Sunny Mildura

Got in Wednesday afternoon and was met at the airport by Tony Probert, president of the local baseball club, and was quickly ushered to his suburban Mildura home where he, his wife, and four children would be putting me up for the weekend. I was something of a celebrity to the kids who boasted that they couldn’t believe a “pure American” was staying at their house. I told them I was American and that the other part was up for debate. After meeting the family it was off to their weekly baseball practice, where I took my first swings down under. I saw the “grounds” where the games are this week, and I was a little bewildered that a national tournament was going to be played at a park that is nothing more than a city recreational field. I think Del Mar HS has more seating and definitely more parking, but we made it work.

I had Thursday off so I headed to the city center which actually was a pretty nice area with shops, bars and restaurants as Mildura is a growing tourist attraction for those looking to get away from the main cities. I checked out an internet café to get my bearings and then headed for the Mildura Arts Center, where I found out that Mildura was actually founded in the late 19th century by a couple of yanks from where else but Riverside, CA (these guys could really pick ‘em). So you can travel around the world and still not get out of the IE!! One of the docents named John, a retired anesthesiologist from Melbourne, ended up taking me on the nickel tour of the Murray River (the longest in Australia) where I learned about the inevitable plans for expansion and commercialization in the growing town.

He dropped me back by the city center where I headed for the Sandbar for a lunch of Shark Bites and chips and a few pots of Pure Blonde. It was pretty good, and the bartender Ryan who recognized my 49ers shirt told me to come back for happy hour from 5-7pm.
When I went back to the Sandbar I met Ryan’s friend Scottie who lives in Perth. He is a part of the booming mining community in Western Australia that I had heard about. They live in the capital Perth and are flown out two hours to the mines where he works 12 hours a day for 7 days (he’s an electrician though and he says he really works about 2 hours and then just messes around on the computer) and then he gets seven days off. The economy is hitting them too, as the mines are shutting down for a two week “holiday” which is the first time the mines have stopped production in 25 years.

I woke up the next morning to a heavy rain. Mildura is largely a farming town that has been ravaged by drought, so the rain is welcomed but all too ironic that the forecast called for rain all weekend when they are hosting a national baseball tournament. Also, troubling is that we had to setup the outfield and bullpen fencing and lay down new dirt on the infield and it was absolutely pouring. I felt bad for Tony, he had worked so hard to organize this whole thing and it might have literally been washed out. So my character building experience was spending 6 hours in the rain putting up temporary fencing…my black reeboks are basically toast which means I’m down to one pair of sneakers.

The Friday night game was rained out in Melbourne so we had a doubleheader Saturday which saw 11 homeruns because the wind was blowing straight out at 25 mph. That night Tony took me out to O’malleys, the main pub in town and it was actually a really nice place. It was a huge pub and from what I remember there were tons of people there. They sell pre-mixed jack and cokes in cans and bottles and those snuck up on me…and made the 11am Sunday first pitch all that more daunting (travel is a main concern for scheduling, since most of the players have 9-5 jobs they have to get back to). The Sunday game came and went with a somewhat disappointing turnout which was mainly attributed to the weather. The city council had bought the gate so attendance was free…we had about 300 people each day.

The Probert family who took me in for the week were such a nice little family with Charlie 13, Taylor 12, Dalton 10, and Billie 10 they were rambunctious and inquisitive. They wanted to know everything about America so I told them about the good parts and left out the truth. I gave them Storm hats and when they asked to see American money I gave them each a Dollar bill and they thought that was the coolest thing ever. They want me to come back soon so they can play the “American Game” which consisted of asking me to say random words so they could laugh at my accent…that got old after about 5 minutes, but I played along anyway. Angela was so nice in cooking big meals, doing my laundry, and always making sure I had enough to eat at the ballpark, don’t know if I’ll ever make it back to Mildura but I think I’ll see Tony and Charlie along the way at some Claxton Shield games.