Couple no-hitter pictures

A couple of seconds after the final out (grounder to third) I get swamped by my team... an amacing moment for me.

We had a couple random, quick, hard rain showers throughout the game.

Kinda cool pic taken a couple days before thursday June 12.

The last batter, At about 123 pitches here, check the scoreboard.

My first No-hitter

Last night was bliss.

1 to 4

It was my 9th start of the year, chasing the 7-0 mark on this night, and after the first inning I did not have good stuff. Okay the first inning was fine, 3 up 3 down, 2 k's, but the second inning took 29 pitches, and was straight up ugly; this is the point when I figured, ok, let's just get through 5 innings, keep the team in the game, and see what happens from there. After that I started setteling down, found my groove a little bit, and despite a couple of walks and hit by pithes, made it through 4 innings giving up 2 runs, partially because of errors, and my own rare foolish mishap (man on 3rd 1 out, comebacker I went to first, he scored, should never happened, but I'd like to say, I played off my stupidity like a champ).

5 to 9

After the 4th, I started to pitch instead of throw. Nobody reached base from the 5th on, I believe I/my defence retired the last 16-17 batters faced.

Pre no-no realization

I looked up at the scoreboard in about the 4th, and that's when I first realized "what the hell, they don't have a hit yet?" This, one of the top hitting teams in our league, an explosive offense, and they managed their 2 runs without a hit. Then I reflected some more, and realized... huh, I guess not, weird. That's about all I wanted to think about at that point because we were down 2-1. Then I started pitching, hitting spots, my pitches seemed to start moving more then before, and I got grounder after grounder. After I threw the 7th, I found myself back checking out the scoreboard briefly as I had in the previous couple innings. Huh, still no hits. At that point, just after the 7th is when it dawned on me, I could potentially throw a no-no against these guys. At that very point, I almost got choked up a little, thinking about it. So many times I have been so close. I have thrown a bunch of one hitters in the past 5-7 years, always dreaming about the elusive no-hitter.

Then came the ninth. I wasn't as nervous as you would think, I figured, it they get a hit, they will deserve it because I am going to make all my pitches, which I did except for one. The first out was a lazy grounder to our secondbaseman Benji, I managed to jam their cleanup hitter, and national team catcher to get the first out. Next up was the ageless wonder Fausto Alvarez. A former cuban national team star, and last years league MVP was on my get-me-over-first-strike curveball and hit it hard to the outfield where our right fielder Lenny slid and made a great play to save my ass. The last out was their right fielder, I know how to get him out, and knew if I made my pitches I was golden. I'm not really sure which pitch in the at bat it was, but he rolled over on a slider, and Raily threw him out from third.

At that point, elated crazyness took over. Glove went flying, the first person I wanted to hug was my cather Martijn, he derserved half of the credit for sure. But I ran into my first baseman Jeffrey at full speed and then the whole team came out. It was something I have always dreamed of, such a perfect moment.

Post no-no realization

It took me a little bit to finally gain my bearings, and sort of come to terms with what had just happened. After a bunch of hugs, and handshakes from teammates, loyal fans and my wife, I went into the locker room to drink a couple beers and have a shower, and shoot the shit with my teammates and coaches about the game. I ended up getting a beer shower first from my short stop Jeroen and our aussie closer Roo, but it felt so good (and cold).



Today I am going to run, like prefontaine. 125 pitches is about 20 more than any game I've thrown all year, so I need to work it out of the arm by running my freaking ass off. Time to run off the ugliest, but most satisfying no-hitter ever.

slacking blogger and a - C

You may not have understood the title, but the - C stands for the lack of actually having a C on our keyboard at the time being. Despite having 2 c's in the opening sentence, we lack the actual key "c" on the keyboard, it kind of got broken a few weeks back, we don't really know how, we woke up, and the keyboard was just lacking a C, shitty, we know.

Anywho, I know, I've been slacking on the bloggage, and that's my bad. What you've missed this week= I got win #6 personally, and am now 6-0 with a 1.17 era which is pretty okay, and is 2nd in the league. I'm sitting behind a guy whose 7-0 with a 2.20 era... also 2 pitchers have lower era's but possess lower then 4 wins a piece. My team is now sitting in first place also, tied for point with the 2 time defending champ Kinheim, but we are 3-1 vs. those buggers this year, so no matter what, we are ahead of them this season if our records are similar.

