.italiaball/puck.

Which window level of the Duomo should be a triple?

Posted on January 27th, 2008 by Lango.
Categories: pienza, tuscany, wiffleball.

You ever get the feeling you’re doing something you’re certain no one else has ever done before?

Tonight I was out enjoying some good vino bianco with a friend and teammate when the discussion turned to our trip to Pienza, Tuscany in November and our unique experience one night in its main piazza. I was on writer’s strike at that time, let’s say, and therefore you won’t find nary a mention of it here before this. Fortunately, though, our blackleg friend Fango was amongst the traveling codognesi and documented the four-day waist-expanding trip rather well over at Bici Vecchia.

Fango alluded briefly in that post to wiffleball, referencing our midnight game played in Pienza’s main square, an event surely without precedence in the 550-year existence of Piazza Pio II. Oddly, though, for someone like me who evaluates peoples’ backyards on wiffleball potential, it was impossible not to note immediately how well the piazza is designed for this popular game.

Fango, after perhaps one too many glasses of vin santo, relays another theory, noting that Pope Pius II’s ideal Renaissance redesign of Pienza was certainly undertaken with plastic yellow bat and perforated white ball in mind:

Centuries later, a group of us made good on Pius’ promise to Wiffle athletes. On our recent trip to Tuscany, we played Wiffle Ball in Pienza’s historic central piazza. Crazy, yes, but true. We found many pieces of Pius II’s grand Wiffle Ball stadium still in place and were frequently surprised by the overarching beauty of his plan. The locker room/dugout along the wall of one abutting palace, replete with hooks for jackets. The batting practice cage alongside the ancient well. Infield/outfield practice from the lip of the central door. A perfectly placed circle bricked into the very pattern of the piazza from which the pitcher could serve up Wiffle junk.

He continues:

The lights shone bright on our field. Tickets were scalped to disbelieving neophyte fans for free – we were putting on a show and inviting all of Tuscany, even the papal ghosts, to join us. Except for when the municipal police rolled by: some of us scattered like high schoolers caught loitering in a midnight parking lot; one of us waddled off with the Wiffle Ball bat running the length of his leg. Our official photographer documented the scene. We laughed at the spettacolo and improbability of it all: Wiffle Ball in the House that Piccolomini Built for Wiffle Ball.

An aerial view of the piazza by day can be found here, with our mound clearly visible in its center.

11 comments.

The ballgame’s in the refrigerator, the door is closed

Posted on January 23rd, 2008 by Lango.
Categories: baseball, codogno, food.

One of the great traditions of baseball in Italy is the post-practice pizzeria trip. Over the course of four seasons (this coming season being my fifth in Italy), I wouldn’t even be able to render a guess at how many times I’ve found myself amongst teammates, mouths watering, awaiting arrival of that round, fully customizable creation from heaven.

With all our practices being at night, and often finishing around 11pm, it’s not uncommon to still be working on a pizza and a birra media (regular beer) after midnight a few nights a week. So, essentially, we work out at practice, including conditioning work, and then go gorge ourselves on pizza, insalata di mare (seafood salad), pane (bread), and beer. Not to mention, of course, the obligatory caffè following the meal as well (sometimes with grappa or sambuca), because it is apparently illegal in Italy to pass up any opportunity to drink coffee, even if approaching 1am.

Early on, well before I became a veteran pizzeria-goer, I made the mistake of not joining in the feast like the others (ordering, for example, only a salad). This is not a wise idea, unless you enjoy financing your teammates’ meals and drinks. That is because we ‘pay in the style of the romans’ (pagare alla romana), meaning when it comes time to pay, we’ll divide the check by however many people were at the table, provided you consumed something of course.

Therefore, because each person knows going in that they’ll be on the hook for an equal share no matter what they order, everyone is thinking along these exact lines, increasing the bill further since no one wants to be short-changed. Order another beer? Dessert? Limoncello? Why not?

It’s going to be divided amongst everyone anyway.

(As a side note, interestingly enough, I’ve found two opposite meanings of ‘pagare alla romana’ among Italians (link in Italian), as some believe it means for everyone to pay exactly what he/she ordered (also ‘to go Dutch’), while others contend (link in Italian) it means the opposite, dividing up the bill amongst those who consumed as I’ve stated here. Maybe it’s a geographical north/south thing. That can usually explain a lot. I’ll have to ask around.)

UPDATE: Check it out, I’m the big winner! Thanks Michelle!

6 comments.

And I hear Patty-cake improves hand-eye coordination

Posted on January 15th, 2008 by Lango.
Categories: baseball, canada, codogno.

“It’s probably going to be very strange to see for you, but here it’s kind of normal. Usually it happens around the 5th inning of games here in Fredericton. Because of the location of the field on a farm, we’ll have to stop the game and open a gate in right and let a flock of sheep pass through the field. Crazy, I know, but it only takes like 10-15 minutes, then we get going again right away.”

