A Timely Update After Having Gone More Places and Done More Stuff

Giving a fist pound to one of my players

The first condition of understanding a new country is to smell it

-Rudyard Kipling

1. Baseball in London

My baseball involvement in London includes playing in the National Baseball League and coaching various youth levels and teams. On the playing side, my squad is 12-0 heading into this weekend. We are a passionate, goofy bunch who enjoy each other’s company and playing the game we love.

On the coaching side, I discussed my first coaching experience for the tournament team in Prague in an earlier post. Since then, I was the head coach for the Orioles Big League level (15-19 year olds) team in the London Little League. I had a funloving, hard working group who really enjoy the game and soak up any bit of baseball knowledge they are given.

One of my favourite Monet's

Following this, I was nominated as the head coach for the UK Seniors Tournament Team to compete at the Little League Seniors Europe and Africa Regional Qualifier. Unfortunately, the trip feel through at the last minute and we were unable to go, which was a shame for the kids who worked so hard in preparation. Still, it was a good experience for me to learn about the planning that goes into such trips.

In addition, I have also led weekly training sessions for club youth players (ages 13-18) and done school visits to local British schools. It has been fun and rewarding to coach many different players and many different levels. This is the first summer that I’ve done official, serious coaching, and I’ve grown to love it.

Another benefit to being involved in baseball in a developing country is the sense of community between all parties. Although I came over through my club team, I’ve gotten to know leaders from the Baseball Softball UK, the British Baseball Federation, MLB Europe, and the British National Teams. It is extremely rewarding to learn how these parties are working to improve baseball in developing markets such as the UK. Also, Domingo Ayala came to visit us last week.

2. Sliming in London

The most complete stegosaurus skeleton in the world

When not playing baseball, I often spend a lot of time exploring the city. Here is some analysis from these explorations.

Positives: free museums, frequent public transportation services, lots of areas to explore

Negatives: too many people, takes a long time to get anywhere, everything is extremely expensive

Museums / Art Gallery Rankings:

1. National Gallery: Very large gallery has quite a lot of beautiful paintings

2. Museums of Natural History: They have Dinos

3. Tower of London: very touristy, but interesting to hear about the kings and queens

3. British Museum: Very large, lots of cool artifacts

St Paul's Cathedral

4. Tate Modern: Modern art, which varies between in my opinion, brilliant and odd

5. National Portrait Gallery: Interesting from historical and art perspectives

Architecture Rankings for buildings in London:

1. Parliament

2. St Pauls Cathedral

3. British Museum

4. Westminster Abbey

5. The Shard

6. Buckingham Palace

These rankings will be updated as necessary throughout the rest of the summer.

The next installment of the blog will hopefully be posted soon and will discuss my other European (and African) adventures including family and friend visits to the UK, Morocco, Croatia, and France.

One of my favourite Dali's