OK, OK, I think Greg left a few salient facts out of his account of our baseball excursion. First of all, so we are all on the same page, the baseball we saw was terrible. Terrible. At or below the level of play we saw on the recently televised Little League World Series. Dylan could easily win MVP in any position he wanted to play, including being a one-handed (left) pinch hitter. (In fact, we think Dylan could take the European league by storm).
Don't get me wrong, it was fantastically fun. Terrible baseball makes for interesting games. Lots of action, lots of "ohhhhh!"s and "oooooooo"s and "jeez, what was he thinking" (the latter were mostly reserved for large lumbering swedes failing to maintain appropriately small distances between themselves and first base).
But let's not get a head of ourselves. Shall we start at the beginning?
First, Greg and I were very proud of our ability to get to the baseball game. As Greg mentioned, baseball isn't so popular here in Spain. So, we not only had to figure out where the field was located, but also navigate not one, but two forms of public transportation to get there (subway then bus). Fortunately, Barcelona has an exemplary public transportation system that even the most dense of tourists (um, that's us) can figure out.
After taking the metro to Plaza Espana, we found the appropriate bus stop. There we waited for quite a long time. Believe it or not, in Barcelona, it is fairly unusual to wait for public transportation. Subway service runs slightly more frequently than once every five minutes. One could get spoiled here.
We figured we were in the right place, though, because we heard these two guys in their early twenties (who looked fairly unwashed and unkempt) waiting at the same bus stop talking about making it to the game in time for the first pitch.
One of them was English (we think) and the other was American. The American never actually spoke to us--there was something a little strange about him. He was also the lesser washed and lesser kempt of the two. As it turned out they played baseball in Germany. They told us that Americans that were either in college or who had been injured or who otherwise couldn't make the cut came to play ball in the European leagues. They were out to support some of their friends (Americans) who played on the Swedish team.
Anyway, I digress. So, finally our bus arrived and we got on. The first thing that Greg did was ask the bus driver if the bus went to the Baseball Field. It went something like this:
Greg: "Esta bus va al campo de beisbol?" Does this bus go to the Baseball Field?
Driver: "Que??????????" What (you crazy foreigner)????????????????
Greg: "El campo de beisbol. Vamos alla?" The Baseball Field. Are we going there?
Driver: "QUE? Beisbol? QUE?" WHAT? Baseball? WHAT? (stupid foreigner)
Me: "What are you doing? Stop talking to the driver!"
Um, yah. Baseball is so popular here (not), that the guy who drives by the field 10 times a day doesn't even know it.
Ok, so finally we find the field and the four us (2 of us washed and reasonably well-groomed, 2 not) walk in. As Greg mentioned (see supra) he then, much to my horror, tried to talk his way in. I was so embarrassed.
Me: "What are you doing? Pay the 5 Euros! Who's Johanson?"
Note that the two unwashed players from the German team actually were friends of the Swedish team and they had no problem ponying up the 5 euro entrance fee. Although, really, we shouldn't have paid. There were hardly any people in the stadium. They should have paid us. We were probably the only ones that really understand what was going on and why the baseball was so terrible.
Soooo, when Greg started shouting very loud, very American cheers and jeers during the game, it was also a bit embarrassing. It's OK though, because I got him back. After one of the Czech players hit a solid, albeit foul, fly ball down the third base line, I waited until the stadium grew quiet and yelled:
"OVER THE FENCE, NOT OVER THE FANS!"
That, apparently, he found embarrassing.
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