Baseball in northeast Bulgaria is unlike anywhere else. It involves two teams playing in the middle of a soccer field somewhere. No parents on the sidelines, no little league approved uniforms. When we play here, the goats are eating long grass from the soccer stands in ruins, a shepherd leans on his stick and occasionally returns lost balls, a horse in the outfield is hit by a pop fly, teenagers kick a soccer ball in left field, players yell at each other in Bulgarian and Turkish, Roma girls walk their children across the field to the mahala, some teenagers park in the field blasting kyuchek until we yell at them to move or a ball will be coming their way. Not quite the bubblegum baseball of my youth.
Our first tournament of the year was in Razgrad. BTV came and interviewed three of our players. When the interviewer asked our captain Aigun what he like about baseball, he looked at the man like he was crazy and said, "Everything."
I walked a long way to see my team play and got to see them compete in the last game against Razgrad's team. It had all the elements of a Disney movie. Our team, the hero of the film, is from a small town and consists of a ragtag group of young kids. We played against the older, well-clad, cigarette smoking, cursing ruffians from Razgrad. I may have slightly exaggerated but post-game cool-down doesn't involve caprisun and fruit roll-ups for these kids. They're more likely to celebrate with a beer and a smoke.
Top of the second inning we were up 3 to 2. We made 6 runs in the second, ending it 9 to 2. We showed team Razgrad that girls can play just as well when one of our best players, Chrissy, hit a line drive out to right field, making it to third and bringing in three RBIs. But our team was tired. This was our third game of the day and some of our kids had been helping out the team from Turgovishte that was short four players. Our star pitcher, Adnon, was walking everyone who came to bat. Also, we had switched umps during this time to a Bulgarian who made some bad calls. Basically, the point I am trying to make is that Razgrad made a lot of runs in the third. We eventually switched umps again and afterwards they only made a couple of runs. I don't remember the score at the end but it was something like 12 to 24. Seriously, that ump. Despite all of that, little 5th grade Mehmet struck out three hitters in the last inning. In the end we got second place. Not too shabby for my ragtag group of kids.
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