Cricket (Day 26)

I spent the day with two strangers.

Admittedly, they were not complete strangers, but I had never met them before. What could go wrong?

This arrangement was made through my mother, kind of. Before I came to Australia my mom mentioned to me that someone she works with has a son with a friend who was heading to/was already in Australia and wanted to try and get involved with the Australian Baseball League. The co-worker’s son's friend (right?) emailed me and we have been talking about baseball and the league and other things down under ever since. Oh, and to make things simpler, his name is Matt and will be referred to as such from here forward.

Matt is here with another friend from London, Ontario (we're all from the same place! Canadian connection!), and they are living at the Gold Coast, at least for now. Throughout my emails I have definitely been saying that I want to head there for a day and possibly invade their space and hit the beach. I'm like that. But with my schedule and also never really knowing what my schedule is, that hasn't happened. Matt figured that he and his buddy (Jeff) would make it to Brisbane before I ever got to them. He was right.

Matt and Jeff came to Brisbane today (Sunday) to watch test cricket because they are both big sports fans and Jeff has developed a newfound fondness for cricket over the last six months or something. Matt mentioned to me in our email chain that they were coming and I think I probably invited myself along. I'm not sure if I recall him asking me but no matter. I'm also like that.

So this morning I pretty much got up and started my trek to the Gabba. I haven't yet filled my walking quota for the week so it seemed like a good opportunity to put five more kilometres on the shoes. When I got there I didn't really know what my strategy was. I went to a place where they sold tickets and then texted Matt to see where they were. Eventually we decided it would be easiest to meet inside so I got a ticket and headed in. I was a little worried because I didn't know what these guys looked like but they found me pretty quickly so that put my concerns to rest.

Prior to last night I had kind of assumed that I was going to the Gabba for Twenty20 cricket. That's the newest version of cricket and I believe the most popular. It takes about two-and-a-half hours to complete a match and people find it more exciting than the traditional version. The traditional version is called Test Cricket. It usually takes five days to play, and those are full eight-hour days. The athletes break only for lunch and for tea. Yep, I said tea. There's a tea break. And that version was the one I was about to embark on. I was glad someone told me last night though at least because I was a little more mentally prepared.

As it turns out, I didn't have to be. The cricket match ended early because Australia had scored so many runs in the first three days that New Zealand didn't have enough wickets left to conceivably catch up. So Australia won by nine wickets and they didn't even make it to tea time (I know, disappointing right?). I'm not sure I used the correct phrasing of everything I just wrote but I don't believe that you would know the difference. Right mom? So you can just believe me. For non-cricketers, Australia basically mercied New Zealand. So that was awesome.

I don't know how awesome I would have thought it was if we had stayed for another three hours or so, but it was a good time and I had lots of questions for these strangers so the time passed pretty quickly. I do think I would enjoy Twenty20 cricket better and when Matt and Jeff come back to Brisbane for that hopefully they let me tag along.

I realized at some point that if they were not enjoying my company, there was no real way for them to get rid of me. I pretty much forced myself upon them. So hopefully they were okay with that. I can draw my own conclusions if or when I hear from them again (or not). But I think it was all good.

Matt and I spent a considerable amount of time talking about baseball though I think I upset him because I'm not exactly in love with the Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos. And it's not that I don't like what he's done, I think he's a good GM and a vast improvement upon his predecessor J.P. Ricciardi. But I think that when people talk about him, write about him, evaluate him...they only highlight the good things he's done and they ignore everything else, giving people the false perception that he is some kind of saviour for the Jays or something. So we had that argument and then trash-talked the Toronto bullpen a little bit. And we talked about some of the 22 major league ballparks that I've been to, which is always fun for me.

I learned a little more about cricket than the little I already know from Jeff. His dad used to play for New Zealand (I think) and lived there, and in Australia before Jeff was born. Jeff was a helpful person to have around when taking in my first match. Though my friend at home gave me a crash course over the phone and I think I did pretty well in learning, it was different to watch a game in person. The guys were cool though and I think I spent most of our time talking and asking them questions and then talking some more (who's surprised?). I definitely told them all about my encounter with the shark. Maybe more than once.

