Woodchucks vs Rouen Huskies

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Yet another weekend of sweet and sour baseball for the Bois-Guillaume Woodchucks.

We were matched up against Rouen, whose home stadium is just down the hill from Bois-Guillaume. There is apparently a big rivalry between the two teams, a history of games with lots of trash talking and guys getting upset on the field. In fact this Sunday was no different.

I pitched the morning game, which we won in five innings by the 10-run rule. Late in the first game, with the score already well out of reach for Rouen, one of our guys tried to steal home at the end of a play and was tagged out; our guy did not slide and as he was tagged he gave a shove to the catcher. The Rouen catcher grabbed his wrist and started shouting, having turned his wrist. From there the yelling started—their coach and catcher angry that we would do such a stupid thing in a game that was already out of reach, a play that could have injured their catcher. Our manager and theirs approached other and started shouting; after a few minutes the whole thing calmed down and the game continued.

This is the third time that we have won the first game of a doubleheader and come out really flat in the second game. We had a new pitcher starting for us in the second game—Vincent, who began the team with St. Louis (a team in the Elite Leage in France), but after not playing but a few innings all season he decided to come back to Bois-Guillaume. This first outing was not a good one—we were losing 14-0 after the first two innings (our defense did not help him much, booting most of the balls hit in play)—in fact I came in to pitch in the second inning with the bases loaded and still no outs, pitching three more innings before another guy came in for the final inning. We lost 18-4.

As I have explained before, each week we play two seven-inning games in the Nationale 1 Level. For a pitcher, seven is a good game length because most starting pitchers normally throw seven innings before a reliever comes into the game, anyway. But playing seven also means that if one team is winning by 10 runs after 5 innings completed, the game is over. Five innings is a very short game, shorter than a little league game. To me, five innings does not even feel like a full baseball game. So far, four of our games have finished after five.

This weekend of games was by far the most frustrating weekend of games we have had so far. Even though we won one game, we lost the second game, and for whatever reason it is the second game of the day that stays with you. It is a challenge to remember that in fact winning one out of two is not too bad.

Josh Stone, a pitcher from New Mexico, arrives on Saturday and will be with Bois-Guillaume for the rest of the season. He arrives just when the team needs another player the most, because this Sunday we play Campeigne, the only undefeated team in our division. And then the following sunday I leave for Lithuania.

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Photos

Jon and I
This is a pic from senior year at Wesleyan. Jon Leland and I were dressed up for our friend Kelly's country music recital.

Gear for Lietuva
On Thursday I sent a big package of gear from France to Kaunas, Lithuania, for the team. I brought it over from the US in my luggage, but the weight limits for flying to Lithuania are about one third of those from the US.

Comments

[Mike Huff]

Nice jacket
Good to see a picture of my jacket in your pile of gear (and to know that you didn't sell it on E-Bay!