HHW2008: Netherlands vs. Dutch Carribean
GAME FACTS OF THE DAY: Dutch Carribean Team at Team Netherlands, Game 4 of the Haarlemse Honkbalweek. Team Netherlands won 5-1 in 8.5 innings.
MY ROLE OF THE DAY: Spectator, front-row seats, not too far beyond first base.
BACKGROUND OF THE DAY: The Haarlemse Honkbalweek (Haarlem Baseball Week; HHW) is a biannual baseball tournament in Haarlem, one of the two major baseball cities in the Netherlands. This year, it features the national teams of the Netherlands and Cuba, college all-star teams from the US, Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) and Japan, and a combined team from the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba (the “Dutch Carribean”).
SHOW STOPPER OF THE DAY: The rain. A steady drizzle turned into a serious downpour in the top of the fifth, killing the Dutch Carribean Team’s would-be rally. The players from the Antilles, Aruba and St. Maarten had just scored their first run and had runners on first and second with one out when the umpires halted play. When play resumed 25 minutes later, a double play ended the visitors’ only real threat of the day.
ENOUGH’S ENOUGH OF THE DAY: The third rain delay. Already wet and cold from the fifth-inning showers, we held out through an 11-minute rain break in the top of the seventh before calling it a day after the bottom of that frame. With the Netherlands comfortably leading 5-1 and the skies not showing any sign of drying up soon, we didn’t want to risk pneumonia just to see the final two innings. Besides, my supposedly water-proof Eastpak was proving not to be. Play resumed at 10:47pm after a 58-minute break and the score didn’t change anymore.
FAN FAVOURITE OF THE DAY: The stands behind us were filled with kids and their parents from the Flags ball club in the nearby town of Lisse. They were loudly cheering for first-base umpire Jan Kuipers, who must be a well-known figure in that club. Every out at first was met with enthusiastic screaming from the Flags folks–directed not at the defense, but at the umpire making the call.
FAN FAVOURITE OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: Ryoji Nakata, the Japanese DH from the afternoon game, looks like a wider and shorter version of Prince Fielder. If he was a bit bigger, he’d make a fine sumo wrestler. The man can hit the ball hard, and that seems to be about all that he’s good at. Running just doesn’t work for him, having to carry that weight on those short legs. The crowd went wild every time he came up to the plate.
UNEXPLAINED WARDROBE CHANGE OF THE DAY: The base umpires were wearing jackets when the game started. When they came back from the first rain delay, they had left them in the dressing room. Would they rather get with in their normal shirt?
OVERDRESSING OF THE DAY: One of the Carribean bench players wore a balaclava with only his eyes exposed–even before it actually turned cold.
YOU’RE ONLY AS OLD AS YOU FEEL OF THE DAY: Our part of the stands was separated from the field by a walkway. The bottom of the stands stood about a meter from the ground, with a double railing making sure no one would accidentally fall off. Before the game, an elderly man, walking with a rollator, approached on the walkway and asked whether the seat next to me was still available. I said yes and expected the man to go around the back of the stands to find the stairway up. Instead, the man put aside his rollator and tried to do what many of the younger spectators did: climb over the railing. He hoisted himself up onto the ledge extending underneath the railing. He couldn’t swing his leg over the top bar, so he tried to fold through the gap between the two bars. People all around us were scared he would fall and break something. Well, he didn’t fall, but he also didn’t get through the railing. He climbed back down to the walkway, went around the back of the stands, and found the stairway up.
STUPIDITY OF THE DAY: I understand the benefits of an umbrella when it’s raining, but when someone in front of you holds one up, it pretty much blocks your view of the field. Those umbrellas are also dangerous. I was waiting for someone to get poked in the eye…