Lietuvos Tauras (The Lithuanian Cup)

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This year was the first season that the Lithuanian Cup was awarded. The Cup was an end of year tournament that allowed all of the adult teams in Lithuania, from both the first and second divisions, compete for a championship. It was the final weekend of the season.

This was also my final weekend in Kaunas.

Saturday it was rainy and there were questions whether we would be able to play the game. Draugas pitched in the game and I was playing center field. Not much interesting happened in the game until the second inning. There was a fly ball to shallow left field. No one called for the ball and as a result both the left fielder and the center fielder went for the ball. They collided and both fell to the ground. One of the players was Tomas, who had just returned two weekends ago to playing after a serious bus accident where he and his whole youth team had been in a bus accident. While the other player stood up with simply a blow to the ‘eggs’ (as they call them in Lithuanian slang), Tomas lay motionless on the ground, yelling in pain. He had twisted his left arm somehow, possibly broken it. It was badly and visibly contorted. We called for the ambulance and 20 minutes later it arrived. It drove right onto the field to pick up Tomas and drive him to the hospital.

The game continued; Dargus came in to pitch the last two innings of the game and we won 8-2.

That evening we went to Arena Pizza to have dinner as we always do in Utena. Then we drove to the grocery store to get some groceries for the night/morning. We were following Sigitas to the guest house when he pulled over and put his hazard lights on. We pulled over too, he got out of his car and walked over to ours. He told us that he had run out of gas—so we turned around and drove to the gas station to get some gas. At the gas station Vitas did not want to spend money on a plastic gas can so he found an empty plastic water bottle in the back seat of the car which he filled with gas. This is illegal, in fact, therefore he held the bottle inside his trunk to avoid being detected by the security cameras.

We drove back with the gas and continued on the the guest house.

I finally got to sleep around midnight, though it was still raining heavily outside.

The next am we awoke to more rain.

We arrived at the stadium and the rain continued. Evaldas, the opposing team's Captain, was first to the field ready to fix it up and get it dry. People were scooping mud out with planks of wood, scooping water out with plastic bottles. Finally someone (one of the umpires) arrived with a foam mattress that would be used as a huge sponge to soak up the water. This was highly effctive, though in the end the field was still soaked and it was still raining. An official from the league arrived with the Lithuanian Cup--a 5 kg trophy much like the Stanley cup (but not as cool).

After the game we celebrated with drinks in the parking lot. A Kaunas tradition. 😊

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Photos

Lithuanian Cup
center: in the big orange jacket is Sigitas, the Kaunas head coach.

isveikata! (cheers!)
Tryjos Divinieros (poor spelling). This drink is called '3-9's because it is made from vodka and 27 herbs and grasses found naturally in Lithuania (3times9).

Kaunas Baseball Extende Family
pic

Comments

[Crystal]

You number is 56?
Hi Will, how are you doing? Is the number is your clothes is 56?

[Vilius]

the answer is yes
Crystal, yep I'm number 56. :)