NYE in Glenelg

I made the rounds Tuesday morning and met the key figures of the Glenelg baseball club including Gavin Killpatrick who would be doing the PA announcing with his brother Borris. I was warned that they like to have some fun on the job by having a few beers and getting after the opposition and the umpires, I told them that in Lake Elsinore that kind of thing isn’t frowned upon but encouraged so go have fun with it. I was disappointed that it seemed like the ball had been dropped on promoting the event and media coverage was hard to come by. I got some contact information and was at least able to get the local sports section to run a story and get a writer out for the weekend series. That night there was a meeting of the planning committee so I went to meet the rest of the group and after a brief rundown of the plans all looked good and we got to drinking. I met the women who would be running concessions for the weekend and they ran down the list of local sheilas that they would have to introduce me to.

Wednesday me and my host Chris woke up slow and started preparations for New Years of which our plans consisted of playing beer pong all day and then heading down to the beach for the fireworks. We ended up starting at around 4pm with a BBQ with four of Chris’s mates including Dan Wilson (wilo) the South Australian catcher who had just finished his schooling to become a Dr. and starts practicing this week (although he says he might do it for a year or so and then try something else). They made a ton of sausages, steaks and pork chops, enough to feed a small army so I assumed more people were on the way…20 minutes later the meat was almost all devoured by just 5 guys with the only side dish being a loaf of white bread (they’re not too keen on vegetables down here). More and more friends started to show up and we ended up playing beer pong against a couple of female lacrosse players who had studied at Maryland University. As it got closer to the countdown, we headed for the beach which was packed along with Jetty Road (the main drag that leads right down to Glenelg Beach). We ducked into the Jetty Bar and had a fairly unceremonious countdown at the bar while trying to order another round. We wandered around a little more and then headed back for a nightcap of beer pong.
The new year greeted me with a predictable headache but I wanted to check out some of the other beaches along the Adelaide shoreline, so I walked to the Glenelg Beach and turned left walking about a mile or two before stopping at a pub for lunch. That night we headed for the Broadway Hotel (the broady is a main sponsor of Glenelg baseball) but it turned up pretty uneventful.

Friday was the opening day of the series and I was intrigued to see how a 3pm Friday afternoon start would fair for attendance. I had made plans to meet up with the director of operations of the Adelaide 36ers (of the Australian professional basketball league) Friday morning but had to cancel because I hadn’t realized all the games would be day games because in all of Adelaide there isn’t a field with lights (in fact Mount Gambier is the only grounds with lights in the whole state of SA). In a last ditch effort to drum up some interest I talked one of the under 18 players to get in the mascot costume (Ronnie the Rhino) and dance around on the corner with a sign promoting the game. There was decent attendance and I was reunited with Ian Ewart who had stitched me up in Mount Gambier a few weeks earlier. I had a few with him but stuck to beer and laid off the red (over the course of the weekend I got about 50 comments about my exploits at the Mount). SA pulled off the win Friday to get off the schneid and avoid going 0-8 and we got a good write-up in the Adelaide Advertiser the next morning.

Saturday was another 3pm start that saw SA jump to an 8-1 lead and looked like the homecooking might turn around the dismal start to their Claxton Shield…a couple of late rallies (including Chris dropping the ball when he was on the rubber for a bases loaded balk, which we laughed about the next day) brought the game to 8-7 in the top of the ninth with 2 outs and the tying run on third. I high pop up to center field had everyone thinking the game was over as the centerfielder camped under it…the only problem was the ball landed about 20 meters to his right, tying the game that WA would eventually win in 10 innings (the CF never saw it off the bat). The tough loss brought Sunday’s attendance way down and pretty much eliminated SA from playoff contention (not that they were ever really in it).

Saturday night I was invited to go out with Lauren, a staff member of the South Australian Baseball League, to check out one of her friend’s bands and check out some pubs in the city. We started with a pre-party in the suburbs (well I had started at the game but who is counting on this trip), and headed to see the band which ended up being a three-piece band playing pretty atrocious renditions of classics like Petty’s “free-falling”. We ended up partying through the night and getting to sleep about 7:30am only to have to get up and be back at the grounds by 11am…Sunday’s 1pm getaway start time was tough, but I made myself scarce and sat in the corner with the hair of a duck and started to feel better. By the end of the game (a 16-0 drubbing, showing SA has all but given up), I was having rounds with Pattie who played the part of Ronnie Rhino all weekend (easily the best mascot so far in Oz, as he came up with a pretty funny shoe shining skit he did with the umpire). I had planned to take a nap after the game before meeting Paul Begg (CEO of the SABL) and 15 others for dinner at the Glenelg BBQ Inn, but instead I hung around the grounds saying my goodbyes as they presented me with Glenelg baseball club hat and shirt which are actually pretty swank in Black and Gold. So I powered through and made it to dinner where I was encouraged to get the Texas T-bone which was 700 grams of still beating cow. I made it through most of it with a few glasses of SA’s finest red wine and when it seemed like my heart might just clog up right there at the table I begged the waitress to take it away. After a couple of beers at the Jetty Bar with the Kilpatricks, Pattie and his fiancé (Paul Begg’s daughter) Kayleen, I headed back for an early night to pack because I still didn’t have flight plans (or a destination) but figured I’d be travelling on Monday.

It took until Monday morning at about 11am before I got word that I’d be heading back to Sydney this week to help the New South Whales club run two games in Blacktown (where we started this whole mess) and a Sunday game at Manly Beach (which I’m really looking forward to)…oh and my flight would leave at 6am Tuesday morning. Monday was more or less wasted as I wandered around the beach for a while trying to recuperate from another big weekend.