Posts
Walking Dream
10 hours ago
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Gladwell Analysis: The end of the NFL?
In what's being touted as the most important article on sports of the year, Malcolm Gladwell has excavated the depths of denial that exist in every football player, coach, executive and fan to bring to the surface the devastating and inherent brutality of the sport that we all tell ourselves doesn't exist. Much like brain injuries themselves, hidden from sight, the enjoyment of football as seen through plasma screens allows us as a society to support this multi-billion dollar industry based on the faulty assumption that a lack of blood and outright death means the absence of depravity. In a way that is pure Gladwellian, this piece consolidates numerous studies that have poked and prodded the national consciousness for years into one perfectly articulated amalgamation of evidence showing it is nearly impossible to play football at a high level and escape with your brain unscathed.
Like myself, Gladwell is a huge football fan, which is an important reason that this article works so well. It is easy to attack football from the tired narrative of the sports-hater, but this critique comes from the perspective of a fan who doesn't want to see the sport wiped off the face of the earth. This paradox adds an incredible element of complexity to the article, in that it forces the reader to confront the impossible task of reformation. The dogfighting angle seems to be purely a hook, existing so that Gladwell can posit the question of whether (brain) violence is inherent to the sport, like dog fighting, or incidental to it, like stock car racing. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests the former.
So, working from that conclusion, where do go from here? My first reaction to the article was physical, I felt literally nauseous reading about Kyle Turley's experiences since retirement. Gladwell's article comes on the heels of a much talked about piece by Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports on Turley specifically. Both articles give the reader a visceral reaction to the daily suffering of Turley and many other retired players, linemen specifically. He collapses spontaneously, suffers flashbacks of concussion symptoms without warning, and blacks out for long periods of time.
My second reaction was total denunciation of football. I've been a huge football fan, college and pro, for as long as I can remember, but have always had issues with the sport. Exploitation is inherent in college football, as young, mostly black and mostly working class kids make millions and millions of dollars for their universities (which are mostly white-owned and operated) and are barred completely from seeing a dime of it. Television contracts, merchandise licensing and ticket sales for college football make up a billion dollar industry, yet players are expelled for life if they accept any money from boosters. The modern-day NFL, under the guidance of new commissioner Roger Goodell, is as corporate an enterprise as the sporting world has ever seen. Goodell's double standard on player behavior is excruciatingly transparent. Matt Jones, a white WR, served only a three game suspension when arrested for cocaine possession, then avoided suspension completely when he was arrested again this past March. White Patriots lineman Nicholas Kaczur was arrested buying so much illegal OxyContin that it was obvious it wasn't for personal use. According to the Boston Globe, Kaczur "purchased 100 pills every few days, paying tens of thousands of dollars over time." Kaczur was astoundingly NEVER suspended or fined by the NFL. Raiders coach Tom Cable recently attacked an assistant coach, breaking his jaw and threatening to kill him. As of now he has avoided any suspension or fine. I don't need to detail the harsh and unjust punishment that black players like Pacman Jones, Mike Vick, and Plaxico Burriss have received from the NFL and the criminal justice system. These issues, coupled with the grotesque information on brain injuries that Gladwell detailed, forced me to confront my football fandom and threaten to dump it all together. But then I checked my (first place!) fantasy team and watched an illegal internet feed of the Denver-New England game.
So it's obvious that the game isn't going anywhere. Despite this indisputable evidence, there are far too many fans and billions of dollars for it to destroy the game. While my sports attention may shift over to baseball and basketball, the country's won't. There seem to be only two ways forward, knowing now what we know about head trauma in football. One is to force the league to take further measures to protect players. The other is to pressure parents to not let their kids play football, and to choose baseball or basketball instead. If this is done, on a grassroots level, then the best athletes will avoid football and the game will begin to become watered down. The only way for us as a society to confront this corporation that destroys so many young men's lives so early is to cut off the funding, that is, the athletes. But for the time being, as long as the players are fully aware of the danger that they are subjecting themselves to, there's no reason to denounce the sport. I'll still be a football fan, just not as big a fan.
