Feedback flaw

I think my comment box is messed up, and won't let people leave me comments... if you don't mind, leave me a couple words or whatever you think. I just need to see if this thing is working, since I've only had 1 comment in 2 weeks, I'm kinda worried something is messed up...
Help me out if you can!! thanks!

Spring training, Pittsburgh vs. Atlanta

Spring training baseball, it's a wonderful thing. There are two spots in the USA for all the 30 MLB teams to get their month of spring training in, either youthful up and coming Cactus league in Arizona, or the old timers dominated Grapefruit league in southern Florida. Since we are in the middle of the Grapefruit league here at Pirate City, we had an early morning practice today and travelled just down the road to take in the Pirates against Atlanta Braves game. There were some big names participating in the game, suprisingly to me, and we enjoyed 80 degree weather (27 celcius) and a good game. We had a good time, and I took a couple shots during the game...





L->R Pim (background), Me (beautiful double chin camera angle), Vince Rooi and Berry Van Driel taking in the ball game

This is Pedro Alvarez. I pitches against him 2 summers ago when he was playing for the USA national collegiate team. I threw 6 scoreless innings in my start giving up 2 hits... both to this guy. He was the 2nd pick overall in last years draft, and should make it to the big leagues this season, or next at the latest 2010, watch out for this guy

Chipper Jones. I wasn't really expecting him to show and play in this game, but he was there and actually hit a 2-run bomb in this at bat. He led the majors last year in batting average, hitting .365 on the season.

We played on this field a couple days earlier vs. the Korean team, very nice field surface and mound

Me and my room mate Martijn Meeuwis enjoying the shade and a nice breeze

Tonights game, NL vs. MCC

We beat Manatee College in our last warm up game coming up to the exhibitions against the MLB teams march 3-5. We won 4-0, our pitching staff only surrendering 2 hits, both coming in the 7th inning. The offence put up 4 quick ones in the first 2 innings, then cruised the rest of the way. We now inter squad and practice for 6 days until we face off against the Pittsburgh Pirates march 3. My wife should be joining me march first as my 'guest' by MLB, and I'm looking forward to that, not that Martijn is a bad roommate, he's a great one, it's just I can't wait to see my Shorty.

Here's a couple shots of tonights' pregame...



Bert Blyleven and me. Bert should be in the hall of fame (we actually talked about it to extent today) but hasn't been voted in yet. He's a great pitching coach and had taught me quite a bit in the week we've been here. He's 5th on the all time MLB strikeout list, has 60 career shutouts and is now the Minnesota Twins Colour commentator

Martijn Meeuwis here catching in the pen, and despite being cut from the final roster, is coming along with the team to Puerto Rico as our "bullpen catcher" but is also sticking with the team in case of any injury to a position player in pre-WBC practices and games.

Me getting to work shagging during our in-out field

Getting ready to play

Playing against an idol

When I was 14 my dad took me to a Seattle Mariners baseball game when the Boston Red Sox were in town. We crossed the border from our Vancouver home, drove the 2 hours south, down the coast to the brand new Safeco field right in downtown Seattle. But on this day we weren't there to see my favorite team the Mariners, we came out to watch the Red Sox starter, Pedro Martinez. My dad being the pitching guru he created out of himself, he naturally found Pedro a great pitcher to watch a learn from. In his prime at that time, he featured a upper 90's fastball, a change up around 87 MPH, and several other pitches, with the movement and location on all of his pitches being his best assets. He dominated the Mariners on that day and my dad and I had front row seats (almost literally) to the Pedro show that year when he had a career year winning 23 games, with over 300 strikeouts.

On March 7th, we play the Dominicans, and guess who's a pitcher on their roster, yep, the now veteran without a major league club, Pedro Martinez. Both Perdo and Randy Johnson were my idols growing up. The way I now pitch, I can see some of both of their styles in how I throw (except the explosive fastball). I like to think I have the movement and location of Pedro, with the right handed-version of Randy Johnsons' arm angle and an attempt at his slider also.

If I get a chance I might head out and get an autograph from Pedro during batting practice. I know... I know, it's weak-sauce, but he is and was my idol, so I might turn back into that 14 year old, and say hi to him, we'll see.

Nederland vs. University of South Florida pictures

Shagging for batting practice at USF


Batting practice, heavy air last night = just a couple dingers compared to a lot of dingers

Ponson has pitched in the major leagues for several clubs over about a 10 year span. He was sharing with us his whole routine from eating carbs on gameday to his workout program. It was very informative just listening to him going over his 5 days repetitive routine.

