NAGAAA World Series wrap-up

Friday am: Had to be up early to make the long drive to our fields for the 7:55 game against Tampa. It was foggy and cold - we haven't been up this early to play and weren't really prepared for the temps and wet fields. We had a rough first inning and eventually fell behind 14-3, but came back at the end to make it a somewhat respectable 20-15 loss. Not really the way we wanted to go out as we did not play well at all. It's always disappointing to lose when you know you could've played much better. I had by far my best game of the tournament, at least in terms of hitting, but it wasn't enough. Too bad it took me that long to wake up and start hitting, as we may have done a little better had I not sucked most of the tournament.

Afterwards, most of the team went to the other fields to watch our B teams play. I stayed behind to watch C games and socialize with out of town friends. Inevitably, beers were purchased (before noon) and it turned into a rather long day. Some of the details are lost, others are better off being forgotten, but it was a lot of fun to hang out and watch games, socialize and meet some new people.

Friday night was the block party, preceded by beer and food at the Hilton - shocking to see us there, I know. The block party was decent, nothing exciting except for getting swept up by the Madison crowd and taken to a bar. After escaping I think Chris and I went to yet another bar, but the details are somewhat fuzzy and that may have been a different night. It's all starting to blur together now.

Saturday, most of us went out to the championship games to watch the Edge and Swingers play - the Edge finished 4th in C, the Swingers were 3rd in D. After a couple hours of watching games, I was pretty much over it and left, but not without chatting up the Austin C team and deciding I would most likely go down to their tournament in May. Seems like it would be fun to go somewhere new and check out the city, so plans are underway to do just that.

I thought about checking out early and head home on Saturday afternoon, but sloth caught up to me and I stayed. That was a good idea - the closing party was OK but the bars afterwards were a blast. We drank, danced (some of us shirtless in a cage) and generally had a great time. I believe it was some time after 2 when I finally got back to the hotel.

Beyond that, not much to report. We are looking forward to Columbus in '10, hopefully we'll qualify for the tournament now that the team has had a taste of the fun/craziness that is the World Series.

Photos are on the way.

NAGAAA World Series Day 3/4

We wound up winning our first game in bracket play yesterday (barely) by coming back and scoring a couple runs in the last inning with 2 outs. That took us a matchup against a good hitting Seattle team, and we just didn't hit well enough to stick with them. The loss put us in the loser's bracket with an 11am game today (Thursday).

Between our 2nd game yesterday and this morning, we went over to the host hotel for 'a beer'. Since they had a special buy one pitcher, get a free pizza it wound up being 5 hours of beer and pizza. Lots of fun. Our waiter was quite friendly. We were quite friendly. All in all it was a good night.

Somehow we all managed to get up on time and make it to the hotel lobby this morning. We had just one game at 11 against Phoenix, and as is becoming all too routine, we had a close game which we pulled out in the last inning. That sets us up for a potentially hellish day tomorrow (Friday) as we play at 7:55 am (leaving the hotel at 6am), and have the possibility of playing 8 games in one day if we keep winning. I'm not thinking about that right now.

We also went to the Mitchell Domes this afternoon - 3 domes of plants/flowers near the hotel. It turned out to better than everyone expected so that was good. Afterwards some of us went back to the host hotel bar, others went out to eat, and I am just now getting to my room and headed to bed. The alarm will be going off in approximately 8 hours. :(

NAGAAA World Series Day 2

Quick update and then I'm off to our team dinner: we won our only game of the day and finished pool play 2-1. I would guess we'll wind up somewhere around the 15 seed out of 50 teams.

More to come later.

Latest update: we wound up seeded 20th and have our first game at 10am. We are leaving the hotel at 7:15 am - the fields are approximately 30-40 minutes away and that will give us time for a warm-up/batting practice before the game.

Backing up a bit: last night was a good time at the opening ceremonies and beyond. I can't really say as I watched the entertainment since the people attending were entertaining enough. At some point I realized my entire team had left - I figured this out as I wandered around looking for them in a somewhat enebriated state. After a number of text messages I located them (at a bar) and left. That was slightly tricky as I didn't know where I was going but managed to safely get back to the hotel and hang out/drink/socialize for awhile before heading off to bed. We played at 1:15 today so we had plenty of time to recover.

Our game today was our best so far, and we are hopefully peaking at the right time. Afterwards most of us hung out watching games and socializing some more. The last stragglers made it back to the hotel around 6pm and had a quick shower before heading off to our team dinner at 6:45. We are now back at the hotel and getting ready to call it a night.

It sounds like we are playing a team that went 0-3 in pool play so it should be a manageable first round game. Beyond that, nothing will be easy. I'm excited to finally get to the real tournament games and get this thing started.