There are drastic measures that can be taken to lessen head injuries, but the chances of any being implemented are minuscule. One such measure would be to revert back to leather helmets, or use no helmets at all. Rugby and Australian Rules Football have far fewer head injuries due to the fact that players don't wear helmets. Without a helmet, a collision hurts the aggressor just as much as the player absorbing the hit, meaning that defensive players would avoid head-to-head collisions all together. Along the same lines, the league could institute a limit on padding size and player weight, making it a smaller, faster game with less violent collisions. The chances of any such drastic rule change occurring are close to none however. The only way to force the NFL to change is to attack them where it hurts: the pocketbook. And the only way to do this is make the games less entertaining by diverting young talent to other sports. It may take decades, but the fact of the matter is that it is now impossible, in light of Gladwell's article, to deny that to play professional football is to willingly give up your right to a middle and old age.
Like myself, Gladwell is a huge football fan, which is an important reason that this article works so well. It is easy to attack football from the tired narrative of the sports-hater, but this critique comes from the perspective of a fan who doesn't want to see the sport wiped off the face of the earth. This paradox adds an incredible element of complexity to the article, in that it forces the reader to confront the impossible task of reformation. The dogfighting angle seems to be purely a hook, existing so that Gladwell can posit the question of whether (brain) violence is inherent to the sport, like dog fighting, or incidental to it, like stock car racing. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests the former.
So, working from that conclusion, where do go from here? My first reaction to the article was physical, I felt literally nauseous reading about Kyle Turley's experiences since retirement. Gladwell's article comes on the heels of a much talked about piece by Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports on Turley specifically. Both articles give the reader a visceral reaction to the daily suffering of Turley and many other retired players, linemen specifically. He collapses spontaneously, suffers flashbacks of concussion symptoms without warning, and blacks out for long periods of time.
My second reaction was total denunciation of football. I've been a huge football fan, college and pro, for as long as I can remember, but have always had issues with the sport. Exploitation is inherent in college football, as young, mostly black and mostly working class kids make millions and millions of dollars for their universities (which are mostly white-owned and operated) and are barred completely from seeing a dime of it. Television contracts, merchandise licensing and ticket sales for college football make up a billion dollar industry, yet players are expelled for life if they accept any money from boosters. The modern-day NFL, under the guidance of new commissioner Roger Goodell, is as corporate an enterprise as the sporting world has ever seen. Goodell's double standard on player behavior is excruciatingly transparent. Matt Jones, a white WR, served only a three game suspension when arrested for cocaine possession, then avoided suspension completely when he was arrested again this past March. White Patriots lineman Nicholas Kaczur was arrested buying so much illegal OxyContin that it was obvious it wasn't for personal use. According to the Boston Globe, Kaczur "purchased 100 pills every few days, paying tens of thousands of dollars over time." Kaczur was astoundingly NEVER suspended or fined by the NFL. Raiders coach Tom Cable recently attacked an assistant coach, breaking his jaw and threatening to kill him. As of now he has avoided any suspension or fine. I don't need to detail the harsh and unjust punishment that black players like Pacman Jones, Mike Vick, and Plaxico Burriss have received from the NFL and the criminal justice system. These issues, coupled with the grotesque information on brain injuries that Gladwell detailed, forced me to confront my football fandom and threaten to dump it all together. But then I checked my (first place!) fantasy team and watched an illegal internet feed of the Denver-New England game.
So it's obvious that the game isn't going anywhere. Despite this indisputable evidence, there are far too many fans and billions of dollars for it to destroy the game. While my sports attention may shift over to baseball and basketball, the country's won't. There seem to be only two ways forward, knowing now what we know about head trauma in football. One is to force the league to take further measures to protect players. The other is to pressure parents to not let their kids play football, and to choose baseball or basketball instead. If this is done, on a grassroots level, then the best athletes will avoid football and the game will begin to become watered down. The only way for us as a society to confront this corporation that destroys so many young men's lives so early is to cut off the funding, that is, the athletes. But for the time being, as long as the players are fully aware of the danger that they are subjecting themselves to, there's no reason to denounce the sport. I'll still be a football fan, just not as big a fan.