Randall Simon during pregame getting some pitches in for some reason. In the background, USF doing a team prayer, which I haven't seen since I played at Seminole State CC in Oklahoma (the bible belt) where we had a prayer before every game that year.

It was a beautiful night in Tampa, Florida. They brought out a decent crowd, including some very good hecklers who were all over Randall Simon right off the bat...

Starter Sydney Ponson battling in the first

Last nights right fielder Danny Rombley, never shy around a camera...

Post game meal provided at USF. Gave us a chance to relax some after the game, mingle briefly with the college players, and get some pretty good grub

Exhibition game 3, and a final roster that's now set

We played our 3rd game since being here in Florida, and came up with our second indecisive though helpful game. We tied 4-4 against the University of South Florida Bulls in Tampa, Florida. They came out hungry and knocked in 3 runs in the first inning off Sydney Ponson (from Aruba, pitched for the Yankees last season). They added another in the 4th, but we were able to keep their scrappy, left-handed dominated and quick offence. I threw the 9th inning facing only 3 hitters, and almost being decapitated by my catcher Kenley Jansen during a throw down to second gunning out a potential base stealer. We came back and rallied for 4 runs in the 7th inning to tie it up. Yurendell DeCaster was our offensive force today having 4 solid at bats including 3 hits. Overall, a quality game, and I was happy to see the fight, teamwork, unity, defence and hunger we showed in the second half of the game.

All the 16 countries participating in the World Baseball Classic had to input their rosters yesterday, and they were released to the public today here on MLB.com. Our roster is solid. We have 13 pitchers, 2 catchers (Sharlon Schoop is a short stop), 8 infielders, and 5 outfielders.

Our starting lineup should be strong enough to knock in a few runs a game, so I believe if our pitching staff can hold the ridiculously hard hitting teams we're playing to around 2-4 runs, we have a chance, yes a chance to upset and move on in this tourney... Oh, that would be Amazing!! Cheer your arses off, and keep your fingers crossed we play some awesome baseball (honkbal for all your dutchies)!

Here's a link to the dutch baseball federations' website, if you can read dutch (or you can easily copy and paste at google translate here) check it out. Our press officer Loet is the writer of these updates, and if you can read dutch or fell like spending a solid 10 minutes copy and pasting definitely hit up this site to follow our trip from another persons eyes.

Here's Sydney making his first start down here and us facing USF...

Just 3

Couple pics from the game yesterday... It took about 20 tries to get these up here, but finally 3 pics from the Korea game...

Dirk Van't klooster, hit a single in this at bat I believe. A wiley 32 year old dutch team veteran who can still play with the best of them



Michiel Van Kampen, our closer.


Tom Stuifbergen, a up and coming Minnesota Twins prospect. Threw 2 scoreless innings in this one

Updates

So, the Internet connection is very very very bad today here (and last night) at Pirate city. This means I can't upload any of the 44 pictures I took of yesterdays game against the Korean team we played. We tied 3-3, we played well, other than giving up 3 runs in the first, we were very good. After the 3rd inning 6 of our pitchers combined gave up only 1 hit, they were lights out against a very solid Korean team. The Woori Hereos play in the KBO, which is just a hair under the Japanese professional league (which is small step under the MLB). They have several ex-big leaguers in their competition, most of the Korean national team players and a lot of money which is creating a very strong competition.

We had our final roster made yesterday, our coaches had some very tough decisions to make... 6 of one - half a dozen of another - kind of decisions. They ended up trimming the team to 28, making 7 cuts yesterday, so our roster is now set and we are here in Pirate city practicing with 25 now, waiting for 3 40-man roster players to join us on march 1st. Those being RHP Rick VandenHurk (Marlins), SS Hainley Statia (Angels), OF Greg Halman (Mariners). In fairness to our staff and those who were cut I won't publish who was cut, and what the roster is looking like now until it's been officially published on the 24th or 25th. I may not post it on here either, but I will give a link whenever it is released to the press.

We now have to go to work. Today is another beautiful day here in Bradenton, and it's time to get ready for the Dominicans. Pitchers practice around 1, position players right afterwards. We are playing the University of South Florida tomorrow evening and Manatee CC the next night.

Hopefully the lousy, good for nothing connection figures itself out here in the next little bit so I can start sharing some pics with you soon. I'm popping more and more, and will try and get them on here asap.

Time to get out there, enjoy the sun and play some baseball...

Some new gear..

Our final roster is complete. I made it, yay!

Okay, enough celebrations, time to get ready to play some ball. But before that we do that I just want to share with you the new gear we are about to wear in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. First off, our hats have the same logo, but are a sweet version of the all black ones we currently have. I've heard our away Jersey's will be in all black, and I have a pic of our home jersey's on here. I've also added a couple T-shirts that we may get, but MLB.com is selling, and I thought looked pretty sweet so I threw'em up here

Check it out...

