Who do the Angels root for? – a Baseball-Blog by John Miller

John Miller, head coach of the Brussels Kangaroos and a reporter for a major American newspaper, is chronicling his team’s 2008 season in a column that will appear every Monday on mister-baseball.com. It is the first of several Mister-Baseball Blogs this year.

This writer hopes that his baseball team’s woes won’t overwhelm the message and music of this column. Yes, we are now 0-8 after a sweep at the hands of the Namur Angels.

It’s almost sleep-deprivation territory. My wife has been patient. She’s offered me advice on better practices (small groups), leadership (be more organized) and intentional walks (dishonorable). Me, I’m filling up on self-doubt and half-formed ideas, but I’m hanging in there.

The Angels play on a windy diamond on the plains above Namur, a pleasant riverside city of 400,000 in Belgium’s south. The land belongs to a family whose kids got into baseball almost 20 years ago.
Those kids grew up and with some friends started a functional club that now has a squad in first division and a cadre of promising youth teams. The most talented and ambitious of their coaches is Chris Dassy, a one-man, titanium-tipped baseball-coaching weapon of mass destruction. He’s Bill James, Billy Beane and Tony LaRussa wrapped together into a tightly wound third baseman’s frame.

Chris played in Brussels for three years. He drove 40 minutes each way to practice. He spends winters analyzing American college leagues, seeking the best players to recruit. In January, he usually hits the American College Baseball Coaches’ convention, on the other side of the ocean. When he built a house for his family, he installed a weight room and a locker room for his collection of equipment and memorabilia. And so on.

I was looking forward to this weekend because Chris is now the head coach of the Angels’ first division squad. Not surprisingly, he’s doing a terrific job. On Saturday, we gave away too many extra outs early. We then had a meltdown in the 7th and ceded ten runs. Final score: 19-6.

On Sunday, we played much better. Cedric carried a 6-4 lead into the 9th. After a leadoff bunt base hit I went to Vincent, our shortstop. The sequence: error, wild pitch, intentional walk, wild pitch, intentional walk, single, ballgame. We had lost a heart breaker. I was proud of the guys, but the truth is that we should have put the game away in the last three innings. Up 6-3 after six, our offense stopped scoring. We let them hang around and got burned.

I drove north back to Brussels, disappointed but not disillusioned. The stars today were all teenagers: Cedric the pitcher, Vincent our 3-for-4 shortstop and catcher Victor, who threw a guy out and got a hit.
Years ago, parked on the left side of a dugout bench in college, I used to think baseball might be fun if: a) I were playing b) it was warm c) our team was winning. The stubborn sun made me 1-for-3 this weekend, but you really need two hits to have a good day.

Who’s the biggest baseball nut you know? I wanna know at oldworldpastime@gmail.com

Previous Columns:
Playing and Coaching in Europe
My Country, Delayed by Rain
Wanted: Pitcher-Shortstop-Catcher With Homerun Power
Wanna play catch?
Can I see your license?
All Success is not equal
Baseball in the (very early) morning