New Adventures 1/7/12

We woke up this morning without an alarm, but with coach talking at a normal level that it was 7:30 and breakfast was ready. It was amazing, all of us were immediately awake simply because coach said something, no one was dragging or anything. I think we are trained to listen for his voice, apparently even in our sleep. We went to breakfast which was Dominican Frosted Flakes/Fruit Loops, croissant rolls, and toast. We went back to the military style dorm room that we are all staying at and got ready to go to a field somewhere to play a game against some Dominicans. After a short drive which included seeing these awesome oil drums with the Gulf and Casterol logos and colors, we got to the field which had an incredibly short fence all the way around and the craziest backstop I've ever seen.  It was basically 3/4 of a circle with the open part facing a mound which couldn't have been 60' 6" away. It seemed like 50' or shorter especially with these guys throwing.  Anyway it had a full cage around the outside and on top of a 4' concrete wall.  This meant that no matter where the ball went on a passed ball or wild pitch, it was gonna bounce full speed right at the batter.  It turned out the fence was so short because of a road that went behind the field and it was only a double if you hit it over. It was only 270' all the way around but it didn't count as a home run if you hit it over, it was only a double.  A home run consisted of hitting the fire station across the street on the left, or the church across the street on the right. Dead center was a grove of palm trees, and I assume you have to hit it over the trees to count as a home run.

Goldsmith started the game at second and when Scotty went in to pitch, he went to shortstop and I went in to second. The Dominicans didn't have metal bats so I thought we should use wood too, luckily I brought 4 down, and they lent us one. I studied how they played when I was on the bench and realized they threw way, way, way more fastballs than we did. Kenny noticed this too and was talking to some of the players about it.  Needless to say we had trouble hitting their heaters but surprisingly they had a few issues with our off speed guys. Kenny said that made sense because their coach said "American throw too many junk ball, Dominican throw too many fastball" and Kenny and I figured that was because in our baseball culture, it's acceptable to just get blown away at the plate but not to get your knees buckled. Here it must be the opposite. Don't get me wrong though, some of these guys had filthy stuff, as Scotty can attest to, but they were coming at us with 90mph+ bullets from 55' away.

When I got in the game in like the third or fourth, Scotty was the last out so I had to wait the whole order before I got to see pitching. The team we were playing had a no hitter and they switched pitchers every two innings. If I can say it again, they threw fast. When I finally got up to bat, I knew I was gonna see heat, so I went up thinking swing hard and fast. Amazingly the pitcher must have thrown a change up or something because it felt like a 77 mph meatball that I pulled over the third baseman's head just out of reach, scoring Siddle who reached on a walk and an overthrow. I got us our only run and to be honest I'm feeling pretty good even though I was the only one who got a hitable pitch.  I didn't really have much action in the field as all of the balls hit my way were placed perfectly so that neither Smith or I could get to them.

After the game Smith gave his testimony and the guys gave a few of the Dominicans some bracelets that they made in Greenville. We left and went back to the complex to shower and eat lunch which was great and then we visited an orphanage outside of Santo Domingo.  We were gonna put on a baseball clinic for the kids but it rained and the field which was already trash to begin with was simply unplayable. We then went to a basketball court where 200+ kids were waiting for us. As soon as we got off the bus, we were rushed and basically claimed by a Dominican kid or two.  They would run up to us and ask to ride on our shoulders or back, or to swing them around. I decided that Adam had a great idea and decided to help him with it. We went over to an empty area and Adam broke off a tree branch. We used it as a bat and threw them some baseballs we brought along.  A Dominican kid came and wanted to pitch so Adam let him and we shagged flies. It was crazy these kids who were like 5 years old hit fantastically well with a tree branch. It must be in their blood down here.  We played for a long time and then went over to the basketball court where I took some more video and showed the kids.

One of the kids was clearly dramatizing disappointment when I refused to give him a dollar.  I've seen much more intense poverty than this however, and knew not to give him anything. In Haiti the orphanages were brutal, there were fully naked kids who quite literally had nothing, they would have been ecstatic to have what the Dominican kids have. They were asking for my Passion wristband and for my phone and money.  I did kind of want to give them money but I know that if I did then they would become that much more used to living off of hand outs and I couldn't do that. I will leave a bat and some sports stuff here though as well as spend most if not all of my Dominican money. I know how cold it sounds but the reason these kids are like this is because they've gotten what they want by doing it in the past.  There are a lot of people who would disagree with me but I stand by my reasoning.  I feel the same way about poverty stricken people in the states, I'll buy them food but I won't give them money.

Anyway, after playing with the kids an talking to a few of them, we loaded up on the bleachers and Kiko told them about Christ. I'm getting better with Spanish, in two days here I've completely reviewed Spanish I, II, and most of III still working on gerunds and past participles but it will be back soon. Suddenly I'm very thankful for my teachers' strenuous vocab learning schedule in high school, still not thankful for my Spanish IV teacher's rules and attitude but unfortunately I did learn a lot in her class.  After the orphanage we drove back over this awesome bridge and through fields of sugar cane.

I saw this awesome drag strip on the way down and coming back I saw that it was in the same complex as a full on race track.  I'm not sure what they race down here be it F1, GT cars, or what have you, but there really should be a stage of the WRC down here. The people definitely have the money and driving style to relate to the sport, much more so than Haiti. I have no doubt in my mind that these people would be as natural as the Scandinavians to rally driving.

The car culture down here is much more vibrant. I've seen a few awesome off road tuned trucks and SUVs and one magazine worthy Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. I'll try and take a picture of one tomorrow an send it in to SpeedHunters. There is much more affluence here than Haiti (probably because of the tourist industry) so naturally that is expressed in their cars. There are some pretty sketchy cars down here too but when they're good they're really good.

We came back and showered again then we went into down town Boca Chica to a pizza place called Napoli's Pizza which was a really good Brooklyn style pizza baked in a real wood fire brick oven. After seeing a few sweet cars on the roads we went back to the complex, I got beat in ping pong and checkers, and we have been laughing since we went to bed.