Some teammates in action... or not...

I've been reluctant to bust out the camera that much so far, fearing I'll put a tourist impression in people's minds here. But, I think I'll be popping a few more here and there trying to gather some photographic memories of this journey. I'll try and take some action photo's (since I'm such a great photographer) and some of the guys and myself off the field too.

Here at the complex of the Pittsburg Pirates our team is put up in a dorm style hotel, and are enjoying our time here. Today is another B-E-A-utiful day here in Bradenton Florida, it's about 72 Fahrenheit (21 Celsius for all the Canadians and Europeans reading this) and sunny with just a few wispy clouds in the upper stratosphere.

Here's a few pics of some of the guys around and about...

About the best roommate a guy could ask for, Martijn Meeuwis (who was also my roommate during the Olympics). This is him chilling on our couch here before we head out to our second workout of the day

The coaches prepping for a practice. Rod Delmonico in the forefront, Wim Martinus in the middle and Bert Blyleven posting up on his orange fungo in the background

Berry Van Driel and MM on the bus from Orlando airport to Bradenton. We are all experiencing our first warmth in months

Some of the guys getting ready for 10 am training...

A couple national team veteran's, Percy Isenia and Dave Draijer, getting their gear together before practice in Manatee, Florida

Dirk Van't Klooster taking in some ping pong... He's played the most games in Netherlands national team history, over 200. And doesn't normally looks like this, strange pose by the veteran...

Quickblog #3

As expected, Shairon Martis is going to skip the World Baseball Classic to focus on making the major league starting rotation with the Washington Nationals. He was the pitcher who threw a 7 inning (10 run mercy ruling) no-hitter in the inaugural WBC, and really put Netherlands baseball pon the map (if it wasn't already there).

I wish him all the best, and I guess it will have to be up to someone else this time around to step and show the world that he Netherlands can play some damn good baseball.

Quickblog #2

This year, we are sponsored by Reebok. Over the past few years all of our gear has been Under Armour, which was very nice. So far, we haven't received anything but our little Christmas presents that everyone discovered in the club house this morning. I guess this is Reebok's way of saying "Thanks for signing with us!". We got a training suit, polo, and cleats from Reebok. The training suit is really nice, I initially has XL, but it was not nearly long enough for my 6'6" frame and gangly long arms and legs, so I stepped it up to a XXL. It fits quite good. We haven't gotten all the shirts and shorts that we had with UA, but I think we have enough still from the past few years...

Quickblog #1

A very interesting story I heard about this past fall is playing out before our eyes here. We are stationed at the Pittsburgh Pirates spring training facility, so we see the big league guys, 40 man roster players, and a few minor league guys working out here. We also often see the first 2 players from India ever to be signed to pro baseball contracts. Read this story to find out more about this very intriguing experiment the Pirates have chosen to follow.

I saw them playing catch yesterday for the first time, and they are not bad actually. Their mechanics are a bit raw, and the taller, younger lefty throws harder, but they are both work in the making.

Start of 2-a-days...

It's a good thing I didn't take any pictures today. I guess I can't complain since it's free, but our connection is absolutely the slowest thing ever! To download and then upload pictures onto the blog took a very very very very very long time yesterday, resulting in no captions for the photo's (most don't need captions luckily).

Today, my blog hits have begun to climax, nearly as they did during the Olympics, I'm guessing that's due to our team nearing the World Baseball Classic, and my hopeful participation in that tournament (yes, I am superstitious, and don't like to jinx things). Just to let you know, I will do my best to keep it updated, and give you some kind of upadate daily, an pictures as much and as many as possible.

Today, we woke up to the expectation of rain during the day at some point. The coaches found out it was supposed to hit around 2:30 pm. So instead of having the pitchers throw in the afternoon workouts to live batters, they moved that up into our morning practice. 7 of the 14 pitchers that are currently practicing with us threw about 30 pitches to our own batters today. It went well, despite us having to let the hitters know what exact pitches we were throwing, many of our guys were right around the plate. We went out for our afternoon workout, and exactly as predicted, it pored rain. So most of our afternoon batting practice and pitcher fielding practice was rained out.

The guys are enjoying their time here thus far, despite and uneasy feeling for many guys as they have to make final cuts on Sunday and send 7-9 guys home. I outlined how our roster should look (via players per position) a few posts back, and everyone is anxiously awaiting the Sunday cuts. While we are enjoying our time here, there are 2 pool tables, and a ping pong table that I haven't seen open since I've been here. By the way, we have a some amazing ping pong slayers on our team, I didn't even know, some of the guys are almost this good; The guy in blue is the best in the world.

