The Naturale

The Naturale Originally uploaded by Gelatomettista2.

[continued]

Upon returning to San Diego, I celebrated on the true day of my birthday with my family. Then, weeks later, when I returned to Italy (this was when I was still living abroad for a year), my friends there completely surprised the hell of me by renting out the local field of dreams so we could play ball under the lights and even grill burgers and dogs at the stadium (think minor league or college stadium complete with bleachers, night lights and dining facilities).

They knew of my love for the game, and with great stealth and secrecy, they managed to get almost every single Italian I had met from all over the country to come up for the game. Now, nearly all of them had never played the game before and had no clue or concept on how to but that made that day and night just that more incredible and memorable.

In the pic above, the one Italian player who had some previous playing time is pitching to one of my teammates who didn't realize you could bat with both hands. What you don't see is that there are over 15 players in the outfield (well, actually all in the infield as only a few players had the ability to knock it out past the pitcher's mound) and still, the score ended up being 17-15 (Partigani vs the Erbazzoni) in just 6 innings.

Someday we will return for a rematch.