baseball fever, after all

I confess.

On the way to the baseball game I thought of the title for this blog entry, and it wasn't "baseball fever." This is Central Europe, you see, and they're not known for a love of baseball over here. So in a flash of mediocre wit, I pre-named this blog "a baseball temperature"--- not quite a fever, but still a bit warmer than usual.

How wrong I was.

The final game of the Czech National Baseball League's play-off series between the Ostrava Arrows and Krč Altron was nothing short of a raging, malarial fever. At least if you were sitting on the Ostrava side of the stands, which (although I inadvertantly wore the opposing team's colors) we were. They literally drove halfway across the country to support their boys, and they got the most out of the same three cheers again and again, every half-inning. My ears rang the whole game from the airhorn blasts and tram bells.

Our American contingent stood up to sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch. And I think in doing so we won the respect of the Ostrava fan bus crew.

And the result? Although they almost blew a six run lead in the eighth, the Arrows ruled the day. All together, a nice substitute for play-off baseball, starting this week back in the USA.

Go A's!

- Joel