Gardner WebLog

So said one of the teachers that brought about 25 kids to Finsbury Park (our home field) to learn about the game of BASEBALL, she was pretty old.  Thursday was my first all day session, in which I ran four basic clinics, an hour each, and taught ten and eleven year olds the simple rules of baseball.  We started with basic throwing, no gloves (we used the softer balls that t-ballers use) which the kids loved…baseballs were everywhere and all over the park, fun.  Then we threw in the glove, of course every kid put it on their throwing hand to start off.  For some reason when you introduce a glove into the equation, the kids forget to still try and use two hands.  With no glove they caught it fine, two hands, no problem.  Once the glove goes on, it’s more of a swing at the ball then anything, amusing.  With some pointers I got them all catching and throwing, and having a blast.  Neil gave me some advice on how to run the session and the most crucial thing he told me was to hide the bats until its time to hit.  Every time I brought the bats out there were just stares and oohs and ahs.  The last part of the session was just hitting balls off the tee, and then everyone got to hit on the field once.  Some kids did really well for not ever playing before.

            Before each session I would ask them all what they knew about baseball.  “It’s like rounders!” or “Its like cricket, but not!”  and then one misled and ignorant child remarked “It’s not as fun as football!”  I would run through the basic rules, they all could get the general understanding of the game, and everyone had fun, so I was happy.  There was a little girl though in the second session that asked another coach that helped me if the glove was leather.  He told her yes, and she immediately dropped it and stepped away as if it had just turned into a snake.  “I’m a vegetarian I can’t touch leather,” she says.  Quick thinking by Daniel, the other coach, “this one is leather, but all the other ones are plastic, handing her a new glove and covering up the “Rawlings Rawhide” label.  It was funny, the entire game of baseball is based around leather. 

            I ran practices for the club all week and they went well.  I met the team I will be coaching which is the Pony level team (under 16’s).  I was supposed to go with them to Plymouth on Saturday, which is about 4 hours away on a train, way towards the southwestern tip of England.  Some of the other parent coaches backed out this weekend however, and I had to coach a different team.  Every Mets team won this weekend, which was good (Broncos, Ponys, Men’s.)  We played the worst team in the league today, beating them twice and sending them to a 0-10 record.  I threw a no-hitter, with 13 strikeouts, they were bad.

            Last week I didn’t talk much about the older guys on my team.  One of them, Jason Holowaty, works for the MLB out here traveling all around Europe, and even into Africa.  His father is the ABCA Hall of Famer head baseball coach at Eastern Connecticut.  He’s been there almost 40 years and is one of the most successful baseball coaches in NCAA baseball.  They always are in the World Series, and have a great program.  They also always come out to play us every year, and usually lose to us, go Bulldogs.  Josh Chetwynd, the guy who emailed me first in March, is the channel 5 baseball analyst for London.  There were kids at the game last week who obviously watch any baseball news in London, because they all asked Josh for his autograph.  He’s also written two books on the emergence of baseball in Europe, and then just Great Britain specifically.  Josh and Jason are older, but are still pretty good and truly love the game of baseball, it’s great.

            On a tourist’s note, I did make it to Westminster Abbey which was of course very interesting.  I stayed for awhile and looked at all the famous chapels and tombs.  When I came around to the Coronation Chair though, I noticed there was a small dinosaur standing right underneath the seat.  I stood there and laughed a little, then checked to see if anyone else had seen it.  Every person that walked by stopped to look at the chair and then asked the person they were with if the dinosaur was supposed to be there, it was really odd.  Then I see two parents with a child come around the corner with one of the red-robed guides.  “Your toy is sitting on the Coronation Chair!” the guide said.  I guess he found it and stuck it up there.  He took it down and gave it to the child, who then looked at his new Royal Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Funny. 

            For the most part, I haven’t had a whole lot of problems with the usual English weather, it seems that I’ve brought a little California with me.  It’s been great with a lot of nice sunny days.  I’m still getting used to the sun coming up around four and going down around ten.  I’m starting to make friends at one of the kebab places down the street, they are so incredibly delicious.  There’s a lot more to talk about, but I’ll save it for another post.  I hope all is well back there, and will talk to you soon.

Cheers,

Kyle