That's about it for today, time to hit the hay, and do it all again tomorrow. Baseball is life, the rest (except family) is just details, right dad?

Day 1

We had our first workout as a nearly complete team today here in Bradenton, Florida. It was about 25 degrees and sunny during our 3 hours 2-5 pm practice. Tomorrow we step it up to 2 practices a day, going at 9 am and 2 including pitchers going live against some hitters. BP looked pretty good today with some guys destroying ball already on day 1 outside, which is always promising to see.

The coaching staff is all coming together with 22 year major league superstar Bert Blylenven as our pitchcing coach. We were notified that the final cuts will be made on the sunday the 22nd because they need to have the final roster ready for submission on the 24th.

Here's some pics of day 1 (not the workout, the camera gets a rest during practice time due to me trying to make the team, and not needing to look like a tourist).

Arrival in south Florida...

We made it... it's 9:07 pm eastern time. If was a looooong day of travel. We had some dinner when we first rolled up to the Pirate city complex here. From what I could see in the dark, it looks very nice, we are put up in the main building. It's much like a hotel, nice rooms, beds, flatscreen, 2 internet outlets.

I'll try and take more pictures tomorrow in the sun.

My one crappy picture of the arrival.

Down one BIG pawn...

Unfortunately we will be without one of our aces for the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Jair Jurrjens of the Atlanta Braves just opted not to participate in the WBC. I had been hearing rumors about him not pitching with us during this big tournament, but was hoping they would be untrue. My fears were confirmed when I read this a little bit ago. We still have major league starters Sidney Ponson and Rick Van den hurk in line to pitch for the Netherlands during the WBC. Jurrjens is the second big leaguer to back out of the WBC from our provisional roster, joining Roger Bernadina of the Washington Nationals in their persuit of a solid big league spring training camps to ensure they can start the 2009 season with their respective teams.

I wish them both the best of luck in their camps and hope they represent The Kingdom of the Netherlands well on their clubs instead of with us in the WBC.

Wow... suprise

I had no idea my club was going to renovate our disgusting old weight room / garbage hole over the winter. They threw down 40 thousand euro into this new gym. I had the priveledge to work out in this gym a couple of times around my normal gym's schedule since I've been here. I was able to get in all the excersises I would in a normal gym which was very positive and encouraging. The Universal portion (the tall midle structure in the first picture) can be used for about 1000 different exersises, and is a great addition to any small gym. The rubber floor added to this gym is 6000 Euro itself (about 10 K Canadian), and is very very nice. I'm looking forward to weekend workouts in this gym during games I'm not pitching and or practices.

A couple of the rubber floor tiles have this printed on them.

Only one cardio machine, that being a bike, but that's fine, if I want to run, I run poles anyways.

A cousin about to blow up

Just this morning I've begun to realize that Canadian hip hop icon, and my cousin, 'Classified' is about to be very very famous. I guess it's sort of a personal thing for me when I hear someone on the radio that they are at a certain level, a higher plateau than all the other bands and artists who don't get played on the radio. This morning 2 minutes after logging onto the top Vancouver pop/rap/hip hop/R&B station The Beat, I heard for the first time (on mainstream radio) my cousin with his new single 'Anybody Listening?'. I've felt that many tracks from his previous 11 albums could have gone big, but this one sounds like it's sending him up to the elite international hip hop status. He ramained true to what he preached and hasn't gone commercial with his music, stayed with the same recipe that has made him so many good albums and songs in the past. The only difference now is the label promoting him.

Classified (real name Luke Boyd) is the son of my father's younger brother and hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia. After producing and creating his own music and even making his own studio for over a decade, he was signed by his first major label, Sony Music. After always proclaiming he hated the rap industry, and true to his word would only sign with a major label if "the deal was right", he waited until the deal, I guess, was right. Luke has been nominated and even won several Juno awards (Canadian music industry awards) for his videos and songs, and I have the feeling his new album 'Self Explanatory' is going to garner him several more.

My sister and I have been to two of his Vancouver shows, meeting up and hanging out with both Luke his brother Mike who has followed in his older brother's footsteps into the hip hop game. Classified is a very easy going, polite and straight up nice guy, very unlike his hip hop persona. I wish the best to him with the highly anticipated release of his new album april 7, 2009. You can listen to 'Anybody Listening?' here on his Classifieds' myspace page. Also, click here to check out his newest video to the new single 'Trouble' off the upcoming album.

