Post from my blackberry

Wow! Got my blackberry today. Can post on my blog from it. Perfect timing for our trip to greece next week. Lisa arrives this evening. Very exciting. Like a first date again!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Heartbreaker in Heidlberg

May 29, 2009 - Off to Heidlberg, Germany for a couple of games vs the Heidlberg Hedgehogs. I've heard so much about Heidlberg and how beautiful it is. Not sure if we are going to see much of the town, but I'm excited. The day starts out a little rough because for some reason, we weren't given the club van to go to the game. That means we have to use players cars. In America, most players cars are pretty normal size and a lot of guys (especially baseball players) have SUV's. Heck, even I have a VW Touareg. Well this is Europe, where everything is small. Somehow, we had to pack 12 guys plus equipment into 4 subcompact vehicles! Most of you know I have the legs of a 6'10" guy, so I knew right off the bat (no pun intended) this was going to be a rough day.

About an hour into our journey, we hit traffic. Now this is my third run in with traffic on the famed "Auto Bahn" and it was getting old. We did about 5 mph for 2 hours! That made us late. What's more is my back went into spasms about 2 hours into the trip. I think I am getting old!

We get to Heidlberg and just as other players told me, I heard a lot of English. Heidlberg has a bunch of American players that live there now. The field doubles as a field hockey pitch, so the grass is really nice. The mound was high and like a cliff. If you weren't careful, you fell off!

I started pitching and the usual first inning in sued. A few errors, a couple hits and they scored 3 unearned runs (and 1 earned). I was, as it is said, a bit pissed off (or as Ruben would say "Fucked Off"). I was having trouble with the mound, but somehow found a way to pitch from it. Didn't do very well, but managed to get through 6 innings with 0 runs and 7 strikeouts. I couldn't throw and off speed pitch to change my life, but they were swinging at my fastball, so that worked.

Mark was "red tagged" before the game even started. During batting practice, the coach sat behind him and said "we're not going to give him anything to hit". Evidently the pitcher didn't get the memo. Mark it a towering shot to center in his first at bat the hit the fence. After that, we got walked a lot.

Going into the last inning, I handed the ball over to one of our relievers. I wasn't feeling very good and felt a bit sick (and I had thrown 30 pitches in the first inning). No worries, the game is well in hand with a 5 run lead. One quick out. Second batter hit a routine grounder and an error. Slowly but surely, the hits came, a few more errors and before I knew it, the 5 run lead completely disappeared. Ouch!

Of course in extras, they scored one run to win in come from behind fashion. A dog pile on the field and I knew what was going to happen in the second game. Them's the breaks!