.italiaball/puck.

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.