Baseball can be a rough game. We’ve all seen runners torpedoing the shortstop or second baseman to break up a double play, or crashing into the catcher to force a path to home plate. And how about foul balls or wild pitches hitting the catcher or the umpire? Sure, they’re wearing protective gear, but it’s not full-body armour.

I was painfully reminded today that an umpire’s arms are very much not protected against incoming baseballs. I was behind the plate for a double header of my club’s aspiranten (ages 13-15). The visiting team’s second catcher had a hard time catching an inside pitch when the batter swung and missed. Such pitches are coming straight at me, so I rely on the catcher to protect me. When the kid missed one, I took a shot off the outer part of my left wrist. My entire lower arm went numb and I could hardly raise it and extend my fingers to indicate the count for a couple of minutes afterwards. Feeling and functionality soon returned between innings.

Later that game, the catcher let another pitch go through, and this one found a very unpleasant spot just below my left elbow. Again, I couldn’t lift my arm for some time, or properly extend my fingers. It also left me jittery on any inside pitch for the rest of the game. Suffering from the catcher’s limited skills twice was quite enough. Fortunately, another kid caught the second game and did an excellent job of keeping me safe. (It’s some five hours later now, and there’s a nice bruise from the second hit. Everything still works as it should, though, so I don’t think there’s any severe damage.)

I might have escaped damage if the visitors’ first catcher didn’t have to leave after a collision at the plate. They got a runner in a rundown between third and home. With the runner heading home, the catcher got the ball a few steps in front of the plate–right in the runner’s path. The runner forced his way through, knocking the catcher over as he tried to apply the tag. The catcher went down in pain, the ball rolled away, and the runner touched home.

There was no malicious intent on the runner’s part, so it’s a legal play. Hard, but clean. Unfortunately, it left the catcher with an injured wrist. He was taken to a hospital and returned halfway through the second game, his arm in a sling. He fractured his wrist (either in the collision or when he hit the ground) and he’ll be out for a couple of weeks. That kind of puts my bruised elbow in perspective, doesn’t it?

Our meager spring training didn’t hurt our Opening Day performance. We beat Vlaardingen Holy 12-5 on their own turf to win the first competition game of 2008.

It was evident from the very first pitch that Vlaardingen didn’t have their best guy on the mound. He started the game with a hit-by-pitch, yielded a stolen base on his second throw, and balked our lead-off guy to third right after. I was hitting second today but didn’t get anything to take the first RBI, so I settled for a walk on a full count. I stole second on the next pitch and our number three guy hit a ground-rule double for a quick 2-0 lead. We went on for a bit and had a comfortable 5-0 lead when we took the field.

Our defense took a while to get going. Vlaardingen wasn’t hitting the ball particularly hard; we were simply a bit sloppy in our fielding and throwing. The worst example was a two-out grounder to me at short, which I misfired to first. Instead of recording the third out, I allowed two runs to score. Our pitcher struck out the next guy to limit the overall damage to four runs.

We batted through the order in the next frame–including a single by me through the hole between third and short–to climb to a 10-4 lead. Our pitcher never gave the home team much of a chance to come back for the rest of the game and our defense was pretty much flawless after the first inning. I made up for my error somewhat by forcing a runner out at second on a grounder to the second baseman (not hit hard enough to turn a double play, unfortunately), and throwing out two batters at first on grounders to short (a neat backhand grab on one of those, followed by a long throw from the hole–those are always fun to get).

I regret to say I also got my first strike-out today. I got a full count once again (my third at-bat and my third full count–Vlaardingen’s pitcher couldn’t get rid of me easily) and fouled off a pair before swinging through a high one. It was one of those pitches that an eager batter will sometimes chase. I’ve thrown them for strike-outs myself, so I should have seen it coming…

As I dug in for the fourth time, the umpire (a good one, and a nice guy on top of that) asked if I was going to get another full count. I said I’d try. The pitcher wouldn’t let me, though. His 1-and-2 offering came way inside and I couldn’t avoid taking it on the hip. That was my first hit-by-pitch of 2008, following my first hit, walk, strike-out, stolen base, run, put-out, assist and error. Not a lot of firsts left for the coming weeks… We’ll certainly try to hold off on our first loss for as long as possible.

We’ll have our home opener next Sunday against the Gophers from Maassluis, who also won their first game. Vlaardingen will visit us for the return (we’re playing each team twice throughout the season) on June 15.