There are drastic measures that can be taken to lessen head injuries, but the chances of any being implemented are minuscule. One such measure would be to revert back to leather helmets, or use no helmets at all. Rugby and Australian Rules Football have far fewer head injuries due to the fact that players don't wear helmets. Without a helmet, a collision hurts the aggressor just as much as the player absorbing the hit, meaning that defensive players would avoid head-to-head collisions all together. Along the same lines, the league could institute a limit on padding size and player weight, making it a smaller, faster game with less violent collisions. The chances of any such drastic rule change occurring are close to none however. The only way to force the NFL to change is to attack them where it hurts: the pocketbook. And the only way to do this is make the games less entertaining by diverting young talent to other sports. It may take decades, but the fact of the matter is that it is now impossible, in light of Gladwell's article, to deny that to play professional football is to willingly give up your right to a middle and old age.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Nobel Reax from W. Europe
This past summer saw the people of Iran take to the streets against brutal state violence and strain against the imposed borders set up by Iran's totalitarian regime, with the single purpose of being welcomed back into the world. Above all, the green tide in Iran, a youth- and blogger-driven wave, wanted normalized relations with the outside world. And the world wanted it too, supporting them as much as possible without undermining their cause, tugging and pulling them into the fold. After eight years of unilateral hegemony in the US, the international community is doing the same for America by awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize.
In France, the response to Obama's young presidency has been one of muted enthusiasm. People hope that his election will signal a move into modernity for the US, but realize it could just as well initiate a backlash. That seems to be the sentiment around the continent as well, with the Peace Prize in a sense cajoling and cautiously encouraging the US to step forward, to draw down its various wars in the Middle East, to provide equal rights for its gay citizens and health care for all its people.
These are all things that haven't happened yet, but there are concrete reasons for his winning the award, reasons that aren't readily apparent from within the US due to the fact that conditions on the ground, the everyday lives of people, haven't changed much in the past year. But the view from here, from western Europe, has seen a monumental shift since January. The world's richest and most innovative country has gone from being a dark, scared and violent place to turning on a light, opening the door, and greeting the world.
To understand why Obama won the Prize, you have to look at it from the perspective of those who awarded it to him. Since he took over, Obama has paid back the millions owed to the United Nations in dues and addressed them as equals, made an equally important speech in Cairo, addressed the Iranians directly on their New Year (perhaps even catalyzing the Green Revolution), scrapped plans for a Stars Wars defense shield in Eastern Europe, and reopened Israeli-Palestinian talks. This sea change in such a short amount of time is a really big deal to the world community. The world is undoubtedly a better place with an engaged United States, and the effects of the re-engagement of the past nine months and next four years will be seen magnified exponentially in years to come. That is why Obama won, and deserves, this prize.
In France, the response to Obama's young presidency has been one of muted enthusiasm. People hope that his election will signal a move into modernity for the US, but realize it could just as well initiate a backlash. That seems to be the sentiment around the continent as well, with the Peace Prize in a sense cajoling and cautiously encouraging the US to step forward, to draw down its various wars in the Middle East, to provide equal rights for its gay citizens and health care for all its people.
These are all things that haven't happened yet, but there are concrete reasons for his winning the award, reasons that aren't readily apparent from within the US due to the fact that conditions on the ground, the everyday lives of people, haven't changed much in the past year. But the view from here, from western Europe, has seen a monumental shift since January. The world's richest and most innovative country has gone from being a dark, scared and violent place to turning on a light, opening the door, and greeting the world.
To understand why Obama won the Prize, you have to look at it from the perspective of those who awarded it to him. Since he took over, Obama has paid back the millions owed to the United Nations in dues and addressed them as equals, made an equally important speech in Cairo, addressed the Iranians directly on their New Year (perhaps even catalyzing the Green Revolution), scrapped plans for a Stars Wars defense shield in Eastern Europe, and reopened Israeli-Palestinian talks. This sea change in such a short amount of time is a really big deal to the world community. The world is undoubtedly a better place with an engaged United States, and the effects of the re-engagement of the past nine months and next four years will be seen magnified exponentially in years to come. That is why Obama won, and deserves, this prize.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Still got my Nike Dunks
Complex.com has a great countdown of the 50 best Nike Dunks of all time. Although the 5&Dime prefers SB's, there are some classics on this list, including the 2005 release Stussy Dunk Hi LTD, a 5&Dime favorite:
I'm still rocking my Dunk Low Pro SB's, beat up as they are. Huge in France. But even bigger? The Nike Dunk Low Pro SB Paris, of course:
I'm still rocking my Dunk Low Pro SB's, beat up as they are. Huge in France. But even bigger? The Nike Dunk Low Pro SB Paris, of course:
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Open Rouen
Ancient French towns point travelers in the direction of a far off destination from innocuous street signs in the middle of centre ville, far from the highways that take them there. The three-headed post that proclaimed Lille, Paris and Rouen to be straight shots in three directions sprouted from the base of the bridge in Compiegne. West was Rouen, we left early Saturday morning on the 25th of July following that finger through countrysides, passing Beauvais, gliding over hills through Normandie. In Thomas' car, Sara slept in the back, I flipped through radio stations buzzing with static and picking up signals from far across France's broad, flat back.