Since the match ended early and Jeff and Matt were visiting Brisbane, they wanted to explore a little bit. I offered to take them to South Bank, knowing in my mind that there was a very real possibility that I would get us lost. I didn't tell them that though and they followed me without question. We actually made it there without any problems, and I surprised myself a little bit with that fact. I didn't get lost!

So we walked around South Bank, touring the river, checking out Streets Beach, wandering by the shops and bars and restaurants and taking it all in. I felt like I was a decent tour guide. I kind of knew what I was talking about and I tried to sound confident to make it seem like I did even when I didn't. None of us really knew where the guys had to go to catch their train home but they figured they would make it there eventually, and they had plenty of extra time because of the shortened cricket, so we wandered around some more. We walked through the Queen Street Mall and a little beyond it. At that point there wasn't much left to show them so we headed our separate ways. It was pretty sweet for me though since they had walked me almost halfway home.

They did let me know that they would be back for some Twenty20 and perhaps some baseball so it is quite possible that I didn't scare them away completely and I could see them again in the future. It was nice to spend time with some people from home, despite the fact that I never knew them at home. They were still good ol' London boys.

During the rest of my walk home I befriended another stranger. This time, a real stranger. He stopped and asked for directions to the Story Bridge, which happens to be one of the landmarks I am familiar with and happened to be in the direction I was heading. The guy didn't have an Australian accent so I asked him where he was from. Then I asked the Californian if he was planning on taking in any baseball games during his stay down under and I think I convinced him to head to the RNA Showgrounds for the Perth Series on the upcoming weekend. Always looking for new fans.

I was worried that by the time I got home I would have to rush to get the game story done and submitted before falling too far behind in the times. Lucky for me, the fates had aligned. Test cricket ending early, in combination with rain delaying the Bandits game in Sydney, allowed me to watch almost the entire baseball game. And watch means take in the pitch-by-pitch on GameCast. So I wrote the game story (another extra-inning loss for the Bandits) on time and got it sent away shortly thereafter. Melody still had to deal with my picture problems but it would appear to anyone who doesn't know better that everything went smoothly.

So for me the rain delay was a good thing, though I don't think any of the players would agree. The game was actually scheduled for seven innings because of the dual doubleheaders on Friday and Saturday but since Brisbane blew the lead in the bottom of the seventh it went into extras (free baseball!) and the boys missed their original flight. I think it was touch-and-go for awhile on them actually getting home but in the end they were split up among three flights and just arrived back here a little later. I'm sure I was the only one happy about the delay though, and I don't really get a vote.

Shortly after I finished writing the game recap, Erin arrived home with two friends that have been staying at the apartment over the weekend. They had all gone to the Gold Coast for the day. Erin invited me but I thought I had better stay home and get the game story done at a decent time because I ditched the Bandits on Saturday. And I got the opportunity to head to my first cricket match too, obviously.

Erin's friends are both from Toronto so we talked mostly about home and Canadian things. We discussed the differences in transit here and there, talked about Canada Day celebrations and of course, snow. I'm the worst Canadian because I have no interest in the fluffy stuff whatsoever. I am happy to leave it forever and I just wish I could. No offense to the Great White North but I just don't enjoy the white part of that equation.

Today had somehow turned into an all-Canadian event after hanging out with Matt and Jeff in the morning and Erin's friends in the evening. It helped the homesickness that I might have been starting to feel with having the guys all gone for the last four days.

I did talk to Carl when he got home though. He called to fill me in on some (probably a tiny portion) of the ridiculousness that the boys got up to and ask me how the website stuff had gone. I told him that I wasn't able to do anything on my own (he didn't seem surprised) but that Melody had saved my website-managing life. It sounded like the guys had a great weekend in Sydney but I don't think there's any way I would have been able to keep up with the big boys in terms of drinking or eating McDonald's or anything else they got up to. Better that I stayed home.

Just as I was on my way to falling asleep I got a text from SJ saying that he'd been left at the airport in Brisbane and had to cab home. His ride had pretty much forgotten about him (by accident...it was a long weekend) and he was left to fend for himself. I inquired as to whether or not SJ even knew his own address to which he answered that he knew the 'area'. Since I couldn't assist in any way I pretty much wished him luck and was on my way back to sleep.

Hopefully he made it.