We finally got in a spring training game. Weather has been pretty abysmal throughout March, and none of our scheduled games took place. With all the rain we got yesterday, I wasn’t sure when I went to bed whether we could play today. Fortunately, we could. It was still cold (around 10 °C or 50 °F), but the sun shone the whole time, so it felt nice enough.

I’m in a different team this year than I was last year and I’m playing in a league at one level down. The alternative was to play one level up, because we won the championship last September and earned a promotion to a higher league. I think I’ll have more fun at the lower level, so I opted to switch teams.

I was back at my favourite position for the first part of today’s game: shortstop. It looks like I’ll be playing there most of the time this year. I’ll also spend time on the pitcher’s mound, either in relief, or as a starter if our regular guy is unavailable. I pitched the last two innings today to get some game vibe at that position as well. The results were mixed. I allowed one unearned run the first inning, but my control took an early exit and I could hardly throw a strike the second inning. I’ll have to work on that.

On the offensive side, I wasn’t faring much better. I was too eager in my first at-bat and went fishing on a slow 1-2 pitch for a third strike. I hit a grounder to short the next two at-bats, both of which got booted by the shortstop for a reached-on-error. I ran into another strike-out my last time up when I couldn’t check my swing on a high 2-2 pitch. That came after fouling off four pitches, so combined with the ground balls, the good news is I’m seeing the ball and making contact.

The competition starts next Sunday. This one spring training game will have to do to be ready for it.

After visiting the Air Force Museum last weekend, Steve wanted to take me (and his son Matthew) out again this Saturday. His first idea was to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, to indulge our mutual love for baseball. We quickly agreed that, unfortunately, Cooperstown really is too far from Granville (over nine hours if we’d drive non-stop) to do this. Some of the more feasible suggestions included Cleveland and Pittsburgh. For reasons that will become apparent in a moment, I opted for Pittsburgh.

Steve and Matt picked me up around 8.15am for the three-hour drive to the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, PA. We split up after getting our tickets, because I wanted to see BODIES… The Exhibition: one of several exhibitions around the world of preserved human bodies dissected to show the interior workings. BODIES… was nicely set up and certainly interesting, but not quite as spectacular as it’s been said to be. It was very crowded, making it impossible to study all the displays and read all the descriptions. Besides, the descriptions didn’t mention anything you can’t find in a high-school biology book. In fact, the entire exhibition contained very little I haven’t seen elsewhere.

To continue on that negative note, the rest of the Science Center was a bit disappointing, too. (Steve agrees with me there.) It’s not a bad place, but it’s much more targeted at kids than we thought it was, and even then, it was more of a small theme park than a science museum. (For the Dutch readers: think NEMO, but with less science.) It was fun, but it wasn’t what you’d expect of a place called the Carnegie Science Center.

Still, our visit to Pittsburgh was worth every minute of the six hours we spent on the road that day. Right next to the Science Center stands Heinz Field, the American Football stadium for the Steelers (NFL) and the Panthers (college). A few hundred meters further east stands PNC Park, the baseball stadium for the Pirates. Now, as far as Major League teams go, you can’t get much worse than the Pirates. The last season where they won more games than they lost is 1992. Nevertheless, they have a beautiful ballpark, which actually was rated the best MLB park last year by ESPN.

The waterfront promenade behind the stadium was freely accessible that day (I suppose it usually is when there’s nothing going on inside), so we could get pretty close to the outfield wall. At one point, the only thing between us and the field was the bullpen. Even if the Pirates continue to play poorly, they’ll always be special to me for their ballpark being my first American baseball stadium to visit.

The Pirates’ field seen from almost dead center. Separating the snow-covered warning track from one of the bullpens is the outfield fence.

The scoreboard in left field keeps everyone informed of what goes in in the Pirates’ games and in other games throughout MLB.

Crossing the Allegheny River behind PNC Park is the Roberto Clemente Bridge, leading into Downtown Pittsburgh.

Part of Pittsburgh’s Downtown business district as seen from the promenade behind PNC Park.

But wait, there’s more! Take another look at the picture above. The tall glass building in the center, with the spires on top, houses the headquarters of PPG Industries, a worldwide manufacturer of glass and chemical products. They recently acquired the SigmaKalon Group, a paints and coatings producer based in Uithoorn, the Netherlands. This is the company my father has been working for for more than 25 years. When its acquisition by PPG was completed on January 2nd, SigmaKalon ceased to exist and PPG is now my father’s employer. The proximity of PPG’s headquarters to the Carenegie Science Center provided an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

PPG’s headquarters are located at PPG Place, a set of seven office buildings of the same glass design. The main tower was completed in 1984, has forty floors, and rises 194 meters (635 feet) high.

