Sunday, April 09, 2006

How 'Bout That!

Good day at the sporting fields for both Peggy and I. We started Sunday morning with Peggy's UNSW field hockey match up against the dreaded Sydney Tech. Peggy is the captain of her squad and did a great job on defense, holding her team to a 2-2 tie. She was the stalwart out there, knocking away balls, bumping players off their mark and barking commands. One tough cookie I tell you, I wouldn't have wanted to cross her path while trying to score.

Then it was off to southbound for my afternoon baseball game against the host team, Canterbury. No word on whether the Archbishop of Canterbury was invited. The game was a see-saw, back and forth battle between a scrappy, undersized, international squad of the Waverly Waves and the massive Aussie-bred Canterbury Whatever-they-weres. Not one of them could have weighed less than 200 pounds, they were all just massively huge. I think their diet consisted of solely of Vegemite-stuffed sausages washed down with protein shakes.

The Waves found themselves down quite a few runs in the later innings when Canterbury brought in a pitcher who was both mean and wild. I was first at bat and received all pitches on the right site of the plate - I'm a left-hander, so they were all thrown away for me. After I struck out, the right-handers came up and started getting plunked by some hard thrown balls. He hit the first batter in the leg, the second in the head. The second hitter, whom is a mild-mannered Japanese chap that speaks three languages and wears glasses, went absolutely crazy. With his wife and child perched behind the backstop, he had to be restrained from charging the mound, still with the bat in his hand. It almost got really ugly, as we would have gotten pulverized by these guys.

Next hitter up promptly got hit in the arm as well. Benches cleared and it started all over again, pushing and shoving - general standoffishness and posturing. The pitcher was then removed from the game without any more dramas, but there was certainly tension still abound. Our next batter hit a grand slam to put us up a few runs, and we promptly lost that lead in the next half-inning. In the last inning, I came up with one man on base and knocked a ball over the centerfielder's head, which he circled around to try to track and promptly fell on his bum, knocking his head hard against the turf. Still dizzy, he didn't get up right away and I scooted around the bases for a game winning homerun. Waves win 13-12.

Parents are en route in a few days - the house is as clean as it has ever been. We're trying not to sneeze as to retain this pristine state until Wednesday morning.

posted by ncawthon at 7:14 PM