The Open Rouen had begun on Wednesday. As a pitcher for hire, I'm kind of a mercenary. It was a long tournament and Rouen, the top team in the Elite level, the best of the best, needed an arm for the waning days of the event they host. I was the only undefeated pitcher left at that point, and word had gotten around the small world of French baseball. Thomas is friends with the manager of Rouen, Francois Colombier, so he passed on my information and I was definitely down for the challenge. Sara was in town for the weekend and was down for a road trip. The plan was to arrive in time for the noon game, pitch, then hop a train back to Compiegne that night. It was half because they needed a pitcher, and half a tryout for next season.
The jewel of the French league, Rouen's dominance in recent years necessitated a facility to match. So halfway through this season they had their all-dirt infield replaced with field turf. It stood out sharply as we entered the clearing that held their field and the seven teams fighting it out in this annual tournament. Most that weren't playing were milling around, and it was a splattering of uniforms and players from around the globe. A team of Division III college players from the Southwest was representing the US. Team Quebec was there, as was the Belgian National Team. The Gauting Indians were hardly representing Germany, as most of their players were Americans picked from other German Bundesliga squads. France was represented by the Rouen Huskies, the French National Team, and the French under-21 National Team. We had the early afternoon game against Quebec, but when we arrived I found out that the number two pitcher for Rouen, a Venezuelan named Keino Perez, was set to start the first game, and if we won then I would pitch the second game that day against Gauting. But if we lost I'd have to pitch the next morning. Used to it by now, I just shrugged. That's French baseball.
Got suited up, met the players, and warmed up with the team. Seems like every good player in France has some US connection. Maybe their family is from there, or they played in the States at some point. Whatever the reason, the result was that most of the Rouen team spoke English. These guys were as good as D1 college players in the States, but because they were the best of France they were treated like superstars. There was a line of baseball cards, and the top two or three had sponsorship deals with new French baseball company Lace. Lace had a booth set up at the tourney, it's a small company with minimalist branding on their merchandise and some of the best quality glove leather I'd ever seen. Joris Bert was the most well known French player due to the fact that he had signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers organization this year. His departure in the spring had been a big deal, newspapers called him baseball's Tony Parker, and there was even a segment on the national TV news about him. But he had gotten cut pretty quickly and was now back playing left field for Rouen. Their center fielder was in my mind their best player, Kenji Hagiwara, a fast, six-foot rangy outfielder with a quick bat. Kenji was French from Japanese parents, and had played college ball in the US, for a junior college in Texas and a summer team in Hawaii. After the first game he slipped on a USF Baseball t-shirt. I went up and asked him, "Is that University of South Florida or San Francisco?"
"San Francisco, man. One of my buddies from Hawaii played there," he said. I asked him what the guy's name was, because I know a good amount of players at USF, and have watched them for years. Royce Fukuroku. Yup. I had watched Royce play all four years he was at USF, he was tiny, a 5'3" (maybe) third baseman that dropped bombs. He played alongside a couple friends of mine at USF, and had always impressed me. Turns out he had even played a season for Rouen a couple years back. The small world connections didn't end there. The first baseman for Rouen was a big Australian guy named Ian Young, from Sydney. He worked for the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) in Switzerland but still played in France. After introductions we quickly figured out that in Spring 2005 his job had taken him to Wesleyan to meet with my old coach, Mark Woodworth. Not only did they meet, but Woody invited him to come out and watch the team practice...and I was on that team. Ian had grown up in Sydney, playing ball with a guy named Matt Bennett, who was the only other lefty pitcher besides me, and our staff ace, on my team in Israel in 2007. Before the game I warmed up with Sebastien Grimaud, a pitcher and utility player who had played at College of Marin some years ago, half an hour from where I grew up.
