Explaining a baseball-like sport to people who have never played the game--this was the task before Ashley and me as we participated in the Bitola American Sports Club's second event, kickball. For the uninitiated, kickball is essentially baseball but you kick a bouncy ball instead of batting. However, as I said, none of the kids had ever played baseball so we needed to explain everything--what is a base, what are the bases called, which order do you run them, what's a foul, what's an out, etc--and do it before we lost everyone's attention.
The game actually started well although we did realize in the course of our play that we forgot a few key points, such as you can't actually pass the person in front of you as you run the bases, even if you are faster than him or her. Also the batting order is not to be renegotiated every inning, and players on the bench cannot kick the ball away from the catcher in an attempt to help their runner reach home plate. We had to move the second base, aka egg carton, about halfway through because it was getting lost in a mud pit. A few shoes (and one pair of glasses) came off in early innings until everyone got their kicking techniques perfected. All-in-all though, the match-up between Ashley's Wild Dogs and my Wildcats was a rousing success.
More pics are up on Picasa and I think you'll agree, we have one of the most scenic fields in all of sports. Our baseball equipment donation was approved and everything is in the mail, so next time we play kickball the kids will get to really run the bases and not egg cartons!
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