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