"0 for" No More!

I guess I should again say I am sorry before I write this because I have been terrible about blogging recently, but I will try and pick back up and start doing a better job. Now I will again try and give the important events of the past week.

For everyone that really understands baseball than they probably understand the title of the blog but for all you who have not brushed up lately I am trying to tell everyone that I finally got my first hit. And it was a memorable one. We played away on Saturday and some of our team could not be there so we had to fill some holes in the field. I got the nod to start at third base and hit 5th in the line up. In my first at bat I grounded out but had an RBI. My next at bat was in the third or fourth inning and I was the lead off. The count was 1-0 and I saw a pitch that was up in the zone and swung. Right then I knew that I had hit it well and I do not even remember taking a hard step out of the box. I started to jog, since I knew that I had it it out. Remember that I had to savor every moment of this roundtrip since it has been over six years since my last homerun in a real game. What is really funny about this home run is the fact that my coach grabbed me after my first at bat and told me to just wait back and be patient, he told me that I was not going to hit the ball out of the park! As I rounded third on my way to the plate I just chuckled as he waited there and said "Way to stay back!" We won easily and I ended the day 2-4 at the plate. And I did almost hit another homerun to the opposite field, but it was caught at the fence.

Sunday was another day and it was my day to start on the mound. It was the hottest that it had been since I had been in Belgium. My roommate and I had gotten to the field really early becuase we were to coach the younger team because the coach was on holiday. I knew it was going to be tougher to make it through the whole game, but I also welcomed the heat since it makes everything loose and helps to keep away those nagging injuries especially my elbow that has been sore lately due to being back in competition and throwing much more than I have been used to. I felt good early, but I think that about midway through the game I was feeling my best. I was going against another American and in the 7th inning we were still both in the game and the score was 3-1, and we were leading. The game stayed that way until the 9th. I told the coach I was ready to come back out and finish the game. I really was starting to show fatigue, but I wanted to complete the game. They scored one run in the 9th but I was able to finish the inning with leaving a guy at 2nd base to end the game. It really was a great game. I had no idea how many pitches I had thrown but after I asked the man who does our stats and he said it was right around 145 pitches. I do not think I have ever thrown that many pitches in my life!

Baseball was done for the weekend and all I wanted to do is relax. We had plans for Monday in Ghent. My roommate and I decided to go to the movie theater to watch the new Batman movie. I discovered two new things in going to watch a movie at the theater. First they had assigned seats at this theater. Secondly, we had a 10 min. intermission halfway through since the movie was quite long. I didn't mind either, but at first as the screen turned black and the lights came on I thought that Batman was a terrible movie, they really tricked us on how they cut it. The movie was great.

Monday came and we went to Ghent to the Gentse Feesten. It is a 10 day festival that ended on Monday. I have had people ask what we did and it was alot of food, live music, and beverages. I got to try some new kinds of beer that I have never had since I have been here. I also had some Jenever which is a type of flavored liquor that many people drink here. We actually had to walk down this back alley that was barely wide enough for me to fit into. The jenever that was sold in the bar was also made by the man that owned the place. The good thing is that one of our teammates took us and he had once studied at Ghent. He really showed us a great time and knew alot of small cool places to go to. I really enjoyed the great weather and the live music. Also it is always fun just to people watch. The one thing that I am really sad about is that I left my camera inside the house and everyone was gone when we left. We shut the door before I realized that we did not have a key and we were locked out so there were no pictures taken, but I can tell you that it truly was a great time.

Not much has happened the last couple of days but it has been really hot this past week. We do not have air conditioning so I have just tried to spend alot of time outside where the breeze will at least have a chance to cool me down. It looks like it might change as we are looking to see storms tomorrow which might help cool down the heat.