Also, my wife and I have been looking at our future, and trying to decide whats the best option for us in the upcoming months, and years. What it's currently looking like is that she will head to Canada in August while I'm supposedly at the Olympics (don't wan't to jinx) and she'll coach softball nightly at an indoor clinic, and I will meet up with her in October in Oklahoma with her possesion's back at her home in dewey, Ok... should be a sweet semi-cross-country trip.

I think that's about it for this blog... Any questions and or comments are always welcome.

Win 5

We kind of sh*t down our own leg this past weekend, and lost 2 close games to a league rival, the Hoofdorp Pioneers. But tonight, we were a different story. I put out my best effort to stop the losing skid, and we won 5-1 vs. the top european team, again. This was my 3rd start against them (Corendon Kinheim) this season due to rainouts, and strange pitching matchups, making this the 3rd time I/we've beat them. I felt good, went 7 innings, 5 hits, 7 k's, 1 unearned run. Overall, solid. Our setup guy gave us a scare in the 8th, getting one out and loading the bases with a hit and 2 walks, but our new aquisition, a 6'8", 260 lb aussie got us out of the jam, and threw a scoreless 9th. Solid.

So I am sitting at 5-0 on the season now, thinking about it, I could be 8-0 if everything had gone right thus far, but no decisions don't help, and neither do missing weekends to fly back to Canada! I don't blame that weekend though, I had a great time doing what I was doing that week.

Anywho, we play the last place team this weekend, so we should beat the living crap out of them, but we will see! Gotta love winning ball games.

Red Sox potential

I am by no means going to put all my eggs in a basket on this one.

I have been told before I have what it takes, and if I succeed this season I'm in the top ten rounds, and I have major league potential, so I am not taking this as serious as I want to. It's quite confidential, but my national team pitching coach is the european scout for the Boston Red Sox. Anywho, I appraoched him after practice yesterday, and asked him about the potentiality of myself being singed by a major league team after this season, and being able to start next season likely in double A. My coach told me he had already brought my name up with the vice president of the Red Sox, and he turned me down simply on age alone, being 23-24 was too old to sign a newcomer.
I pleaded my case with my caoch somewhat, but he assured me how much he was a fan of me, and so was his supervisor, the problem is his supervisor's supervisor is the vice president. Anyways, my pitching coach is an honorable man, and a pure fan of baseball, which leads me to believe that he truly believes I have what it takes to pitch in the majors right now, like he told me. He told me " I truly believe you have what it takes to be a setup man in the majors right now, and be successful", I believe this too.

Anyways, time will tell what happens, my coach said he would re-enter my name into free-agent signing conversation, so there's a chance, most likely for next year if at any point. But like I said, don't put all yours eggs in the basket, I've been hurt too many times in this situation before, even though I know I have what it takes.

The right place at the right time eludes me

I couldn't tell you how many people over the past few years have asked me if I've played in the minors, why I'm not, why I was cut, how high I got in the systems. I often wonder the same thing. There are some players who are at the right place, and play well at the right time to get drafted or signed, I'm just not that guy. I have an offday when here's someone watching, or my velocity is 1-2 MPH to slow at the time. I throw in the 90's when I play a season in the unscouted Belgian competition, and figure out how movement and location are more important at an international level the next year when scouts are looking for hidden treasures throwing in the 90's. I'm not bitter about it, I truly believe that I could succeed at a double A level at my skill level right now. My current resume would look like this= Tall righty with solid location, sidearm thrower with good movement, good slider, and upper 80's fastball.

The problem is I'm getting almost too old to sign. I'm now24, 25 by the end of the summer, and despite a canadian pitcher being signed and sent straight to double A this year at 28, the chances of being signed are deminishing more and more weekly. Maybe I'll just start throwing 95 and get signed for 1/2 a mill, yea, I think I'll do that.

My highest honor

I've won many tournaments in my day, a few best pitcher awards, some high accolades here and there. But none of this compares to how priveledged I felt to stand up as a best man for my best friend May 10.