Shorty, myself and several team mates who I've turned onto his music are planning to see his concert here in Amsterdam at the end of his European tour in march. If you're around, check it out, Melkweg, Amsterdam, March 29.

I wish him all the best with this new album.

Being a loner in a room for two...

Unfortunately things weren't able to work out in a manner that would enable Shorty to be here in Holland with me while I'm in my training stage before heading to Florida next week. She's currently spending some family time at her home in a small town in the middle of the US. It seems oddly calm in this house without the both of us here together. Actually it's probably the same for her and either one of us, where ever we are. We have become accustomed to being with eachother a lot over the past couple years. I miss her here, and can't wait for the silence to be gone.



She is my better half, she does stick by my side through thick and thin (or else we wouldn't be married and to the point we are now at in our lives), she keeps me in line when need be, she has the ability to hear what I'm thinking, she is the beautiful woman I envisioned myself (growing up) some day marrying and spending the rest of my life with.



Happy Valentine's day baby...

2 things that made my day ...

1. I recieved an early (albeit 1 day) valentine's day card from my wife, which was a sweet thing since I haven't seen her in almost 2 weeks. It was a very very funny card, very personalised and included a solid inside joke which I laughed about quite hard when I first opened it. Thanks again Honey.

2. I had a very enlightening conversation with a guy I've only actually played with in 2 games. Roger Bernadina is taking off tomorrow to persue his goal of playing ball in the majors, and has been working out 6 days a week for the past 4 months at the same gym where I workout. He is on the Dutch National Team, but has already chosen not to participate in the World Baseball Classic because he is on the 40 man roster with the Washington Nationals. He has to fight for a spot on the team this spring with 8 other outfielders. Roger couldn't be a nicer guy. He was so positive about this year, very realistic, and sounded so hungry for not just a shot at the bigs, but a career at that level. I wish him all the best in his major league endeavors.

Honorable mentions=

>Getting a message from my wonderful sister.

>Biking my farthest on the stationary bike at the gym on a harder level than ever.

>Having an overall really good workout.

>Hearing from my mom (despite her being sick).

>Shorty recieving my flowers that I ordered online which I was totally unsure if it would be there on time, or even ever get sent.

>My first Heineken since I've been in Holland.

>A priceless early morning call from my wife.

>Being alive.

Finished product

Took us 3 hours to wrap up one of the greatest bullpen mounds ever created, and here she is. Check the preceeding post for yesterdays progress and a better desciption of what we were doing here.

EJ

Our magnificent slope

Finishing touches... clean the rubber

Today's equipment

Pitcher's eye view

Building a triple headed hill

Over the past couple of ears EJ (team mate) and I have completely gutted and rebuilt 3 mounds. So far, they have all turned out fantastic. In fact, last year a few of us redid the second fields' mound at Neptunus, and have heard that it holds up much better than the first fields' mound. So I guess it's a good thing we rebuilt the main fields' mound this past fall after the season, I'm looking forward to seeing how our work holds up when the season starts in 2 months here.

Yesterday we started on a new project mound. A triple headed bullpen mound (3 rubbers). Rotterdam has a baseball school for 11-16 year olds, EJ is the head trainer for them and they work out at Neptunus. The board put out 40,000 Euro this winter to build a betting cage with a mound and 'Iron Mike' pitching machine. It's very nice; Top quality everything from lights to carpetting to the qulity pitching machine and so on. The mound outline in metal was hand made with the proper specifications (height, length, slope and line for distance rubber) already added. That made it a bit easier to crop and dig.

The mound had previously been partially filled with just sand, and EJ had already put a line of clay in the landing spot weeks back. It is our base, but sand does not make a good mound. Our job yesterday was to put the 3 rubbers in surrounded by about 300 clay bricks to create a solid top . We had strings going everywhere and make sure the rubbers were high enough, in the right spots, and that we had bricks far enough behind, in front and to the sides.

We finshed that off finally after about 5 hours of work yesterday. Today I'm heading back out there to add some more clay to the landing spot, and cover the whole mound under about an inch of dirt. It will be sharp.

Some pictures from yesterday, the first 7 are after a couple hours of work, and the last 4 were taken at the end of the day.

Clay Bricks, that's the first of 3 loads...

Unicorn painted onto the turf. The baseball school is Rotterdam Unicorns.

From behind

Our clubhouse door in the background. They put this cage underneath our bleachers out of the weather

Blue box is where Iron Mike lives,

Yes, they do have John Deer in Holland.

Yes, the rubbers are very close, the middle one is only for live batting practice, the other 2 are for bullpens




Back at it today!

A-Rod and Steroids...

