I know a Hall of Famer! (Day 29)

I awoke to a phone call and I fell asleep to one today.

It kind of makes me feel popular, considering a whole two people called me today.

The first call of the day was from a friend at home, and it was the first successful attempt at receiving a Canadian call, so that's exciting! Hear that mom? It worked! Kind of. There were some technical difficulties and the call was cutting out a little bit but it did the job. Chris and I (friend from the Blue Jays) talked about Australia, baseball, Bob Elliott and more and it seemed to work out.

And now since I have given myself an opening into talking about Bob Elliott, I digress. Bob is definitely one of my favourite people, and whether he knows it or not, has been a huge influence on me. And first and foremost, he is now a Baseball Hall of Famer. He is headed to Cooperstown and will be officially inducted on the July 21-22 weekend during the summer. My plan is to be there for it and congratulate him in person when he gets his plaque.

While I happen to think that Bob needs no introduction, he may not be a familiar name in the Australian households, so I will give a little background. He encompasses several of my favourite qualities and more. He loves baseball, he loves Canada, he's a writer and he does everything he possibly can to promote the game north of the border. He is a beat writer for the Toronto Blue Jays but also runs the Canadian Baseball Network website, to which I am a contributor. No matter what I say here, there will always be more to tell you about Bob, but he's a great guy. He's helped me immensely with my writing and somehow always has time to answer all of my billions of questions. I could go on for much longer, but you should read some of the other great things people have had to say about him. Here's the story from one of my awesome Sports Journalism teachers last year and MLB Insider for Sportsnet, Shi Davidi:
http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/2011/12/06/elliott_award/

After the surprise morning phone call I headed to the field to try and help out with getting the ballpark game-ready. My plan was to go and run some laps before the real work began but that didn’t really happen. I did run to the field and do a couple of laps but there were other people around doing actual work so I didn’t feel like I could get away with any more without looking like I was slacking. So it was time to get to it.

Since it was raining, and had been raining through the night, the field was wet and muddy and getting worse as we went. Our first job was to try to brush the mud out of the curb-type things that wrap around the field. Since the field is on some sort of track, they have a little edge around the outside. I grabbed a broom and starting sweeping mud.

For awhile I was just working with Shayne, Alan and some kids that I was not particularly familiar with. So it made sense then that before the players and Carl and Whitey got there to help, that we would try to do some heavy lifting on our own. That’s what I get for showing up early. But like I’ve said several times, I need to work on my upper body strength, so I got a chance to do a little bit of that.

We only moved one of the heavy dugouts before more people showed up. Durket, Maestri and SJ relieved me of my dugout-carrying duties and rendered me useless. Not long after, there were enough jobs to go around. When the fence company got the fences up, we had to cover them with mesh and advertisement banners, zip-tying footboards along the way, and put up flags and feathers and things of that sort. It doesn’t sound like a huge job the way I just described it, but it was a rather large undertaking.

It was also happening in the pouring rain and freezing cold. Well, I was freezing cold. It’s official. There’s no way I could handle Canada in the winter ever again. At one point, Carl had given me a poncho that pretty much covered me from head to toe, and then I had a jacket from Justin Erasmus, who’d shown up a little later to help, plus a sweatshirt from Durket and another jacket from Alan. By the time I’d added that last jacket though, some people had taken back their layers from underneath. I think you get the idea though. I was cold. And soaking wet.

I was pretty happy when we stopped for lunch, but worried about what there was to do afterward. I wasn’t prepared for more of the same. I’m pretty sure I ate an entire pizza on my own though, so at least I was refuelled. After some waiting around, someone realized that there wasn’t really a point in doing much else in the rain, so we could all head out. I was ready to walk home, but when Durket offered a ride, I wasn’t about to pass it up. I do live very close to the park, but in the rain and cold, it looked a lot further away.

We made a stop at the closest train station to drop off Maestri, and then made it to my place in an embarrassingly short amount of time. I really should have walked, but I was grateful to get dropped off. I was home and not long after, I was showered and falling asleep. Naptime.

When I got up from my nap I figured I should probably answer some emails and try to get some work done for the day. I did as much as I could in the hour or so before Whitey came to pick me up for our evening appointment with Campo.

Paul “Campo” Campion is a radio show host here in Brisbane, and he is also the host of The Rookie, the team’s TV show on Bris31. Whitey and I were headed to his place to try and write the script for the show on Monday. We did get through most things, and during the process Campo’s wife made us food and his young daughter (probably around three years old...ish) entertained us by changing outfits and running into the kitchen everyone once in awhile to show us. Hospitality at its finest.

We were there for probably about two hours working on the script and hopefully we’ve come up with something solid. We’ll find out on Monday though. For those of you in Australia with access to Bris31, you should check it out! For those of you anywhere else, it will be up on the Brisbane Bandits Facebook page and youtube channel shortly after it airs.

On the ride home, Whitey and I talked mostly about writing blogs and the idea of writing books and the like. Whitey had a blog of his own when he first got here I think. He committed to writing an entry every two weeks, but then it somehow died down. I should figure out where he posted his stuff and learn about his experience with Australia at first. Could be interesting.

Just as I was heading to bed I got the other exciting phone call of my day. It was BFC. I’m not sure what the call originated about but we ended up having a pretty serious chat about our lives and what we’re doing with them. We talked about where we’ll be when we leave here and all the things we’ve been doing since we’ve been in Australia. I’m not sure what Carl is going to do when he’s done with this Bandits season, but I don’t think he’s sure either.

So we had a solid talk and then it was off to bed.

Game day tomorrow.


PLEASE NOTE: I know this entry has taken longer than most. It’s because we’re in a game weekend and I anticipate that this could be the beginning of a trend. Be warned.