Monday, August 22, 2005

Put Me In Kobayashi, I'm Ready to Play

First day of baseball was yesterday, I tried out with the Waverly Waves, Australia's oldest baseball club, founded in 1898. Judging by the condition of the field, that's the last time any ground work has been done.

The field was an uneven grassy tundra, sure to produce its share of bad hops. I found a rabbit hole with freshly minted droppings out in right-center field, not sure whether or not it is ruled 'in play'. The backstop consists of four removable, 20-foot tall aluminium poles with some netting strung in between them. We take these down and pack them up after every practice, one is sure to land on someone before the year is out. Running on the basepaths has MRI written all over it, no dirt to slide in, no chalk lines, bases held down by metal spikes. Dimensions of the field are about 400 feet for a home run, measured by the distance to the edge of the riverbed. The pitchers mound, well, I count myself lucky that there even was one.

The practice itself was both amusing and frustrating. The squad consisted of six South Koreans, six Japanese, one Venezuelan, one Australian and me. English was patched together well enough to do some basic drills, but we had a hard time communicating with one another. At one point a player asked, 'What's Korean for cut second base?', to which the Japanese catcher said, 'Cut second base'.

The drills themselves were very slipshod. They've got a coach who's a South Korean man of about 50 who spends the majority of his time shaking his head and looking disaprovingly at us, his two hands tucked into the front of his waistband - Al Bundy style. He yelled at me, 'ball come here', when I was having trouble pitching him inside. Gonna have fun with this guy.

Fundamentally, the Little League team I used to coach would put these guys to shame. There was an inordinate amount of standing around, no concept of what a relay throw from the outfield was, and mandatory cigarette breaks after every drill.

Still, despite all my joking, it looks to be an enjoyable group. Like every Australian sporting club, this shared activity is just a precluse to all go drinking together afterwards. Judging by the average tobacco consumption of the middle infielders, I will likely be the lightweight of the bunch.

posted by ncawthon at 8:29 AM