Keino's outing was rocky from the start. He was leaving his fastball up and couldn't locate his breaking ball. Quebec was squaring the ball on almost every at bat, peppering line drives all over the field. He pitched out of a couple jams, so they never had a breakout inning, but he was getting in trouble constantly. We threatened a couple times at the plate, but couldn't put together enough to get back into the game. On the bench, I was not only disappointed that I wouldn't be pitching that day but I also had to figure out if I was going to stay to start the next morning, and if so, where my sister and I would sleep that night. Thomas had suggested getting a hotel room, but it wasn't necessary. Guys on Rouen assured me that I could stay with one of them. We ended up losing, knocking us out of contention in the tournament we hosted, but I told Francois I'd be there to start in the morning. Quentin, the youngest player on the team, invited us to stay with his family. He's a 17 year old outfielder who I had played against twice when Compiegne faced Rouen's second team. First time we played them seemed like years ago, it was back in May when I had come within a bunt single of throwing a perfect game on their own field. Quentin and I had an epic battle that game, an at-bat that lasted 11 pitches before I ended up getting a fastball far enough inside that he swung and missed. Second time we played them was just a week earlier, a home game in Compiegne to wrap up the regular season. It was July 19th, and a long, messy day. My folks had flown in that morning and got there right on time for the first game. Right on time to see one of our lesser players, Florent Moreau, decide to bowl over their first baseman as he stood in the base path settling under a weak pop up that Flo hit. The benches cleared, their catcher threw a punch, was ejected, the Cubans exploded, Coca couldn't be held back, it was a mess. Luis was yelling, everyone was instigating. I'm always there to back up my teammates, but not then; Flo is an idiot and had no idea that he couldn't just knock over their fielder. Flo is a really traditional French guy, classic in a way. He always snaps at me, "learn French" (in French) when I'm speaking English, and I get right back at him with "learn baseball." Would've helped in this case. But finally the field cleared and we got on with the game, which we won easily. The second one was long and filled with errors, we ended up losing but the beef had been squashed between the teams. I had a beer with Quentin after, so it made sense for him to invite us to crash at his place the next week.
Highlight of the tournament was the home run derby, happening right after our loss to Quebec. Couple players from each team were involved, same rules as in the bigs. Attendance hadn't been great in the first couple days of the tourney, but this was Saturday, the semi-final teams were being decided, and it was a beautiful day, all resulting in a good sized crowd for the derby. The players disappointed a bit though, no one hit more than two home runs in the first round, which ended up taking far too long. As the field narrowed in the second round, the big bopper from Quebec who lit up Keino kept dropping bombs and won it all. We stuck around the field for the derby and the afternoon game because of the barbecue that was going down in the evening. Gave me a chance to talk to a lot of the guys on the US team and German teams. The US team had been picked randomly by some umbrella organization called USA Athletes International, who put together this squad of DIII players. It was funny to hear how the French reacted to the fact that a team from the States was there, even the most knowledgeable French seemed naive and ridiculous. They just have no idea how many thousands of baseball players there are in the US that are better than the best French ones. I was first told that this would be a college level All-Star team. I was pretty incredulous to that, considering that Team USA was used to competing in Cuba and Japan, not Rouen. The French seemed to think that these were some of the better amateur players in the US, but after talking to them I realized that they were just good DIII players like myself who wanted to get a shot to play pro ball internationally after college. I passed out my email address, hoping that I'd be able to help these guys find teams.
After the derby I was sitting with the German team, having a beer. A couple played for Haar, with guys that I had played with in Israel. The Gauting hats were the best I've seen in a while, pinwheel colors of red and blue, with a blue "G" in the Georgetown style, outlined in white. All the players had been growing heavy beards the whole season, they looked like grimy Bavarian warriors. One pulled out a bottle of Jim Beam he had stashed in his bag, and they started telling me about the night before, when they had gone out to the clubs in Rouen. Apparently they all showed up at this one club, and the bouncer wouldn't let them in (presumably because it was like 15 guys and no girls). They started getting into it with the bouncers, and it escalated. All of a sudden one of the bouncers pulled out a crow bar and started wailing on one of the players. First shot got him high up on the forehead and he went down in a heap. They kept on him though, pounding his back and stomach while he was unconscious on the ground. The rest of the players finally got him out of there, after absorbing some hits themselves, and got him to a hospital. He ended up with a couple dozen stitches in his head and bruises all over. Safe to say the Germans weren't the biggest fans of the French. Old beef dies hard.
Everyone involved in the tournament congregated for the big Saturday night barbecue. Players, coaches, umpires, fans, friends. Rouen coach gave me a coupon for twenty euros of anything I wanted: burgers, chicken, beer. It was a warm evening, the setting sun reflected off the houses perched on the hill behind the outfield fence. The first time Compiegne had played at Rouen, Leonel, the 15 year old Cuban on our team, pulled me aside. He had only been living in France for three years and was wondering about the houses on the hillside. "Are those French favelas?" he asked me in Spanish. I laughed, said, "Nah man, in these parts the rich people live on the hills, not the poor ones." The barbecue lasted well into the night, until we hopped in Quentin's father's car and headed up to their beautiful house in the hills. Quentin took us out that night in Rouen. We sat at a cafe and drank beer at the very spot where Joan of Arc had been burned at the stake. She is one of Sara's heroes, and the enormity of our location overwhelmed her all evening.
