Baseball from an English perspective

First, let me get a pet peeve out of the way. England is only the dark green section of the map. It is on the island of Great Britain. When you include Northern Ireland, that’s the United Kingdom. Great Britain and Ireland, the entire island, are the British Isles. These are not interchangeable. Moving right along…

There was a group of English tourists that were sitting behind us at today’s Twins game. They were delightful. And for the most part, they were really into the game. Some tales of the English trip to the baseball game.

– Early in the game, they were cheering every batted ball. They definitely cheered for the Twins because they were in Minnesota. On a long fly ball to right off the bat of Joe Mauer (I think) the fan most in tune with the goings on of the game shouted “Fumble it!”I now would like to shout that on fly balls.

– They participated in the All-Star voting. They voted almost exclusively on name value. They liked the Hispanic names, as well as Suzuki. They chose Mark Reynolds, who happens to share his name with a Scottish soccer player. They REALLY liked Gordon Beckham, whom they renamed Gary Beckham. “Hot tip: Second base? Gary Beckham.” I chatted with them later and one of the gentlemen said that their picks were going to be “gravy” and that Beckham will be excellent at free kicks. I enjoy a good soccer joke,

– Speaking of soccer, they were noticeably disappointed by the lack of chanting. Eventually, a group of fans started doing the “here we go Twins, here we go” thing, and they were much happier with the fan base. They couldn’t understand what they were saying, though.

– The middle of the game features a “Sing-along with T.C.” segment. It was “Take on Me” by A-Ha. They were enthusiastic, even though it was a Norwegian group.

– One of the gentlemen came back to his seat after searching for beer late in the game and was dismayed to find that they stopped beer sales in the 7th. “If this was a football match and they stopped beer sales, there would be a [goshdarned] riot!” Hooligans!

– “If you see a point 3 or better, that’s pretty good. That’s a good hitter”

– (After getting through an explanation of the strike zone as a “small box”) – “It’s best not to swing, because it’s difficult to throw into that small box. If you are going to swing, you better be deadly sure it’s a strike”

Joe Mauer is deadly sure. That sounds like a t-shirt.