World Cup - Day 4

Today we had a pretty early wake up. I was awake at 6:40am to get ready for the bus that was suppose to leave at 7:45am for our game against Nicaragua, but we left about 20 minutes later. Not too sure why but it didn't really matter since we had our police escort and it allowed us to go 20km over the speed limit to make up for the lost time. I'm sure the driver was having a lot of fun speeding through the windy roads but I was starting to feel a little motion sick, and I'm sure a few other players may have as well.

We arrived at the field and it was pretty much a show and go, as we only had time to play catch, and for the hitters to take about 30 minutes worth of batting practice. We were ready to start the game at 10:00am then realized we didn't have any umpires. Luckily our manager Jon Deeble came to the rescue and played the role of umpires for 3 innings before a coach from Nicaragua took over for the remainder of the game. We lost the game 9-7 but we looked pretty good as this was the first time we had all played together. I threw the 2nd inning for us, giving up 1 hit, 1 walk and allowing 1 unearned run, so I felt like it was a good start to the tournament. We were also suppose to play a 9 inning game, but the rate of play wasn't too good, so we ended up playing 7 innings in 3 hours, one of the much longer games I have been apart of in the last 6 months.

When we got back to the hotel everyone was starving since it was about 6 hours since our last meal so we all had lunch straight away in our dining room. Pretty sure most people went back to get 2nds and even 3rds. After lunch we all jumped into the pool for a small recovery session. One person had to take a break from our recovery session as he became a victim to cramp, something quite unpleasant if you experience whilst in the water.

After the pool session I just went back to my room and relaxed in bed, watched a little bit of baseball, then decided to take a walk across the road to a small sporting good store. Now my ventures to the mall yesterday was quite unsuccessful as all I wanted is for the sporting good story to be open, but it wasn't, and just my luck, the sports store across the road from the hotel was closed as well. Quite an epic fail.

Once I returned from my little walk across the street I got back into bed to watch some more baseball, and a little bit of TV. A few of the boys are planning to go somewhere to watch the AFL Grand Final tonight which starts at midnight here, but I don't know if I will have enough energy to stay up all night to join them, and also I have no interest in who wins the AFL if the Sydney Swans aren't playing.