A Beziers Beating.

Hello my loved ones. I loved all the comments. Alex, you get the reward for best comment...I had to read it twice to get what you were talking about...then I laughed hysterically...Happy Birthday too. Love you Alex and sorry it's belated. Karly, miss ya and glad you're still on board...gonna party it up KC stylee when I get back, Tiff, thanks for the Myspace message, very sweet and I loved it, Ian, thanks for your humor and wit. Send Willow with Mom and Dad. IF I GET ANOTHER "RED DAWN" I am personally kicking someone's ass.

To Phyllis,
I just recieved the news of what happened and I am terribly depressed. I send all my strength, love, thoughts, and prayers your way. I really wished that wouldn't have happened. We will see Europe together next year.

Finally, to Mom, Dad, and Nena....

I have had to change what I originally wrote because the chippy feeling just isn't there now. I am still thrilled to see you and pray you have a safe journey.

K...Let me just jump to the weekend. This was our only big away trip that we have had this whole season. The Bois Guillaume Woodchucks would depart from Rouen on Saturday, 12:00pm and not arrive in Beziers until 7:40pm. This trip was a lot of fun because it just brought back every road trip memory that I have had on all the baseball teams that I have ever played with.

If you didn't know....on these trips, playing cards is a must, an ipod is definitely needed, and you try to pull the most outrageous/dirtiest shannigans on other team mates. It was a lot of fun. I tought Olivear, Pierre, and Vincent how to play Heart's and Youker(sp?). It was a great time.

We finally got to Beziers and settled in our hotel room. We ate a team dinner and headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest for the next day's games.

This beautiful Mediterranean bordering town sits in the south west corner of France. It was really cool because two weeks earlier, Cole and I passed through this town on our trip from Barcelona to Marseille. Olivear then said to me,

"I have never been this far south in France."
I smirked and replied,
"Oh, this is my second time...no big deal. You should try the crepes."

He gave me a "you smartass" look and we laughed.

Now, I told you the city is beautiful...but....the field.............

Not so much.

It was awful. I have never in my life played on a field in this kind of condition. Jean Luc was fit to be tied because the club spent over 2,000 Eu to get to this place. He was just because this place was embarrasing.

Their were huge rocks all over infield, the grass hadn't gotten a gulp of water in years, and the outfield fence was being blown over every five minutes. We all started making WWII jokes because the place looked like a battlefield. Here is our dugout....

The field.


You get the point.

We laughing about the place at first but when we started taking BP, we didn't laugh so hard when balls would hop up and hit people in the chest, head, and nuts.

The thought in everyone's mind was.

"Fuck this place."

We did what we had to though, and played ball.

Game 1: Bois Guillaume Woodchucks vs Beziers Pirates
Time: 11:00am
Weather: Overcast and Windy
Attendance: 1. The son of the head coach of Beziers. But a loud little pecker he was.

I have to tell you that in the playoff's, we have two 9 inning games. Long days, but we gotsa pitching.

We started off strong as usual and scored three in the top of the first. Marc started for us. He didn't have his good stuff though. He was complaining because he just couldn't find a rhythm. So this game was a little testy for us.
They scratched two in the bottom of the first and this battling back and forth continued throughout the first seven innings.
They actually made it 5-4 before we tallied 6 runs in the top of the seventh. Their spirits were broke and they caved in to give us the opening win. 11-5.

Now we get a 30 minute break. What the shitty thing was though, was that the first game lasted three and a half hours. Not really giving us a lot of leeway to catch our 6:30pm train back to Rouen.

Another kinda-funny-not-so-funny thing was that most everyone on the team forgot to pack sandwiches for between games. So we scrounged all of our bags and pooled in what we got. We had 3 sandwiches, a little jar of Nutella, a chunk of Camenbear cheese, and a sleeve of chocolate cookies (thanks to Olivear). So all 10 of us had an odd between-game meal.

Game 2: BG Woodchucks vs Beziers Pathetics...I mean Pirates.
Time: 2:30pm
Weather: Sunny and windy as hell.
Attendance: A couple cute gf's of Beziers showed up.

I am not going to say much about this game. We scored 8 runs in the first off of 437829 errors. Final score 25-6. The only cool thing that happened was during my last at bat.
Romain and I always give each other shit about our families. I give him shit because he has a really cute 19 year old sister and he gives me shit about Mom being hot. Just routine baseball banter.
So in this last at bat, he came up to me and said,

"If you hit a homerun, I will give you my sister's number and you can have one night with her. But if you don't hit a homerun, you have to buy me a bottle of whiskey."

I agreed and everyone was just laughing and waiting for my at bat. I told everyone to watch my warmup cuts and I just took some barbarian cuts registering hysterical laughs from the bench.

I step up to the plate.

1st pitch.

Landed 20 feet beyond the center field wall.

I was just hootin' and hollerin' from the base path and guys on the team were rolling on the ground laughing. Romain had a look of shock on his face. I think everyone will remember that moment.

"Dame el numero, puta."

"Ahhhh, femme ta guelle." (Ahhh Shut the Fuck up.)

We gathered our stuff, showered, and headed to the train station. We made it with 7 minutes to spare.

It was a great trip back home. We traveled in 2nd Class on the way to Beziers but we had 1st Class tickets for the return journey.
A great trip home. Romain bought a bottle of whiskey for the debt (no sister), and everyone passed it around while sharing laughs. A great time.
Vincent (back left), Charles (left), and Romain (right)


We arrived late that evening in Rouen and everyone departed ways.
Yesterday, I slept a ton and went for a run. I texted Katie because she was back from Barcelona and asked her if she wanted to hang out. She agreed and I offered to make her dinner and just have a chill evening. So last night, I made us mussels in pasta with a mushroom/onion red sauce accompanied by glasses of Apple Brut Cider and coconut sorbet for dessert. Not bad if I say so myself. We then walked around Rouen at night and stopped at one of the bridges over the Seine. It was beautiful looking at the cathedral from afar and seeing a full moon cast over the water. We just shared conversation the whole time. Came back to my place for red wine and cheese and listened to music. A great night.

Katie and Me


I love you guys and I can't wait to see some of you really soon. Have a safe trip and I'm sure I'll talk to you before you depart. Focker...out.