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Published: September 25th 2006
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Egulei
This is Sigitas' neighborhood. His flat, where I was staying, is actually a smaller building just to the left of the photo frame. It was another magical week of baseball in Lithuania. I played in four games while I was there, part of a best of five series, we won 3 games to 1.
The first game we lost; it was probably our most poorly played match all summer. I struck out in my first at bat, I wasn’t even close to touching the ball with the bat.
Striking out is probably one of the most singled-out moments there are in sports. When you strike out, the strike three is called and there is a good sixty seconds before the next batter steps in to hit. And that whole time, there is little else for anyone else, and yourself, to talk about or think about than YOUR strikeout.
I hate striking out.
Probably the only think I hate more when playing baseball is having a home run hit off me, which luckily did not happen in these games.
We came back the second day and won 9-6, I pitched in that one, hadn’t pitched in close to two months. We played much better, in particular we hit really well; we had two homers that game. All in all
we had eight homers in the four games. I hit one in the final game which was really exciting because I NEVER hit home runs. I think the last time I hit a home run I was fourteen or so.
In the Lithuanian baseball tradition, if someone hits a home run then that guys must buy a round of beers for the rest of the team. It felt good to finally be the one buying the beers.
Winning these games was really important for the Kaunas team because it earned them the right to return to the European Championship next season, which will be held in The Netherlands.
Also while I was in Kaunas, Sigitas and I spent two mornings making the rounds at a few of the nearby public schools to promote baseball and encourage guys to come out and learn the game.
Since athletics is not as integral part of the public school system here (and there are essentially no private schools, atleast not many), most sport is done in sports clubs or afterschool, similar to youth leagues in the US. There is very little private funding for sports, especially youth sports, and government
funding is poor as well.
It is common practice for the coaches of such teams to come to the school going from classroom to classroom giving a short speech about his sport and encouraging the kids to sign up.
It was really fascinating doing this with Sigitas; first, to see what public middle schools are like in Lithuania, and second, to be able to help Sigitas out with trying to get more kids playing baseball.
Following the script we had laid out beforehand, Sigitas and I would walk into the class and begin by saying ‘labadiene’ to the whole classroom (‘hello’), then Sigitas would then explain to the kids who he is. He would ask, ‘who here has heard of baseball,’ and maybe one or two of the thirty would raise their hands. I am sure if we probed further with this question, we would find possibly that these kids were simply raising their hands because they were given the option to. Then Sigitas would explain that accompanying him was professional player and coach from the US who is here to help develop baseball in Lithuania. Then he would turn to me, asking if I would like to say
a few words about baseball and the program in Kaunas.
I would talk to the kids for a few minutes more, basically repeating what Sigitas had just said, but saying it in English which of course was very exciting (kids were pointing and giggling, saying funny things about me in Lithuanian, yelling out random words they knew in English). Then we would hand out a flyer to those interested.
In one classroom one kid approached me with a piece of paper and asked me to sign it, which immediately spurred a chain reaction resulting in half the class jumping out of their seats and rushing towards me so that they could have my autograph as well. We quickly said our thanks, goodbye, and we rushed out the door.
Apparently at the last practice there were about ten to fifteen new guys who had come from the schools we had visited the previous week.
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