waited, and we waited, and it never came. So we started walking…this was a 15 km walk back to the sport house. After about 4 km we saw a bus sitting at a corner and sure enough it was the one we paid to pick us up AT the concert. He told us that he didn’t know where to pick us up…we called him a lot of names to make us feel better about him making us walk so far.
Saturday we cleaned up and 6 of us took off for Timo and Hassi’s grandparents’ house. This 3 hour drive was not as pleasant since I was so hungover… but having a couple beers on the drive helped a lot as did the short nap I took in the back seat. Once we got there we put our stuff in the room and took off to see a little bit of the city and get some bread for dinner. We found a pub and had a couple beers before walking through the park back home…I think it was the lack of sleep coupled with the slight buzz that made everything really funny by this point. We joked about girls that walked by, baseball, sexual exploits among other things.
Sunday it was off to Breunchweig to play them in a 1st man’s double header. Coming into the game they were unsuccessful in winning any of their previous 8 games of the season…our plan was to make sure they went to 0-10 on the season.
Their first pitcher was the hardest thrower we have faced all year but despite that, we put up 2 runs in the first on Tony’s first AB and hit in Germany. I on the other hand, was unable to reach base successfully in this game for my first hitless game of the year. 0-3. But we were able to scratch 3 more runs across and rode on the back of Thies all day. The kid threw another great game against a team that is a lot better than what their record shows. We won 5-3.
The 2nd game started a bit differently, they scored one in each of the first two innings off of me because I couldn’t throw a fastball for a strike to save my life. I walked another 5 or something so I took myself out after just 2 innings and put in Laser. This turned out to be a great managerial move because he shut them out the rest of the game. Oh and he hit a HR in his first at bat with his own DC bat…and it was a bomb too. I was able to drive in 2 runs in this game on one a sacrifice and a triple in my last at bat. I think the shadows were messing with all of us a little bit, trees hang over the field down the leftfield line and throughout the afternoon the shadows crept across the infield. but we wont hits game 6-2.
But getting 2 wins was what we needed because Hamburg won 2 this weekend too and we are tied atop the standings at 8-2. Next weekend we have a tournament in Munich that doesn’t count for our record in the league, but in 2 weeks we meet Hamburg in for 1st place. From what I can tell they are a damn good team and will be a true test for the Farmers. But I’m confident we have a team that can sweep them. From the other teams we’ve played I’ve learned that pitching is at a premium here and we right now we have more good pitching than I know what to do with.
ok i uploaded a few picture but it will take way too long to put all of them on here so i tried to pick out the good ones.
A-Ron
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