did you miss me?

Ten days in England made for a rocking good time even though I lacked the means to access baseball. I did manage to sneak a few minutes on a computer twice, just long enough to make some rash decisions on my fantasy team lineups (maybe that’s why I fell to fifth in the roto league in my absence…) but other than that I had nothing than messages relayed from a professor’s husband about the status of the Cardinals. It looks as if it was pretty much lather, rinse, repeat while I was gone but I don’t feel any better for missing it.

Transatlantic plane rides make for good opportunities to get in some reading and I did just that; I took the opportunity to read two baseball books as well as one trashy British romance novel. I won’t give book reports on the romance novel, but at some point I’ll give my two pence (twice the value of two cents) on Wrigleyworld: A Season in Baseball’s Best Neighborhood by Kevin Kaduk as well as The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball by Derek Zumsteg.

Alas, for now you’ll have to settle of my word-and-picture summation of my trip with relevance to baseball.

While meandering down the streets of Canterbury, my traveling party and I stumbled upon a lane which had almost every front door to a flat painted colorfully and uniquely – pink, purple, yellow, varieties of blue, green, white, et cetera. My friends rushed to claim a door to have their picture taken by (you know, I hope nobody was home) and since the pink and purple ones were claimed, I set off to find something with Cardinals relevance. I was hoping to find #22 or #29 but before I got there, I found a winner. The residence at 32 Blackfriars Street, Canterbury, England has a front door which is painted red. Cardinal red. *pause for a moment to recognize incredible coincidence*

I don’t have the picture yet but when I do, I’ll share it. It was a really neat lane in and of itself and was on the way to the pub that used to be next to a flour mill. I use the past tense with regard to the mill because at some point the mill caught on fire, the fire brigade came to put out the fire, the fire began to threaten the pub, and the fire brigade focused their efforts on saving the pub for the love of beer.

For the love of something else, let’s fight breast cancer! (Any bets on how many spam comments this line gets me?)

While in Bath, I was able to watch some of baseball’s rich cousin, cricket over an outfield (?) fence. I felt like maybe I should scale a tree and watch with binoculars through the foliage but apparently it was ok to hang over the wrought iron fence and watch that way.

Had this been a baseball game, this guy would have been an easy squeezy target for heckles. Too bad I didn’t know enough about the game, his team, or his female relatives to contribute anything on that front. [Actually, that's probably a good thing since I didn't reinforce any negative American stereotypes with that behavior.] A nice bloke at a car boot sale set me straight on the basics of cricket and I set him straight on the necessity of statistics in baseball: they’re not necessary for playing, they’re only a measure of performance, but those of us who use them are really math nerds at heart.

I like to imagine these guys are the British equivalent of baseball’s bleacher bums.

And now for something completely unrelated to baseball: I went to King’s Cross station and I have to say, going to Hogwarts for a semester sounds much better than going back to grad school for another year (plus).

Don’t forget to tip your tour guide as you leave!