Baseball! In Australia!
I developed a liking for baseball when I lived in Seoul. I can’t claim to be an expert, it was more the relaxing in the cheap seats as the sun went down that I enjoyed. I’d drink some beers, eat some cheese and wait for someone to twat the ball hard enough for it to clear the fence.
It’s doubtful that baseball has much of a following in Australia, it’s a country where rugby league and ‘Aussie Rules’ football tend to dominate, but I thought a game in the local league would be worth a look.
It had been a pretty good week leading up to the game as Jen and I had spent the four-day Easter weekend at Kakadu National Park. It’s probably the highlight of the Northern Territories and features on the itineraries of most Australian tours. We only live a couple of hours away from the park but a combination of working six days a week and the lack of a car meant that it had taken us six months to get around to paying it a visit.
We went for a walk on the first evening along the Angaardabal Billabong trail and were rewarded with the sight of three dingoes crossing the path in front of us. Seeing dingoes in the wild was something that was on my Australian ‘wish list’ and something that we hadn’t managed previously. If only we’d had a few snacks with us to tempt them over.
Next morning we followed the same path in the hope of seeing them again but our luck was out. We did see a wallaby sat watching us from the long grass and even though I’m sure it would have been a decent snack for a pack of dingoes, it wasn’t enough to tempt them in.
The highlight of that morning walk was a big spider. I’m not sure what type so I resisted the urge to poke it. Our five-year old grandson Harry has a liking for spiders at the moment and seems convinced that almost all Australian spiders are Huntsman spiders. I’m not knowledgeable enough to contradict him.
We recently bought Harry a real stuffed tarantula. I’m not sure how easy it is to stuff a tarantula, not very easy at all I suspect, but it looks very impressive. He was very pleased with it, although I think his mother was less impressed. Soph rolled her eyes on seeing it, no doubt anticipating the future panic at school during ‘Show and Tell’.
Whilst in Kakadu we hiked up Nourlangie Rock. It was hard work, not so much because of the distance or the gradient, but more due to the heat and humidity. There were good views once we got above the trees but the bit I enjoyed the most was just lying down on a flat shaded rock and letting the breeze cool me down in a way that I suspect people have been doing at that very spot for thousands of years.
Coming down was easier and after almost walking into the web of a spider similar to the one we’d seen a couple of days earlier, we paused for a while to watch a lizard sunning itself.
On the road to Nourlangie we spotted a bush pig. Not a live one, but a road-kill one. I doubt it had been dead for very long, but it was already starting to swell in the heat. The photo isn’t too good because of some condensation on the lens, but it gives you an idea of the size of the creature. I doubt the car that hit it came out of the collision well.
Whilst driving back to Darwin at the end of the weekend we stopped at a crocodile jumping place. They take you out onto a river in a boat and then dangle pieces of meat over the side to tempt the crocodiles to jump up and take them. I’m not sure how ethical that sort of thing is conservation-wise, but we enjoyed it and I’d bet that the crocs did too.
And so to the baseball. It was a pre-season opener at Tracy Village between the previous year’s Grand Finalists Pint Green Sox and Tracy Village Rebels. A sort of Community Shield if you like, for those of you that appreciate an English football comparison, but a Community Shield for pub sides in a local league.
Entry was free. I’ve no idea if this was because it wasn’t a league game, or whether it’s always free. Perhaps it was because both teams were missing most of their first team players as a consequence of holidays, work commitments or something decent being on the telly.
Most people had brought their own camping chairs and were socialising over a picnic with fellow fans that they may not have seen since the Grand Final. I reckon that there were probably around a hundred and twenty spectators dotted around the field enjoying the catch-up.
We were less well prepared seating-wise, but fortunately there was a small three-row covered seating area where we could watch from behind the plate.
It must have been the first visit to Australian baseball for the Korean couple sat next to us. They grumbled at the poor standard for a while before clearing off. I sympathised with them, as I’d seen Sunday morning games between friends down by the River Han that were of much higher quality than this effort.
The Aussie bloke in front of us commented that the first pitcher had “an arm like my Nanna” and I doubt he was exaggerating. On the rare occasions when the ball didn’t hit the ground before reaching the batter it was just as likely to bounce off his helmet.
None of the innings lasted for long, despite all of the bases being occupied on occasions by batters who had been walked. We stuck it out for an hour with the Rebels well in front, but as there wasn’t a scoreboard I couldn’t tell you by how many. Sorry Eric.
It was a world away from watching Doosan Bears or LG Twins at Jamsil.
Trail of the Lion King 