PPG’s headquarters as seen from the base of the building.

We got back to Granville around 6pm, right on time for Steve and his wife Sandy to treat me to great T-bone steak (grilled by Steve) and side dishes (cooked by Sandy). We rounded off the day with a game of Scrabble–the first time I’ve played that in English. Steve beat Sandy and me by a good margin, but he clearly got better letters than we did. Besides, he had Matt to help him.

On the day that, 2008 years ago, three wise men arrived in Bethlehem from the east, eight almost-as-wise men gathered in a Leiden sports arena for the first baseball practice of the year. (Four wiser men, comprising the rest of our team, were still on holiday.) I’m in a different team than last year. My old team moved up to a higher league, thanks to our winning the championship in September. However, I don’t have the ambition or the time (or the skill, really, though I suppose that could change with enough practice) to play in this higher league, so I moved to our club’s other men’s team. I already know all of those players and I think we’ll have a lot of fun together.

Our trainer put us through an hour and a half of exercises to get our condition back up after three months of not exercising a whole lot. Today, the day after, I’m happy to report my muscles aren’t aching too badly. Biking back and forth to work every day does help a little in maintaining shape. I’m even happier to report my left ankle, which I sprained during a late September game, didn’t bother me at all. That surprised me, as it still hurts sometimes when standing for more than half an hour. I would have expected some soreness from running around for ninety minutes, but I’ll gladly take it the way it is.

We’ll continue with indoor practice until the end of February, followed by on-field practice and training games in March and early April. The first competition game is tentatively scheduled for April 13th.

We got shut out 5-0 by Japan in our bronze medal game at the Baseball World Cup. Japan’s starting pitcher Tadashi Settsu tossed seven innings of one-hit ball for the win. His performance was all the more remarkable, because he’d worked an 89-pitch game less than 48 hours earlier. Dutch starter Leon Boyd kept the Japanese in check for five innings before surrendering two runs on three hits and a sac bunt in the sixth. Meanwhile, we only collected two hits and a walk off Setsu and closer Kohhei Hasebe. The fourth place overall equals the result from 2005 as our best ever. Although we would haved loved to take home a medal, I think coming in forth is an excellent achievement for a country that, until recently, wasn’t counted amongst the world’s best in baseball.

In the final, Team USA outlasted Team Cuba, who had hoped to win their tenth straight title. The 6-3 final score brought the Americans their first World Cup Championship in 33 years. Well done!

The impressive Dutch run at the Baseball World Cup ended today against Team USA. The mix of players from the independent and minor leagues struck first, with a solo homer on only the second pitch in the bottom of the first. A pitchers’ duel followed, with Dutch starter David Bergman keeping the US scoreless until the eighth inning, and Matt Wright plus two relievers doing likewise to the Dutch.

In the eighth, it was Team USA that broke the game open. A walk and a good bunt brought runners on first and second. A single to right field scored the second American run, with the other runner and the batter advancing to third and second on the throw home. After an intentional walk, the score went to 4-0 and a single to left. A sacrifice fly plated the fifth and final run.

Yesterday, we came back from a 2-1 gap in the ninth, and won it in the eleventh. Today, the five-run difference was too much to bridge. Closer Chris Booker did surrender a lead-off single and a walk, but he retired three batters without giving up a run to propel the US to the World Cup final. They will play Cuba tomorrow at 4.30pm Taiwan time.

Congratulations to Team USA on a great game. They made no mistakes today and profited from the few that we made. Good luck tomorrow. It would be nice to see the gold medal go to someone else than Cuba for a change.

A big round of applause also to the Dutch team for reaching the semi finals for the second straight time and showing the world that baseball is very much growing in Europe. Good luck tomorrow in the bronze medal game against Japan. Let’s show everyone one more time how good we’ve become.

Over in Taiwan, sixteen countries are competing in the 37th Baseball World Cup. We’re one of them and we’re trying to improve our 2005 performance, when the World Cup was hosted in the Netherlands and we ended fourth overall.

The teams were split up into two groups initially, with the top four of each group advancing into the quarter finals. Our first game was against Thailand, who were playing their first World Cup game ever. We showed no mercy and slugged away to a 16-0 victory.