And I believed it.

At the time I was on a bus in 2000 with my new teammates in New Brunswick, Canada, a small province on the Atlantic coast. We were on our way to Fredericton, and it was to be my first game with the team since driving up from Boston just days earlier. To say I knew nothing about the league and teams would be a understatement. I was ripe for the picking. And one teammate took full advantage, convincing me during the trip (and it was indeed an impressive selling job) that I would see a flock of sheep pass through the field around the middle innings.

Of course, no sheep passed through the field (believe me, he made it sound very plausible). I think I ended up being a little disappointed, but it definitely served as another reminder that as a newcomer to any group or team, it’s pretty much a given that you’ll be targeted in one way or another for humiliation.

Which brings us to last night.

We had our second indoor baseball workout of the year, which at this point is conditioning only. We have a new player joining us from another team, but one who is already friendly with most of the guys, having already played with a handful in prior years. Last night was his first practice, and one teammate, who lives for these opportunities, came up with the idea of doing something completely ridiculous at the beginning of practice, but something in which we’d all take seriously, to see what his reaction would be.

The plan made its way around the rest of the team, but we also needed the coach to buy in to make it work. After a long run outdoors, we all made our way back into the gym and upon entering our coach made everyone line up in a straight line from one end of the gym to the other, all facing forward, for the first exercise…

“Ok, mani sulle ginocchia.” (Hands on knees)

“Faremo questo all’inizio, è un esercizio importante.” (We’ll do this exercise to start practices, it’s an important one.)

“Pronti?” (Ready?)

“Ok, dai, fate la cavallina!” (Ok, come on, let’s go everyone, leapfrog!)

7 comments.

Of or relating to the Byzantine Empire

Posted on January 11th, 2008 by Lango.
Categories: codogno.

I just returned from a trip back home to Boston for the holidays. It was great seeing fam and friends, the city of Boston, and being able to spend some of that green play money.

This was my first trip back home since effectively moving to Italy a little less than a year ago, and one question I got asked frequently while home was, “Are you going to stay in Italy long-term?”

Now, I really love the city of Boston. It has everything you’d want in a city, as far as I’m concerned, and every time I go back I seem to like it a little bit more. You can even confuse it for Europe (and Italy) at times. So why do I live in Codogno, a small town of 15,000 people, including zero other Americans?

That’s the question I get asked often here from Italians. “If you love Boston, why are you living here in Codogno?”

It’s not as easy to explain as you’d think. Italy can be impossible at times. I’ve completely given up trying to rationalize certain aspects of society here, lest I drive myself insane. Now I’m very fortunate I can still play baseball for some money here in addition to work, but that’s certainly not all that’s keeping me here. And of course there’s the people, the food, the wine, etc., but that doesn’t explain it either. There’s just something about living in Italy (at least in Codogno/Milan and Parma, the two areas I’ve called home) that makes it difficult to see myself somewhere else.

It’s not easy to put into words, though. At least my own words. Fortunately, Tobias Jones, in his excellent book The Dark Heart of Italy, finds a way to describe this feeling, which he shares (emphasis mine):

“I realise I have become something I never thought possible: patriotic and proud about being an adopted Italian. In more honest moments, I realise that I might never quite be able to leave the country. That longing to leave, and the inability to pull yourself away from the bel casino, the ‘fine mess’, has been written about for centuries. Using the usual prostitution metaphor, one of the country’s most important patriots, Massimo D’Azeglio, wrote: ‘I can’t live outside Italy, which is strange because I continually get angry with Italian ineptitude, envies, ignorance, and laziness. I’m like one of the people who falls in love with a prostitute.’ That, in fact, is precisely the feeling of living here: it is infuriating and endlessly irritating, but in the end it is almost impossible to pull yourself away. It’s not just that everything is troppo bello, ‘too beautiful’, or that food and conversation are so good. It’s that life seems less exciting outside Italy, the emotions seem muted. Stendhal wrote that the feeling one gets from living in Italy is ‘akin to that of being in love’, and it’s easy to understand what he meant. There’s the same kind of enchantment and serenity, occasionally insecurity and sadness. And writing about the country’s sharp pangs of jealousy and paranoia, Stendhal knew that they exist precisely because the country’s ‘joys are far more intense and more lasting’. You can’t have the one without the other.“

What he said.

7 comments.

Hey, what do ya know. They’re little footballs…

Posted on January 10th, 2008 by Lango.
Categories: codogno.

After more than a few months of complete and utter neglection, I’ve decided it’s time to resuscitate the site. You’ll notice a few changes, of course, as I’ve simplified things and pulled some of the bells and whistles. One new bell (or is it a whistle?) is the ability to change the background picture by clicking on any of the little square boxes at the top. Ok, that should keep you entertained for about 15 seconds…

Hmmm, now what?

3 comments.