We rose early and were at the field as the chilly morning haze still hovered above the ground. I ran along the warning track, trying to shake off the cobwebs and warm up my legs. The Belgian National Team was already there, looking crisp in their white uniforms with the yellow, red and black name. I could tell from the beginning that Rouen wasn't entirely in it. We had already been eliminated, the standings didn't count for the regular season, and it was eight on a Sunday morning. These games are the real tests for baseball players. Teams I had been on in California wouldn't have even thought twice about it; this was a game, so they have to play hard, go all out, and act like it's game seven of the World Series. That's not the French way though. I had hoped that Rouen would be different, that guys would play with the same grit and pride that Californian players played with, but I was way off. Team played casually all game, and it didn't help that I didn't have my best stuff. The umpire squeezed me a bit, and at times I could hear Sara and Thomas heckling him from the stands: "Get off your knees blue, you're blowing the game!" I pitched five innings, gave up five hits and one earned run, and left with a 3-2 deficit. Kenji and Bert almost got a rally going, but Hagiwara was picked off second. David Gauthier caught me, their second string catcher. He had played in Australia the winter before, and I was impressed. He called a great game, had a cannon arm, and could block anything. Boris Marche, their regular catcher, played third, a power hitter with a hell of a swing. But the Belgium pitcher, though not overwhelming, was in control throughout. The Belgians weren't flashy or extremely talented, but were solid through and through. They didn't make many mistakes and played fundamentally sound. I picked up the loss but wasn't too disappointed in how I pitched. I proved that I could succeed at this level, and was as good as any of their other pitchers. Francois thanked me after the game, and I told him that I'd be back in a second if they needed any lefties next season. Thomas, Sara and I got back in the car, cranked up Lily Allen's "FUCK YOU" song, and tore up the road all the way back to Compiegne.
The Open Rouen had begun on Wednesday. As a pitcher for hire, I'm kind of a mercenary. It was a long tournament and Rouen, the top team in the Elite level, the best of the best, needed an arm for the waning days of the event they host. I was the only undefeated pitcher left at that point, and word had gotten around the small world of French baseball. Thomas is friends with the manager of Rouen, Francois Colombier, so he passed on my information and I was definitely down for the challenge. Sara was in town for the weekend and was down for a road trip. The plan was to arrive in time for the noon game, pitch, then hop a train back to Compiegne that night. It was half because they needed a pitcher, and half a tryout for next season.
The jewel of the French league, Rouen's dominance in recent years necessitated a facility to match. So halfway through this season they had their all-dirt infield replaced with field turf. It stood out sharply as we entered the clearing that held their field and the seven teams fighting it out in this annual tournament. Most that weren't playing were milling around, and it was a splattering of uniforms and players from around the globe. A team of Division III college players from the Southwest was representing the US. Team Quebec was there, as was the Belgian National Team. The Gauting Indians were hardly representing Germany, as most of their players were Americans picked from other German Bundesliga squads. France was represented by the Rouen Huskies, the French National Team, and the French under-21 National Team. We had the early afternoon game against Quebec, but when we arrived I found out that the number two pitcher for Rouen, a Venezuelan named Keino Perez, was set to start the first game, and if we won then I would pitch the second game that day against Gauting. But if we lost I'd have to pitch the next morning. Used to it by now, I just shrugged. That's French baseball.
Got suited up, met the players, and warmed up with the team. Seems like every good player in France has some US connection. Maybe their family is from there, or they played in the States at some point. Whatever the reason, the result was that most of the Rouen team spoke English. These guys were as good as D1 college players in the States, but because they were the best of France they were treated like superstars. There was a line of baseball cards, and the top two or three had sponsorship deals with new French baseball company Lace. Lace had a booth set up at the tourney, it's a small company with minimalist branding on their merchandise and some of the best quality glove leather I'd ever seen. Joris Bert was the most well known French player due to the fact that he had signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers organization this year. His departure in the spring had been a big deal, newspapers called him baseball's Tony Parker, and there was even a segment on the national TV news about him. But he had gotten cut pretty quickly and was now back playing left field for Rouen. Their center fielder was in my mind their best player, Kenji Hagiwara, a fast, six-foot rangy outfielder with a quick bat. Kenji was French from Japanese parents, and had played college ball in the US, for a junior college in Texas and a summer team in Hawaii. After the first game he slipped on a USF Baseball t-shirt. I went up and asked him, "Is that University of South Florida or San Francisco?"
