Sunday, September 09, 2007

Take me out to the ball game …

Ok it wasn’t Fenway Park but on Friday night we had hot dogs, beer, warm evening sunshine and baseball.

It was the opening game of the European Baseball championships being held here and Ben and I popped up to the rather beautiful field on Montjuic to watch the opening game between Spain and Great Britain.

‘I think you’ll find the British to be a mixture of Australians, South Africans and American college boys,’ said an American woman on the way in, while I suspect the Spanish team had a few Latinos in the squad. Some of those on the field had made it to the minor leagues in the US.

There are 10 teams here with the Dutch the hot favourites, so far walloping 33 runs past the Czech Republic and Austria without reply, both games being curtailed by the sport’s splendid mercy rule.

It was great to be there. There was a rinky-dink opening ceremony with flags, VIPs, a song and the national anthems.

The game was pretty good, played well enough to remind you that, along with cricket, baseball is one of life’s higher callings. Britain won, 12-8, since you ask.

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