Venezuela 3 - The Ball Game

Being in a location in which you are not wanted can be a very unpleasant place to be. It's even worse when you are out of the country and away from your family. That was San Diego in the state of Carabobo, Venezuela. What had been a lazy farming town was now a busy industrial town due to oil. The locals resented foreigners, we were carpetbaggers in their eyes. In a sense, I guess we were. We were bringing change and most long time residents didn't like it.

This was the fourth time we had built this same test facility for Creole International, the second time using metric in lieu of British units. Luther Borgston taught me in Borneo to think in metric and stop doing conversions in my head. Building this building did get easier when I took his advice.

Another thing that made this job easier was I kept the same sub contractors and suppliers from the project in Borneo except for the plumber. The plumber was local and was the only local contractor to give us a bid. With my broken Spanish we worked out the numbers so he got the project and to this day I believe he was grateful.

Americans had the dirt, concrete and carpentry portions of the project. South Koreans had the steel erection. The electric was contracted to a company in South Africa and the HVAC to a company in England. All these companies came together to build a little ten thousand square foot test facility in record time.

Being out of town and away from home the work schedule tends to be long. The trick is not so long that you slack up on safety and get sloppy. This particular job, we worked five twelve hour days and one eight hour. We would take Sundays off unless we were rained out more than one day. Our goal was to get the job done and go home.

Americans had the dirt, concrete and carpentry portions of the project. South Koreans had the steel erection. The electric was contracted to a company in South Africa and the HVAC to a company in England. All these companies came together to build a little ten thousand square foot test facility.

After the trouble at the bar, none of the men ventured back into town to have a night out. They had their beer in camp. Sundays was the only day they ventured out and that was to the local school grounds to play softball.

Several locals would come out to watch but not to partake. The younger ones would taunt about not really playing a real game. My men tried to get them to join us but they looked at slow pitch softball as a woman's game. They would only play a man's game of baseball. One Sunday afternoon a few locals came around and challenged us to a game of baseball. Luther told them that they had better watch what they asked for. They held pat and the challenge was on. They gave us a couple of weeks to get ready which was their mistake.

Luther told the boys that baseball was my game and for a few years had managed a high school aged baseball team. Getting onto site the next day Luther told me of the challenge. Having my doubts since I didn't think anyone played baseball after high school or before. The second thought was it may be good for community relations which we greatly needed.

With Mr. Lee and his South Koreans, we had fourteen at our first practice. Not one pitcher among us. The only thing that went right was the hitting show I put on. The pitcher would deliver me a fat one I would take it long, he throw inside, I'd take it to the opposite field, and if he throw outside, I'd take it again to the opposite field. It was obvious that fielding was not my problem, it was throwing. The team had the same problem.

At sixteen, I had a pretty good career ahead of me in baseball, at seventeen, I threw out my arm, all I could do is hit. Granted I could still throw, it just didn't pop like before. So I planted myself at first base a position in which throwing was limited.

Mr. Lee came though with a pretty good pitcher in his organization, a kid that could throw a ninety mile an hour fast ball. He didn't have any junk pitches but his speeds was fast and faster.

Have you ever seen “Major League, Back to the Minors”? Doc was a little like me. I could throw a round house curve, a slider and the all purpose knuckle ball. With one practice, this kid picked up a knuckle ball to use as a change up. It worked about one out of four times, the other three was spinners with a speed of about seventy in lieu of ninety miles an hour. Not a bad change up.

We scored first in the first inning. They tied it up in the third and went ahead in the fourth. We scored two in the sixth to go ahead.

Still leading in the ninth, it came down to the last three outs. The first batter walked, the second hit to third. The third baseman bobbled and they had men on first and second. The next man struck out.

One out with men on first and second. The fifth man up in the inning hit a sharp ball to Mr. Lee at short. He flipped to second but we couldn't get the double play.

Two out men on first and third, I called time out to make sure everyone knew the signals. Their cleanup hitter was coming up next. The first pitch was a ball. The second was a strike. The third was a ball. The fourth pitch was a bunt down third base line that went foul. He hit two more foul balls.

I knew he was expecting the knuckle ball that was a more or less a spinning change up. The pitcher shook off the next pitch, all I could do is shake my head. I knew the game was over.

What happen next was too good to be true. The knuckle ball worked and the bottom dropped out of it. He could have swung twice at it and to this day I still it see it in slow motion. No one could have thrown a knuckle ball better.

After winning the first game, we never won another. A game was played every Sunday for the next five. The stands probably held a couple hundred, it was standing room only. There were times we didn't have enough players so they loaned us some. We played on and everybody had a great time and we started going back into town again. Community relations was mended by a ball game.