"San Francisco, man. One of my buddies from Hawaii played there," he said. I asked him what the guy's name was, because I know a good amount of players at USF, and have watched them for years. Royce Fukuroku. Yup. I had watched Royce play all four years he was at USF, he was tiny, a 5'3" (maybe) third baseman that dropped bombs. He played alongside a couple friends of mine at USF, and had always impressed me. Turns out he had even played a season for Rouen a couple years back. The small world connections didn't end there. The first baseman for Rouen was a big Australian guy named Ian Young, from Sydney. He worked for the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) in Switzerland but still played in France. After introductions we quickly figured out that in Spring 2005 his job had taken him to Wesleyan to meet with my old coach, Mark Woodworth. Not only did they meet, but Woody invited him to come out and watch the team practice...and I was on that team. Ian had grown up in Sydney, playing ball with a guy named Matt Bennett, who was the only other lefty pitcher besides me, and our staff ace, on my team in Israel in 2007. Before the game I warmed up with Sebastien Grimaud, a pitcher and utility player who had played at College of Marin some years ago, half an hour from where I grew up.
Keino's outing was rocky from the start. He was leaving his fastball up and couldn't locate his breaking ball. Quebec was squaring the ball on almost every at bat, peppering line drives all over the field. He pitched out of a couple jams, so they never had a breakout inning, but he was getting in trouble constantly. We threatened a couple times at the plate, but couldn't put together enough to get back into the game. On the bench, I was not only disappointed that I wouldn't be pitching that day but I also had to figure out if I was going to stay to start the next morning, and if so, where my sister and I would sleep that night. Thomas had suggested getting a hotel room, but it wasn't necessary. Guys on Rouen assured me that I could stay with one of them. We ended up losing, knocking us out of contention in the tournament we hosted, but I told Francois I'd be there to start in the morning. Quentin, the youngest player on the team, invited us to stay with his family. He's a 17 year old outfielder who I had played against twice when Compiegne faced Rouen's second team. First time we played them seemed like years ago, it was back in May when I had come within a bunt single of throwing a perfect game on their own field. Quentin and I had an epic battle that game, an at-bat that lasted 11 pitches before I ended up getting a fastball far enough inside that he swung and missed. Second time we played them was just a week earlier, a home game in Compiegne to wrap up the regular season. It was July 19th, and a long, messy day. My folks had flown in that morning and got there right on time for the first game. Right on time to see one of our lesser players, Florent Moreau, decide to bowl over their first baseman as he stood in the base path settling under a weak pop up that Flo hit. The benches cleared, their catcher threw a punch, was ejected, the Cubans exploded, Coca couldn't be held back, it was a mess. Luis was yelling, everyone was instigating. I'm always there to back up my teammates, but not then; Flo is an idiot and had no idea that he couldn't just knock over their fielder. Flo is a really traditional French guy, classic in a way. He always snaps at me, "learn French" (in French) when I'm speaking English, and I get right back at him with "learn baseball." Would've helped in this case. But finally the field cleared and we got on with the game, which we won easily. The second one was long and filled with errors, we ended up losing but the beef had been squashed between the teams. I had a beer with Quentin after, so it made sense for him to invite us to crash at his place the next week.
Highlight of the tournament was the home run derby, happening right after our loss to Quebec. Couple players from each team were involved, same rules as in the bigs. Attendance hadn't been great in the first couple days of the tourney, but this was Saturday, the semi-final teams were being decided, and it was a beautiful day, all resulting in a good sized crowd for the derby. The players disappointed a bit though, no one hit more than two home runs in the first round, which ended up taking far too long. As the field narrowed in the second round, the big bopper from Quebec who lit up Keino kept dropping bombs and won it all. We stuck around the field for the derby and the afternoon game because of the barbecue that was going down in the evening. Gave me a chance to talk to a lot of the guys on the US team and German teams. The US team had been picked randomly by some umbrella organization called USA Athletes International, who put together this squad of DIII players. It was funny to hear how the French reacted to the fact that a team from the States was there, even the most knowledgeable French seemed naive and ridiculous. They just have no idea how many thousands of baseball players there are in the US that are better than the best French ones. I was first told that this would be a college level All-Star team. I was pretty incredulous to that, considering that Team USA was used to competing in Cuba and Japan, not Rouen. The French seemed to think that these were some of the better amateur players in the US, but after talking to them I realized that they were just good DIII players like myself who wanted to get a shot to play pro ball internationally after college. I passed out my email address, hoping that I'd be able to help these guys find teams.