Our opponents on day two were Australia, who were considered one of the favourites for the title. After falling behind 0-2, we came back in the sixth inning and carried a 2-2 tie into the ninth. A sensation seemed to be in the making when we scored in the top of the frame, but Australia worked hard in the bottom half and took away a 3-4 win.

Day three brought a European showdown: the Netherlands vs. Germany. Since we won the last five European Championships, this was a game we should win, and we did so easily. With a 15-5 final score, Germany didn’t stand a chance. Venezuela, opponent number four, was a bit of a higher hurdle, but they didn’t prove to be any real trouble. An early lead was enough for a 7-4 win.

With three games won out of four, we were nicely en route towards the quarter finals. Unfortunately, our last three games were against strong teams: Canada, Korea and Cuba. Winning two of those would ensure a spot in the next round. If we’d only win one, it would depend on what the rest of the group was doing.

Canada proved to be too strong the next day, as they beat us 7-1. After a much-needed day off (most Dutch players aren’t used to playing five days straight), we took on Korea, knowing we had to win, but knowing also they made it to the finals in the last World Cup two years ago. An impossible task? Hardly. We did run into sixteen strikeouts, but we managed to hit the ball often enough in between to score five runs. We kept Korea to only one for a very important victory.

If we’d beaten Korea by seven runs or more, the tie-breaker rules would have granted us a quarter final spot right away. As it was, we had to win against Cuba. Another impossible task? It sure looked that way. Cuba have won the last nine World Cups, they made it to the final of the 2005 World Baseball Classic, they’ve won the last two Intercontinental Cups, and three out of four Olympic gold medals (plus one silver). The last time they lost a World Cup game was in 2001 and they’d never lost a World Cup game to us.

However, no team is invincible. Cuba fought hard, but we fought just a bit harder this time. We put the first run on the board in the top of the second inning and Cuba only came back in the seventh. We retook the lead in the next frame and kept the score at 2-1 going into the ninth. Thanks to a powerful performance from one of our closers, the one-run lead was enough. We did it! We brought Cuba their first World Cup loss in six years and earned ourselves a place in the quarters finals.

That was two days ago. Today, at noon in Taiwan, we took on the host team in our quarter final game. Taiwan took a 2-0 lead in the third, helped by the fact that their supporters outnumbers ours by about 15,000 to 15. We halved their lead three frames later, but we were still trailing 2-1 going into the ninth. The first two batters were retired. Down to our final out, our first baseman decided today would be his day, and he slammed the ball over the fence. Tie game! We didn’t score any more in the ninth, and neither did Taiwan. The tenth remained scoreless as well.

Our catcher led off the eleventh with a basehit. The left fielder followed with a bunt, which Taiwan misplayed to put runners at first and second. Another bunt followed, by our right fielder, to advance both runners. That brought up our first baseman, but Taiwan wasn’t going to give him another chance. He got a free walk. With the bases loaded, our second baseman worked towards a full count before striking out. And that’s where things went wrong for Taiwan. Next up were our center fielder and short stop, who both doubled to drive in a combined four runs. Taiwan got one run back in the bottom of the eleventh, but we closed it out for a remarkable victory.

We’re in the semi finals now for the second straight time. Back in 2005, it was in the Netherlands, and one could argue the home field advantage helped us get there. That advantage belonged to our opponent this time, and still we won. Clearly, the quality of Dutch baseball is continuing to improve.

The semi finals are tomorrow, and we’re playing Korea or the USA. They’ll have to bring their best if they want to make it to the final.

I’m happy to report that my ankle is feeling much better already. I worked from home on Monday to allow it some rest and Tuesday I felt good enough to go back to the observatory. Today, the fourth day after the injury, I can sort of walk normally again and it only hurts when my foot bends outwards too much. It’ll be another couple of weeks before it’s back to full strength, but since the baseball season is over anyway, that’s not much of a problem. All in all, I’m just happy the injury turned out to be rather mild and my ankle is recovering nicely.

See here the result from a friendly game of baseball… I sprained my left ankle (the right one the picture, obviously) sliding into second base on a steal attempt yesterday. I knew right away what had happened, but we didn’t have any substitutes available and it didn’t feel too bad, so I stayed in the game for the remaining two innings. I shouldn’t have done that of course, because the best way to recover from a sprained ankle is to rest it immediately. Now I can hardly stand, let alone walk or cycle to work, so I’ll have to work from home for a day.

Fortunately my competition season ended last week with our winning the championship, so my ankle has over three months to recover before winter practice starts again.