Last night on ESPN famed baseball analyst Peter Gammons had the first interview with A-Rod since the news came out this week about him being on steroids during 2003. I woke up this morning and watched the entire 36 minute interview on line, but you can see the condensed version of the interview by clicking right here.

He is the only baseball player found guilty who actually admits to it, which I commend him for. I was a huge A-Rod fan growing up a Seattle Mariners fan, but since, have become more of a critic to the guy because of his , rumored locker room attitude towards team mates and holyer than thou personality (from inside info). Then again I've always had a spot in my baseball heart for a guy who came up a Mariner. I understand why he tried roids by watching this this video clip, but it also strengthens my beliefs that steroids aren't much of a boost since he's had a steady career, and his numbers didn't baloon while on roids. This leads to the question, was Bonds really that good. I think, yes. This is my belief given roids probably helped put an extra 5-8 feet on each homerun, meaning he probably had 2-4 extra homeruns that season, because I'm sure not all of his jacks were not monsters, some had to have barely made it over.

That's my view... I really hope I get the chance to face him in the World Baseball Classic. 24 day's until we have the Dominicans... Hello A-Rod.

Freezin my arse off

For the past couple days straight we've had what I'm starting a new word for... snain. Snow - rain mixed. I'm not sure why I feel this way about weather, but I would rather it just rained, or snowed, not both. I'm the same about drizzle, rain or just be cloudy for frig sakes.

It's been sitting around 2 celcius here for 2 straight days, and on top of the cool temperatures, I can't figure out the central heating system in this house. When I first got here over a week ago it was 7 celcius in this house, I somehow figured it out enough to turn on the heat, and got it warmer within a day or two. Last night, the heat shutoff again, can't get it back, so it's effing cold in here. I'll get some help with it if it lasts another day or two, cuz it's getting quite cold.

Yes, this is the most boring post ever, but I'm scrounging right now, there's no new news, and I'm cold...

Rotterdam, Hollands' Vancouver

From an outsiders view, I've learned to appreciate this city in the following way.

-> As racially and ethnically diverse and Vancouver (meaning about 80% non-dutchies).

-> Everyone speaks english fluently which is great for us.

-> A widespready city, with a very small skyline.

-> Bikelanes EVERYWHERE! Meaning you need to triple check L + R before you go and/or turn.

-> Some of the best drivers in the world, on the highways, parking lots are a different crazy world.

-> One of the greatest (and most expensive) outdoor shopping strips in the world.

-> Some of the best baseball in Europe, actually that's more all of Holland.

-> The crappiest cable television lineup in the world. Only the english comedy central comes out past 8 pm, which is semi-worth watching.

-> They have an Ikea, making them, for the most part, a smart, elegant city.

-> Without clouds, Rotterdam can sport some of the most amazing sunsets.

-> 62 coffeeshops for all the stoners, rappers and hippies out there.

-> Meer Coots in every pond and park.

-> No buskers downtown, suprisingly.

-> 2 Dutch headclass football teams (Soccer).

-> Sketchy middle eastern neighborhood's, where I fit in now that I have a mini-dark beard.

-> Raising bridges everywhere, listen and watch for the alarms, or you have a huge jump ahead of you.

-> Every first monday of the month an air bomb attack siren test at noon.

-> Some of the longest staring people ever, Shorty and I have learned to just stare back until they look away.

-> Some of the nicest and most helpful strangers in the world.

Here's some pics from tonights sunset out of my single pain, 4th floor apartment window here in Rotterdam...

In case you missed it...

You can relive the pre-Olympics, and Olympic games through my pictures and blogs here. Unfortunately each blog doesn't get it's own page, but if you scroll down just past the halfway point on this link's page you'll be around the pre-Olympic blogs' beginning. Hope you enjoy(ed)!

The New Mitt

I have already fallen in love with this one, and I can't close it more than 1 inch from where it's at right now. This is the second custom made glove I have received from SSK. They have been sponsoring the national team with gloves and some other equipment since the day we won the European championships and qualified for the Beijing Olympics.

In case you are not familiar with baseball there are many different kinds of gloves. Outfielders use long big gloves, infielders usually go with shorter wider gloves, first basemen have a combination of a catcher’s glove and outfielder’s glove, long and designed to pick and hold in scooped ball from the dirt. Catchers have a smaller round, well padded glove. Pitchers normally use gloves a lot like this one I just got, medium size, closed webbing to hide the ball and pitch grip in the glove, and can form the glove however they want (meaning it doesn't need to be long like the outfielder or flat like the infielders). There's your glove lesson for the day, I could go in depth a whole lot more, but this is a solid idea for anyone who doesn't know gloves (so, pretty much for you mom).