After the derby I was sitting with the German team, having a beer. A couple played for Haar, with guys that I had played with in Israel. The Gauting hats were the best I've seen in a while, pinwheel colors of red and blue, with a blue "G" in the Georgetown style, outlined in white. All the players had been growing heavy beards the whole season, they looked like grimy Bavarian warriors. One pulled out a bottle of Jim Beam he had stashed in his bag, and they started telling me about the night before, when they had gone out to the clubs in Rouen. Apparently they all showed up at this one club, and the bouncer wouldn't let them in (presumably because it was like 15 guys and no girls). They started getting into it with the bouncers, and it escalated. All of a sudden one of the bouncers pulled out a crow bar and started wailing on one of the players. First shot got him high up on the forehead and he went down in a heap. They kept on him though, pounding his back and stomach while he was unconscious on the ground. The rest of the players finally got him out of there, after absorbing some hits themselves, and got him to a hospital. He ended up with a couple dozen stitches in his head and bruises all over. Safe to say the Germans weren't the biggest fans of the French. Old beef dies hard.
Everyone involved in the tournament congregated for the big Saturday night barbecue. Players, coaches, umpires, fans, friends. Rouen coach gave me a coupon for twenty euros of anything I wanted: burgers, chicken, beer. It was a warm evening, the setting sun reflected off the houses perched on the hill behind the outfield fence. The first time Compiegne had played at Rouen, Leonel, the 15 year old Cuban on our team, pulled me aside. He had only been living in France for three years and was wondering about the houses on the hillside. "Are those French favelas?" he asked me in Spanish. I laughed, said, "Nah man, in these parts the rich people live on the hills, not the poor ones." The barbecue lasted well into the night, until we hopped in Quentin's father's car and headed up to their beautiful house in the hills. Quentin took us out that night in Rouen. We sat at a cafe and drank beer at the very spot where Joan of Arc had been burned at the stake. She is one of Sara's heroes, and the enormity of our location overwhelmed her all evening.
We rose early and were at the field as the chilly morning haze still hovered above the ground. I ran along the warning track, trying to shake off the cobwebs and warm up my legs. The Belgian National Team was already there, looking crisp in their white uniforms with the yellow, red and black name. I could tell from the beginning that Rouen wasn't entirely in it. We had already been eliminated, the standings didn't count for the regular season, and it was eight on a Sunday morning. These games are the real tests for baseball players. Teams I had been on in California wouldn't have even thought twice about it; this was a game, so they have to play hard, go all out, and act like it's game seven of the World Series. That's not the French way though. I had hoped that Rouen would be different, that guys would play with the same grit and pride that Californian players played with, but I was way off. Team played casually all game, and it didn't help that I didn't have my best stuff. The umpire squeezed me a bit, and at times I could hear Sara and Thomas heckling him from the stands: "Get off your knees blue, you're blowing the game!" I pitched five innings, gave up five hits and one earned run, and left with a 3-2 deficit. Kenji and Bert almost got a rally going, but Hagiwara was picked off second. David Gauthier caught me, their second string catcher. He had played in Australia the winter before, and I was impressed. He called a great game, had a cannon arm, and could block anything. Boris Marche, their regular catcher, played third, a power hitter with a hell of a swing. But the Belgium pitcher, though not overwhelming, was in control throughout. The Belgians weren't flashy or extremely talented, but were solid through and through. They didn't make many mistakes and played fundamentally sound. I picked up the loss but wasn't too disappointed in how I pitched. I proved that I could succeed at this level, and was as good as any of their other pitchers. Francois thanked me after the game, and I told him that I'd be back in a second if they needed any lefties next season. Thomas, Sara and I got back in the car, cranked up Lily Allen's "FUCK YOU" song, and tore up the road all the way back to Compiegne.
Monday, September 14, 2009
slumpbuster
Haven't posted in eons due to a month-long trip through Spain and southern France. So here are some pics from Barcelona to get the blog rolling again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)