St. George Field, Normandy France.
My Dream.
Hey guys…where do I start…..Thank you for all the comments once again. I got to give props to Ian for his comment…very clever and funny. If you didn’t know France pretty much is not a functioning country in the months of July and August. It is their “holiday” season and it is damn near impossible to get anything done. But I’m still tryin’ for the net….
Ok…since last time I was able to talk to you, we were talkin’ about this St. George business. Well, for some reason in Jean Luc’s eyes, he doesn’t really want to pursue that option. I was really optimistic about the idea, so it kind of took the wind out of my sails. He wants to look for another lot of open land closer to BG, so that is that….but…….
That is not to say that the St. George idea is dead. That is all I am going to say about that.
These past couple weeks have kind of just drug on….just really slow past couple of weeks.
The fling that I had going on for a bit has completely died out, but I am not sad about it. I am glad for the time that I had with her. Other than my hopeless love life, things are going pretty good.
I have met some Spanish people through the brother of one of the softball players. They were a blast to hang out with. Their names are Zag, Pablo, Paco, Anna, and Vincent. We got to go to the beach in Le Havre last week and it was a blast. I was not quite ready for the complete Spanish experience though…I’m talkin’ eating dinner at 11:30pm and drinking and dancing until 4:00am. I was like… “Fuck…” but it was a great couple of days. We all hung out in Rouen one night. We went out to the bars for appetizers and drinks…afterwards I told them I wasn’t up for too much but they could come over to my apartment to hang out for a bit…..
Two bottles of the apple cider and three bottles of wine later…I was playing a set on the guitar with my Spanish singers helping me out on a couple of licks. Great night.
From Left: Pablo, Vincent, Anna, and Paco
So my clock has kinda been off these past couple of days you could say.
So I have been working on the field some with the kids and Chris the past couple of days and it is looking pretty good. There was an annoying amount of weeds that were sprouting of the dirt that I layed down 4 months previous. There will be no dandelions on my damn field…Maybe on Ian’s…but not mine (joke drum line).
I have to tell you that Chris has pretty much created an All-Star game for the DHR division. It is really cool because he is giving the Bois Guillaume club a much needed image boost due to reasons you can probably guess. But we worked on the field a lot for this upcoming Sunday All Star practice for the surrounding 4 towns involved. He asked me to help out and I of course agreed. We will practice, scrimmage, and BBQ afterwards. Lookin’ forward to it.
So…… baseball is pretty much dead during this time.
Makes sense not to play the world’s greatest game at the best time of year……..hmm…….
So I have had to drag guys onto the field for half-ass practices. I am throwing a pen every week to keep the ol’wing in shape. Still runnin…yada yada yada. But something really saweet happened today. Im talkin’ SAWEET.
One of the Rouen Elite team players, Boris, asked me if I wanted to practice with them since I am not doing anything. I met him when I umpired their games a couple weeks back. I quickly agreed and packed my ball bag and walked to the rendezvous point. Boris picked me up in one of those SMART cars. If you don’t know what a SMART car is….take one of Joey’s car toys and multiply by 3. So we headed for the Huskies Field.
Now, I have to tell you that I knew what to expect. I have had to deal with the same stares from other players on numerous occasions. For example; the first Missouri State baseball meeting my freshman year, every collegiate summer playing for different teams, etc. The look that a newcomer gets is pretty much….
“Who the fuck is this guy?”
So I warmed up with Boris. He is a great guy. Kinda was lookin’ out for me all day. So we all warmed up and people started taking their positions on the field for ground balls. I, of course, went to SS and started fielding balls. It felt good to be at a practice where you can actually field a team and get things done. So I fielded and rifled balls over to first and also turned double plays until my arm almost fell off. This went on for awhile and it was great. I was even starting to warm up to the other guys a bit. Giving and taking shit.
Then batting practice commenced. I knew I was going to be the last dog to hit so I headed to the outfield to shag. So there I was watching these guys hit. I will say that they are pretty damn good. The balls have some spunk on them once they leave the bat. But I will say one thing…not one of the balls left the park.
So after I was asked to throw BP to some guys, they told me I could hit and to grab my bat. I loved the feeling of these guys thinking… “Alright, can this fuck hit?”
Now let me ask you something. In the movie “The Natural”, do you remember when Roy finally gets to take bp for the first time? If you don’t know, you should be shot, but he hits his first 6 balls out of the park. Pretty much the same damn thing happened.
It was so cool. The other players were chattering to each other not really paying attention when I first walked up but when I hit the three balls thrown at me out of the park, there was a silence. Won’t forget that moment either.
So after I got done hittin, I got some smiles and looks of acceptance from the guys. That was the end of practice and so Boris and I started walking to his BigWheel.
I made a great dinner tonight, lemme tell ya. Spiced chicket breasts, butter filled mashed potatoes, peppered green beans, and some great vanilla sorbet yogurt for dessert. I’m kinda getting hungry again just thinking about it. Love you guys and will talk to you soon. Good night.
