Blogging
From Abroad

A semester abroad is always an immersion in a foreign culture. And especially in the United States culture includes sports. Yesterday I had my first contact with a pretty weird game, absolutely unknown in Austria called “Baseball”.

How come? I am working for the Division of Forestry in the wood-workshop. And one of my colleagues, Collin, is a big – I mean really big – fan of the Philadelphia Phillies. Every day I met him, he was very excited about the team and the games which he is watching in a local sports-bar. As I wanted to learn more about this sport which is in my humble opinion an integral party of American culture I asked him, if I could accompany him at his next visit in the sports bar.

No sooner said than done, we met yesterday in the Sports-Page on high street, a place with a TV:table relation of about 1:1 ;) . The game took about 3 hours which allowed me to bother Collin often enough with questions like “Why didn’t he hit the ball now?” “Why is that guy not running?” “How many innings in total?” or “Why does the game start at 8:22?” so that his answers gave me a pretty good overview. I think, I understand the basic principles of the game, and the longer the match was going on, the more thrilled I was by the action taking place.

As a matter of fact, the Phillies won 5:1 allowing them to proceed to the World Series. And Matt (another enthusiastic Phillies Fan) and Collin were besides themselves with joy. And I am a bit infected with the Baseball-Virus and am looking very forward to next week, when I keep my fingers crossed for the Phillies in the World Series.