Daily Loaf

Keystone Kops Play Stickball?

I'd managed to dodge the inevitable for long enough, but yesterday the flesh was weak and I bowed before peer pressure: I went to see my first game of Finnish-rules baseball at the Ronkaala Sports Centre Stadium. The name is a bombastic description almost worthy of Mohammad Saiid al-Sahaf (alive and well), as you can judge for yourselves if you check out the picture.

In retrospect it is a pity I'd evaded the game for so long. Far from being the tedious springtime staple of elementary school physical education, it was an absolutely energised spectacle of graceful athleticism, cunning tactics and athenian democracy. In short, it was absolutely brilliant!

Foreign readers might want to take a quick look at the differences between American and Finnish baseball at this stage, and the more advanced couch coaches would do well to revise their baseball lore, too.

As a consequence of the back boundary rule, there's much less emphasis on brute force, and more on skillful batting and agility. This in turn translates to players that don't have ugly 'roid guts and hams-for-arms like Mark McGwire (OK, so I did some searching and actually found a nice picture of him, but this is as good as it gets). I finally found out where all the cute young guys in Haapajärvi are.

I think a lot of the appeal came from the similarities I saw between this game and ballet, which is why I also understand why Maxim's (Cosmo for straight men) reporter didn't quite enjoy it. See for yourself:

• First Position.
  
• Third Position.
  
• Fifth Position.
  
• Arabesque and Grand Jeté.
  
• Gratuitous cuteness.
  

'Our' team lost, and by the last inning the main umpire was getting such a voracious vocal beating from the crowd that my ears must've been beet red. I ended up at the local watering with a couple of co-workers. It was karaoke night, but luckily Stargate SG-1 was on TV, so I excused myself after singing only one duet with the wife of one of the spare parts guys, The Beatles' Let It Be, and the theme from Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. I didn't have the courage to for It's raining men, though.