Jeana and I travelled from Rotterdam (Netherlands) to White Rock (British Columbia) for about 6 days to have the opportunity to be there when 2 of my best friends got married. To be asked by Kirin to be his best man, and be the legal witness to his marriage was quite the honor.

A little background on myself and the bride + groom.

Bride= Karalea and I have been friends for about 10 years now, we have a very similar past actually. Went to elementary school together, high school also, both played college and university ball for 4 years, and ended up in Holland to play semi-pro over here in at the same time in 2007, we even dated a couple times back in the day. About the best person I could ever want for my best friend to wed.

Groom= Where do I start. This guy and I have what we call traditions, it's been hard to keep them up recently, but one of these days we will get back to some of them, and we will create new ones as well I'm sure. We've been like brothers since we were about 6, playing ball together here and there, just pretty much spending every weekend together growing up together. I look up to him, despite literally having to kind of look down on him (6'6"---> 5'10"). About the best friend a guy could have though, because I know he would do anything for me, and I would do the same for him.

In the past 10 years we have been a very close group, Karalea, Kirin and myself, whenever we get together though it's always a good time, they know how to have fun, even though it's a little different seeing them as a couple and making decisions together now instead of as singles.

It took these two 8 freakin years of being best friends to finally figure out what everyone else could see, but better late then never.

Hans Kroon

This guy is an animal.

My trainer at the gym, he used to be about the size of Arnold in his hayday. He was the team trainer on road trips and the Olympics 4 years ago with the Dutch national baseball team, but now focuses mostly on the Dutch Judo Olymians. He has us doing some crazy stuff in the gym. He normally keeps the workouts from 1-1:30 hours, and just kills us in that time. Not too much downtime, and if you are his only client at the time, you are hurting. It's all good though, he brings in new and unique exercises, which is always good (keeps the body guessing, instead of the same ol' same ol' every time at the gym).

He does his personal training with the Judo athletes, and baseball players from about 1-4, then it's Hans time. He gets after it at the gym, has his own workouts, with Shakes, and protein mixes left and right.

Hans was crutial in getting me back from my injury last season, and has done well so far keeping me healthy, and fit while building endurance and power every week.

I'm telling you, this guys a freakin animal.

3-0.. then more rainouts

Thursday vs. Kinheim, one of my about 10 overhand pitches, most are sidearm...

My wife keeping stats of every pitch, she's getting very good. Keeps stats on everything, from every pitch from both teams, that's my girl!

Our leftfielder pulled him hamstring, so we had to wait for him to go in and get it taped. This is Lennart, our backup backstop and I just chatting and messing around on the mound in the 6th. This picture made the front page of the main dutch baseball website.

We won our 9th game of the young season in a makeup of a makeup game thursday. I got the start due to missing a weekend being back home in Canada. which means I actually started 2 of the 3 games of the series vs. the #1 team in Holland, and Europe, Kinheim. We won 5-2, I went 7 innings, 101 pitches, 6 k's, a few walks and a couple guys hit by pitches, but they deserved it though.

Kinheim's lineup is filled with national team guys, which makes it more of a challenge, because it's more of the caliber that I would face at an international level, such as the large upcoming tournaments this summer. So I enjoy getting up and being at the top of my game being able to face them, and on top of that win.

Our game today has been rained out. We we're to face the 2nd to last team in the league twice this weekend, but rain has created a bit of a lake on our infield, so no playing today. Instead, shorty and I are heading south, to Belgium, to see a game of my former team, the Hoboken Pioneers. I called ahead to the manager of the team to make sure they haven't yet been monsooned out, and I could hear the crack of softball bats in the background, and he said it was good enough and should be a go this afternoon, so we're heading out soon. Should be about 1:15 hr drive, which means about 45 Euro in gas for the trip (70 canadian for 2:30 hours of driving in a car, not even an SUV... crazy). But it's definetely worth it to see all my former teammates play again. Specially because they are on top of the league, and facing #2 today.

Got the sandwiches, water and Red Bull ready to go so...

Rain rain stay away, we want to see some freakin baseball today.

Chinese

Chinees!!

That's how they spell it out here. Just had out delicious pregame night feast, and it was, non other then de-freaking-licious.

If you don't have a clue when I'm talking about read a couple posts back and you'll get it.