Virtual Methodist

Just a brief note as an addenda to my earlier blog on the peculiar conjunction of faith and baseball in this weird and wonderful country. On the Tommy and Brook show last Monday they announced that anyone bringing the bulletin from their church service to the ballgame at the West Michigan Whitecaps ground, would get reduced price entry... I can just see that happening at Windsor Park or the Oval! I love this country!! Cheers

And another thing... While on the subject of the American coverage of the Olympics, if I hear one more moan here about this being the last time that Softball or Baseball will feature I will scream. This probably hasn't been a major feature of British coverage, but it was mentioned every 5 minutes here last night (OK maybe slight exageration there...) For the attention of all Americans: NO-ONE except yourselves, Canada, Japan and Cuba play these sports to any great extent... Well, we do, but only in primary school and we call it "rounders." That is why your laughably titled "World Series" never feature any teams that are not North American. If the Olympics is to reflect sports played across the world, then these two essentially American pastimes are less deserving of a place than cricket is... And God forbid that it should ever be reinstated... Tho' perhaps they will try to introduce 20-20 cricket (or cricket for those who have more important things to do wit...

Sally is now happy. Her one requirement on coming over here on exchange was that she get to see a professional ball game (or baseball game for those of us not up on the technical terms of American sport), and on Saturday night that requirement was fulfilled when Sue Cuson took us to the Fifth Third Ball Park to watch the West Michigan Whitecaps , a Class A farm team for the Detroit Tigers. Last night was not a good night, either for the Whitecaps (whose name does not refer to their headgear, which is blue, but to the whitecaps on the waves of Lake Michigan), or for their big brothers the Tigers as the latter got whipped by local rivals the Chicago Whitesox, while we watched the home team grind out a 2.1 defeat, against Cedar Rapids Kernels. In all honesty, even speaking as a complete novice to the game... the batsmen were rubbish... Well, either that or the pitchers were superb, and I have my suspicions which way round it might be. Either way, the bases only got loaded once (see how pr...