I'll only be utilizing this glove while pitching for the national team, so it won't see as much action as my other 2 gloves. Now I need to go to work on it. This puppy needs to be game ready in 3 weeks, time to shaving-cream the crap out of it.

Yea, I added 6 pictures of it. Too many? probably, but I'm like a kid on Christmas morning with this one.

WBC

The World Baseball Classic site recently posted all of the preliminary rosters for the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

Here's the numbers. Preliminary rosters consist of 45 players, which will eventually be cut down to a necessary 28 for the tournament by February 26. Our roster has 20 pitchers, 5 catchers, 12 infielders, and 8 outfielders. From that, they need to choose a mondatory 13 pitchers, I'm thinking 3 catchers, 7 infielders and 5 outfielders... give or take one from each of those groups (except for the take part from the pitchers). Our coaching staff has some tough decisions to make in the near future. Saturday they are to cut 7 players and come up with a roster of 38 that will travel to Florida on our 2 week pre-WBC training period in Bradenton, the spring training home of the Pittsburg Pirates. For the pitchers that they take, all will get to throw one inning in the first 2 exhibition games we play vs. the university teams to give the staff a small sample of what they can do.

We have a roster with 4 current major league pitchers, and the Seatle Mariners and Washington Nationals top prospects (outfielders Grag Halman and Rogear Bernadina). Of the 45 players on the roster 23 are from the dutch Headclass league, and 22 are on professional clubs. 31 have played or are currently in professional baseball.

Anyways, we play in a pool with the Domincan Republic, Puerto Rico, and Panama. These are 3 teams full of major leaguers, especially the team we face first, the Dominican Republic. This team includes such major league all-stars as Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Alfonso Soriano, Pedro Martinez, Vladimir Guerrero and a team full of recognizable names. I think they will all underestimate us, which is excellent. If we can win one of our first 2 games (which we pretty much need to since it's double elimination), I honestly think we have a chance at being one of the top 2 teams in our bracket.

You can check out all the rosters here.

We're heading out in 2 weeks for a couple weeks of WBC spring training, and hopefully after 3 exhibition games versus major league team right before our bracket begins march 7, we'll be ready to go... watch out.

The first Tattoo

Yessir, I got me a tatty. I was blessed enough to be able to participate in the summer Olympics this past year, so I figured this was as good a time as any to come up with a sybolic tattoo. Who better to ask to draw the idea than my dad, he's been my lifelong pitching coach, took me to all of my practices and games year round growing up, and on top of that he's a very gifted artist. He came up with about 100 sketches until we finally decided on a mix of a bunch to come out with the final product. I asked him to put in several symbols which he did well. I wanted to have the Canadian flag represented for where I was born and raised and where the baseball career began, I also wanted the Dutch flag, for who I participated in the Olympics with. On top of that something to do with baseball, and the Olympic rings too. He came up with an abstract stick figure of me in my pitching motion and added it to the middle of the tattoo beautifully. Check it out...

First of all, we were the nerds that showed up at the tattoo place 5 minutes before they opened, so we were the first customers of the day. We got in after driving to get a orange juice and some cash for the tattoo down the street and came back to 'Eyewitness tattoos + piercings'. I went in hoping I could find a fella names Jake who did Shorty's back last year with the vine and flowers, but he had moved to Missouri to work at some other place. So, the first artist I talked to was a guy named Psycho. Yep, Psycho. He looked his name, and sounded like it too with his very low, drawn out, mono-tone, southern pronunciation of everything he was saying... until he found something funny and burst into a nervous-sounding, out of character laugh. I came in and showed Psycho the artwork my dad had put together after hours and hours of his sketches and pre-drawings, and he sketches out his own version, which was pretty much a photo-copy of my dads work, and I was happy about that.

After 25 minutes of setting up and my own nervousness sitting next to him watching all the preps and what not he got under way. It took just under an hour and wasn't nearly as painful as I had expected. He has been doing tattoo's for over 20 years, and you could tell by the slow and controlled hand movements while applying the artwork that he was a pro.

It turned out exactly as I had hoped, it's a spitting image of his sketch, and bring together all the symbols I wanted to portray beautifully.

So this was a big day for me, and I am proud to now wear a symbol like this on my right forearm.




Tattoo day, we were there a bit before they opened, so Shorty and I just chilled in the parking lot, apparently I'm getting a little nervous here.



Last picture of bare right forearm *sobs*.



Getting the black outline done, my first taste of a tattoo gun. I pretty much prepared myself for the worst, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I figured it would be painwise.



This is Psycho...



First photo of the finished product



Full body shot to get an idea of where it's at on my arm.

Back at it...

I'm back.

