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Page 7 of Vilius Travel Blog Posts
November 21st 2007
It would be very easy to forget the fact that you are in Kaunas, Lithuania, while roaming through the great halls of Akropolis, the newly-opened 3-story mega-mall in downtown Kaunas. If not for the Lithuanian being spoken, this could be any other mall in Minneapolis or New York or New Jersey or Greenwich, Connecticut, or Durham, North Carolina. In fact the mall is even more flashy and fancy than most malls I have visited; there is a bowling alley, a multiplex movie theater, a full-size ice-skating rink, and much much more. (One random thing about this mall, I have noticed, is that it has many more baby accessories/toys/clothing stores than the average mall in the US—the last time I was in Akropolis I counted six stores just for babies and toddlers.) One interesting fact about Akropolis: ... read more
November 21st 2007
September: I was on the hill for game 1 of the Lithuanian finals. The weather was horrible--lots of wind, lots of rain, very cold. Kaunas stadium can sometimes give you the feeling that you are on top of the world. The clouds are right above you, there are few trees around, not much protection from the weather--in short, you feel like you are in the clouds, on a mountain summit perhaps. The rain stopped play numerous times throughout the day, and it is in fact a miracle that we completed the game. Twice we ran out onto the field ready to play, the umpire positioned himself behind the plate and yelled 'play ball', and then realized he had forgotten his mask in his car. He would call time and run to his car, as we all ... read more
November 21st 2007
Written October 11: As I write this latest blog entry, I am sitting in my friend Tommy's flat in Freiburg. I am only passing through Freiburg--a short stop on the way to Beijing, China, to visit my brother and his wife and to stay with them for a few months. This is my second time 'passing through' Freiburg; both times I have visited this place I have been in a place of transition, of travelling from one place to the next, of having no real responsibilities or obligations during my time here. In fact it is a great place as a 'floater' with not much to do. The town is beautiful and very relaxing, there is a river and many streams running through it which have a calming effect. There are so many bikers, which always ... read more
November 20th 2007
Hello everybody! SO I have now made it to Beijing, where I have been living for the past month with my brother and his wife, Liu Lan. I am way behind on telling my stories, so don't be surprised if in the next couple of days you receive lots of 'will has posted a new blog' emails from me. This is just a short one---I took notes on one of the many wonderful meals Liu Lan has cooked for me and my bro while I have been here. Give the recipes a try! I hope you all are well. much love Will PS******This meal is not as complicated as it looks!! Give it a try. Really--the whole thing from beginning to end (including cutting the veggies) took us about 1 hour. Tonight's (Chinese) Meal: total preparation ... read more
September 12th 2007
One of the really fun things about writing a blog is receiving comments and messages from people who read the blog. Most of the comments come from my friends, but also quite a few have come from people whom I’ve never met, people who happened upon my blog and decided to read it. That, to me, is very cool, to know that my blog is just ‘out there’ on the web and anyone, theoretically, could happen upon it. The most bizarre reply I have received, besides some spam that is just jibberish (can you believe I receive spam comments on my blog) was from a devout follower of Daniel Sunjata. Daniel Sunjata is the actor who is starring in ‘The Bronx is Burning’ as Reggie Jackson. She wrote me a two-paragraph reply about how she once ... read more
September 12th 2007
There is a t-shirt that you can by as a souvenir here in kaunas on which is written ‘Kaunas yra Kaunas’. This is the sort of de-facto slogan of the city, though I don’t think it is one you will find in tourbooks or brochures. ‘Kaunas yra Kaunas’ simply means ‘Kaunas is Kaunas.’ As I have come to understand, the city of Kaunas and its people have a certain reputation in Lithuania as being sort of rough-edged, a city where the energy and mannerisms from ‘Old Soviet Times’ are still extremely pervasive in society, moreso than other cities, in particular other Lithuanian cities comparable in size. The belief is that Kaunas people, externally atleast, are ‘harder.’ Life here is ‘harder’ and ‘heavier’ than in, say, Klaipeda or Vilnius, the two Lithuanian cities larger than Kaunas. The ... read more
Visiting Schools: the search for Little League prospects
Published: September 12th 2007Europe » Lithuania » KaunasSeptember 10th 2007
September 1st in Lithuania is a marked day on everyone’s calendars because it is the first day of school. This year the 1st of September was a Saturday, nonetheless they had school (in the US, of course, we would simply begin school the following Monday if the ‘first day’ happened to fall on a weekend.). September 1st for athletic coaches, baseball coaches included, marks the beginning of the scouting season. It signals that it is time to head to the elementary and middle schools in search of players for their upcoming seasons. Last year I spent two days visiting schools with Sigitas looking for young baseball prospects, and this year it was planned that we would do the same. Tuesday, September 3rd: Today Sigitas picked me up at 8 am from Viktorija’s flat, on Asygile Gatve, ... read more
Lituanica vs Black Vikings: the chase for the regular season Pennant
Published: September 12th 2007Europe » Lithuania » KaunasSeptember 3rd 2007
This weekend we faced the Black Vikings in a 3-game series that would decide who would finish first place in the Lithuanian Regular Season Championship. The games were played in front of a record sell-out crowd—I would say that including the younger players watching, parents, friends, and a few spectators who had happened upon the field somehow, there was somewhere between 20 and 30 spectators (closer to 20). As silly as it sounds, I think the crowd heightened the pressure on our guys to play well. And I have to say that I even felt some of this extra pressure to play well now that ‘people are watching.’ We faced Eimantas, a crafty and hard-throwing lefty for Vikingas. In our first meeting he had pitched 14 innings in one day over two games. He is by ... read more
August 29th 2007
Today Kaunas squared off in a doubleheader against Vilnius Logipolija. This was our first game in several weeks against solid competition so I was interested to see how we would respond. We won the first game of the doubleheader 11-5, Logipolija’s runs coming on a string of errors (including one by myself—an errant throw to first base on a bunt). We hit very well. I attribute our level of comfort at the plate to the amount of hitting we have been able to do in practice over the past two weeks thanks to our new (make-shift, home-made) batting cage. The second game we won 6-3, 2 of their three runs again coming on errors. In other Lithuanian baseball news: Utena Vetra lost both of their games today against the Black Vikings, which moves us into first ... read more
Yagi Torazo: the First Japanese Ballplayer in Kaunas
Published: August 22nd 2007Europe » Lithuania » Kaunas
August 22nd 2007
I am not sure if I have yet to truly dive into Yagi Torazo’s story yet. But his is worth a full entry, so here it is. Yagi is in his early 30’s. He is not very tall (I would estimate about 5 foot 2 inches). He is from Tokyo, Japan. He is soft-spoken, very friendly. He plays 2b, Shortstop, and Catcher for the Kaunas team. Yagi first heard about our team when he was in Cuba on a 4-month research assignment playing baseball and traveling Cuba researching for his book that will be about baseball in different cultures around the world. He had spent the previous three seasons living in Italy, playing first for a team in the Italian 1st Division, then 2nd Division, and finally the 3rd division this past summer. And it was ... read more
Last summer I was playing baseball in Lithuania, coaching in Moscow, hitching through Bavaria, and working construction in the South of France. Who knows what this summer will bring.
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