Dirk Fries Diary: Tired but happy
Dirk Fries, pitcher of the German National Team and the Cologne Cardinals, will give us a daily report about his time at the Final Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Taiwan.
Monday 10th
Every game is special while we are here. For one because it is so important in itself, and also because of its own little peculiar reason. Yesterdays´ game was different because it was against the tournament’s host country, and against Spain because we owed them from our past encounters. And today was special because quite a few of our guys have gone down to South Africa to play over winter, just as their players have come up to play in the BUNDESLIGA. So their are some existent friendships as well as a certain familiarity between some of the players. I myself have played against South African second baseman BRETT WILLEMBURG, when he played for the now defunct COLOGNE DODGERS. Also well known is JONATHAN PHILLIPS, who played with MARKUS WINKLER, ROBERT GRUBER and SIMON GUEHRING during his time with the HEIDENHEIM HEIDEKÖPFE.
It was weird playing in the same stadium as yesterday because the circumstances and surroundings were so different. We went from a noisy sell-out crowd back to about 50 quiet spectators. This time you could actually hear the commands and cheers from both dugouts. It was a totally different atmosphere. Just this change of scenery posed a challenge to our team. You needed to remind yourself of the great importance of the game, even though it felt more like playing a backyard baseball game compared to the Chinese Taipei game. Another challenge was playing for the fourth straight day. It’s really harder to focus and concentrate, especially for the position guys, when you feel tired and running and throwing don’t come as easy as on day one.
And as a matter of fact, it showed in our performance. I’m not trying to take away anything from our opponent, but especially in the first part of the game, we played flat. As coach FRADY mentioned after the game we just didn’t have the same energy as the day before. I cannot trace it back to anything specific, but you could really sense it in the dugout. We needed a wake-up call, and after it came we answered. We were much louder and more aggressive late in the game, and were able to turn the game around, earning the much-needed win. MANNY MOELLER got the start, but didn’t have his best stuff.
He was replaced by MARTIN ALMSTETTER after four innings but South African was leading 3-1. Kai Gronauer drove in a run before we levelled the score in the 7th. MITCH FRANKE drove in SASCHA LUTZ through a sac fly, and ANDY JANZEN executed a perfect squeeze to score SIMON GUEHRING. Then in the 8th we were able to take the lead. Team South Africa threatened in the 8th and 9th, getting runners to 2nd base with two outs. But they failed to score, which meant that we now own a 2-2 record, and are still in the picture for 3rd place. It really was hard work to win today. But it feels good knowing that we came away as a winner even while not playing at out best.
Tomorrow we have a day off. We’ll have a light practice to stay in rhythm. But nothing to taxing, because we can use some rest. Maybe we’ll take some time to explore the city of TAICHUNG. So far, we haven’t seen much other than the hotel, the baseball fields and the nearby 7-11 convenience store.
