America's pastime almost past
Last time I was here I talked about how I'd be playing a lot of baseball this summer. Well things haven't gone perfectly to plan. I'm learning I'm not the baseball player I thought I was (haven't been playing too well) and I broke a finger which left me out for a couple of months. Regardless, I still played quite a lot, but it's coming to a close.
Just a week ago my company softball team was crowned undefeated champions for the second year in a row. Go Harris!
This past weekend, my hardball team played a doubleheader in Golden Gate Park. Coming into this game, I had only one hit all year, but went 3 for 8 on Saturday, making pretty good contact and even reading curveballs on their way in. There are few things in life that feel better than making solid contact off a pitcher throwing around 80mph with a wood bat. Even better, for the second game there were tourists watching us. At any given time there were about 10-20 tourists in the stands, enjoying watching us Americans play baseball. Afterwards, a French family asked to take a picture of their kids with one of the players and some bats. That totally made my day.
This coming weekend looks to be the weekend of drunken baseball. On Saturday I'll probably play sloshball with some company folks, and on Sunday is the last hardball game, and apparently we're taking shots beforehand (actually the guys taught me to shotgun a beer between games last week, so not totally unprecedented).
I have earned a new nickname as well. My baseball number is 49. Several small reasons, but nothing major. Anyway I've been learning about Chinese numbers (8 sounds like wealth, thus is lucky, 4 sounds like death, thus is bad). I was thinking about my number and realized I had a 4. Then I thought about the 9. In Mandarin, 9 is the same sound as wine, but I asked Hoi and he said it sounds more like dog in Cantonese (not too far off in Mandarin either). So I mentioned this to my teammates and they absolutely loved it. They almost never call me Kyle anymore, only "Death Dog".
Just a week ago my company softball team was crowned undefeated champions for the second year in a row. Go Harris!
This past weekend, my hardball team played a doubleheader in Golden Gate Park. Coming into this game, I had only one hit all year, but went 3 for 8 on Saturday, making pretty good contact and even reading curveballs on their way in. There are few things in life that feel better than making solid contact off a pitcher throwing around 80mph with a wood bat. Even better, for the second game there were tourists watching us. At any given time there were about 10-20 tourists in the stands, enjoying watching us Americans play baseball. Afterwards, a French family asked to take a picture of their kids with one of the players and some bats. That totally made my day.
This coming weekend looks to be the weekend of drunken baseball. On Saturday I'll probably play sloshball with some company folks, and on Sunday is the last hardball game, and apparently we're taking shots beforehand (actually the guys taught me to shotgun a beer between games last week, so not totally unprecedented).
I have earned a new nickname as well. My baseball number is 49. Several small reasons, but nothing major. Anyway I've been learning about Chinese numbers (8 sounds like wealth, thus is lucky, 4 sounds like death, thus is bad). I was thinking about my number and realized I had a 4. Then I thought about the 9. In Mandarin, 9 is the same sound as wine, but I asked Hoi and he said it sounds more like dog in Cantonese (not too far off in Mandarin either). So I mentioned this to my teammates and they absolutely loved it. They almost never call me Kyle anymore, only "Death Dog".