I flew into Amsterdam yesterday morning on a very uneventful, sleep-filled flight. I've arrived a month and a half earlier this year than the past 2 seasons to begin team practices with the Oranje (semi-formal team name). I'm here so early because of several reasons. First off, I wanted to practice with the national team for a bit, and be able to travel with the team because I find that important. Secondly, my personal long toss program was set back about a month due to a rediculous amount of snow in Vancouver. It finally melted by the start of the new year, and I was able to get out and throw on sloppy wet fields to begin my arm workouts. I figured the earlier I could get here the more training I would be able to get in.

Tonight is my first practice with the Oranje, running practice. I will be getting in daily weightlifting workouts on my own, as well as 6 days a week of team training. Tonight is running practice, tomorrow night is team weightlifting, and then wednesday is an indoor team practice. We have 2 days off from the national team per week, and those days are filled with Neptunus practices (club team in Holland).
I just saw our pre-WBC (world Baseball Classic) schedule from arrival in Florida in 2 weeks until game time. 2 a days should be a excellent, specially in the heat of Bradenton (southern Florida).

Check out our schedule on the Dutch Honkbalsite (Baseball site), the article is in Dutch, but it's not hard to figure out, just click here to see what we're in for in 16 days.

Road trip album

Click on them to enlarge pictures of our road trip home... trust me, it's worth it...

Road Trip Repeat

Well, we are crazy. We drove over 5500 miles (over 9000 km) on the way to and from Vancouver from Tulsa... and to Tulsa also, I, guess. 2 times the same trip in 3 months... yes, crazy... but awesome. Unfortunately but understandably my sister couldn't join us for this trip like she did in on the first trip, but we managed to somehow pull ourselves together and make it without her.

Shorty and I headed out January 22, and arrived on the 28th in Tulsa. We followed pretty much the same route as we had on the initial trip north, except for the trip through Las Vegas and Death Valley. Shorty and I had a solid pace going, we drove approximately 550 miles a day, except for splurging on a 700 mile day in the middle of the trip. I'll break our days down...

Day 1: White Rock, BC - Oakland, Oregon
Day 2: Oakland, Oregon - Modesto, California
Day 3: Modesto, California - Kingman, Arizona
Day 4: Kingman, Arizona - Tucumcari, New Mexico
Day 5: Tucumcari, New Mexico - El Reno, Oklahoma
Day 6: El Reno, Oklahoma - Dewey, Oklahoma

Day 1 included a swift and smooth boder crossing, followed by fog for a couple hours, a 10 degree temperature drop in a 3 mile span, Portland traffic hour and a diner that stayed open for us at 8:30 pm for dinner next to the hotel we were staying in... with about the best food you can ask for from a diner.

Day 2 was full of mountain driving, mt. Shasta (a ginormous peak 5 miles off the highway in northern cali), throwing with Shorty at a rest stop, and staying at the nicest hotel of the trip (mariott courtyard), and some de-freakin-licious Olive garden for dinner.

Day 3's drive immediately brought us into some of the most beautiful hills in California (where we took about 500 pictures). It was one of the more boring drives through desert and whatnot, but just driving with Shorty made it an enjoyable experience. We ate at the same seafood/mexican restauraunt (yea interesting mix), just this little hole in the wall we ate at 3 months earlier and looooooved the food. The biggest 5 dollar Burrito's in USA for sure.

Day 4 was a long day, many miles, and a few stops, lots of desert, and cacti, and roadkill, and naps, and energy drinks....

Day 5 we woke up to the coldest temperature of the whole trip, 17 farenheit (-9 C). We drove to the world famous "Big Big Texan Steakhouse Ranch" and had some amazingly tantilizing food there, that's when the roads started to get really bad, one we reached the Oklahoma state line the roads got really really really bad, I'm talking a plain looking road covered in a sheet of 1/2 inch thick clear ice. Over this day and the next we counted the amount of accidents we saw.
Cars off the road= 32
Cars flipped over= 4
Semi's flipped over= 3
Cars we actually witnessed go off the road= 4

Day 6 we had to stay in El Reno, only a normal 2 hour drive from Shorty's family home in Dewey Oklahoma, but we decided our lives were much more important than putting them in danger with horrible driving conditions. Vancouver with snow on the roads is nothing compared to what we drove through this day. A 2 hour drive became 5 1/2 because of us going 30 MPH in 75 MPH zones. We made it though.

We kept ourselves busy with XM radio and it's 250 channels, maps, GPS, talking, napping, planning, and other stuff.

Road trip final stats=

2700 Miles
126$ on gas (I love you hybrid)
1 great time with my wife on the road

I definetely suggest a roadtrip...