Tournament Ends - It is more than Baseball

Well the regional tournament has come to an end. The Italian team prevailed over the Americans from Germany 6 - 5. The Italians rushed the field with the final out and several were seen on their cell phones obviously calling home. The Americans from Germany were disappointed but a few errors and base running mistakes took them out of the game. My game, the Consolation game was delayed for an hour by rain and finally ended with the Lithuanian team out lasting Belarus. All week the team from The Netherlands showed that while they were not competitive on the field, they had fun despite of their losses. I enjoyed meeting them and sharing pins, but I really wanted a Dutch shirt. On the last day, they offered me one of their ponchos that had kept them dry that day. With the last out, the umpires retired to start packing their gear to head home or visit Poland. A few of us gave our equipment and some uniforms to the eastern European umpires who really need it. I gave my chest protector and leg guards to one umpire who was going to give it to his father so they could umpire together; I gave my mask to one of the umpires, his mask was so heavy it would give him headache. They have no ability to purchase equipment here. Tami and I left Kutno on .Monday and headed to Krakow on vacation. More on this later. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry