Honkball

After a especially ugly loss, I dressed up as a soccer player and played soccer with the guys before practice. Gotta keep things loose!

Ok, the garbled rant of my last post cleared my mind and now I can get into more stuff I have done. In the last couple weeks I have done three things that are worth commenting on. Obviously the first is baseball but the two others are things that everybody expected more of out of me: going to Amsterdam and going out.

Let me get baseball out of the way. Playing has been pretty unremarkable because the level of completion was lower that I have been playing and it rains all the time. This is the most unpredictable weather I have ever seen!  For the last few weeks, it seems every other day has been rainy or completely clear. At home, I know some decent amateur meteorologist. But come on, in Portland it’s easy and in Santa Rosa the weather creeps up slowly and you can see it miles away. Here the people have booked mark the most accurate weather radar on their internet browsers and have predicting the movement of weather patterns down to a science. One game I looked at the western sky and remarked, “We should be fine.” They promptly directed me to the club house to the computer and analyzed the image of the blue grey blog moving across some static blue and green. “You see that! It’s obvious!” 

Since the first game I played the third day I was here, every home game has been rained out. That is unfortunate because, without a stage on which to perform, the excitement of bringing an American “Baseball Player” to town has given way to the nuisance of bringing an American to town. I hit a homerun my first at-bat here and in my first start, I struck out 14. Unfortunately, these games were played about an hour away in front of a home town crowd of about four. Eventually I will get to play a home game and hopefully it will be soon enough that the novelty will not have worn off.

In the meantime my focus remains on my Junioren Honkball team. The boys are ages 15 to 19 and “honk” is the word for “base” here. (No wonder this game hasn’t caught on.) Last post I referred to them as the Bad News Bears. That analogy is perfect. We even have a kid who comes by motorcycle. It has been an “everything that can go wrong, will go wrong team.” But just like the Bad News Bears, I am determined to change this. (My favorite part about this is that the people who are reading this here have no idea what the Bad News Bears is. I’m sure that one never got published for European markets.)

Our efforts are paying off. I challenge the kids here way beyond their comfort level and it is a joy to see them respond. They are a determined bunch. Kids with this kind of determination play for championships back home but unfortunately here, they have such little experience that we have a safe hold on dead last place.

Right now there remains bitterness among them because “we should be tied for last!” I will recount this funny story but first let me explain something. There are a lot of intricacies of club baseball here and just like the winner of each European futbol league plays in the Champion’s League. The winner of each league is promoted to the next higher class the following year and likewise the last place team is demoted. This makes sense because it is great at establishing parity in competition.  Side note, it’s funny, but this is an ideal model for their income tax structure and their individual capital growth incentive. (See a future “That’s Dutch) 

Anyway, I must tell the story of last game. After being blown out our last few games by anywhere between 10 and 20 runs, I made it a goal that we play all nine innings. This would be the day that we did not fall prey to the mercy rule. Baby steps. Everything looked good by the fifth inning. We were up two runs during the second rain delay. When it cleared up my team wanted to play on. I was happy to hear this. I want them to want to play the game for the enjoyment of the game.

I pulled the mud out of the hole on the pitcher’s mound and at home plate and we resumed play. Over the next three innings we gave up our lead for a two run deficit. We were playing solid defense and had our best pitcher in. The other team however, was starting to look shaky and their pitcher was perfect for batting practice. There was a stop for thunder in the distance and a brief shower. When the weather had passed I spoke with the umpire and the opposing coach. I tried to convince them that it is only fair to allow us to play the bottom half of the 8^th inning. This is when the fun started. 

Two of the parents from the other team, one of them holding the scorebook, were now complaining that they were afraid their boys would be struck by lightning. Then as they argued much of the western sky cleared up and the sun came out. Their argument then changed to worries about their boys becoming sick playing in this weather. Finally, after a ten minute debate and the parent of the pitcher not allowing her son to play, the opposing team took the field with eight players. Unfortunately, my team made three quick outs. When my team took the field for the top of the ninth inning, opposing team just began to pack up and leave. Can you imagine a better way to suck the fun out of youth sports?

Needless to say, my players were very upset. I did not realize that this had been such an important game. I wanted the game to continue because 18 boys wanted to enjoy playing baseball on their one game day of the week. This was an “Aha!” moment that solidified some peripheral observations that I had made. 

I assumed that as long as we were on a baseball field, the often preached sportsmanship of youth sports and hearty American baseball culture would be present. Although much of the issue arose because of some poor sporting parents, I realize that Holland is happy to take the game but never at the expense of its own ways. The Dutch bring to the game the club structure and social component which they value very highly.  Back home we seek personal and team success, sometimes to a fault, but often without regard for things outside the game. These cultural effects on baseball are probably found everywhere the game is played. As an American, knowing it only as “America’s favorite pastime” it was hard to see it at first, but the game; the bat, the ball, and the bases, are just is just a medium. Depending on where you are and who has them, something entirely unique is going to appear.