Wednesday, June 27, 2007

From Anthony Pastrick

The last couple days in Prague have not only given our team a chance to experience another culture but it has also given us our own little taste of what Olympic competition is like.

Today we had some extra time before we played the Czech national team.
This gave us some time to head to Old Town Prague and explore. We took some time and walked through the historic streets and buildings, but one of the best parts was crossing the Charles Bridge. The view was incredible...the pictures that we took would not do it justice.

After sightseeing, we traveled to the baseball complex to take on the Czech national team. There was a lot of hype and excitement for this game. The stands were full and to add to the excitement and meaning of the game we were honored to have the United States ambassador throw out the first pitch. That was the point that it really hit me that we weren't just playing to represent Hope College, we had the chance to represent the United States of America in our country's national pasttime...baseball.

The trip has been great so far, an experience of a lifetime...and we are only half way through.

Anthony Pastrick

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

From Co-captain Mike VanderVelde and Michael Dekker

Hello from Praha,

We hope all is well with everyone in and around the world who has been checking up on the Hope Sports website. The baseball team has been having a great time so far on our trip. Sunday we all rested and began to learn some of the culture. Monday we were able to take a tour around the Centre, which is downtown Prague. We spent the morning checking out places like the Jewish Museum and a World War II Jewish cemetery. We have learned lots about the interesting culture and the tragic Holocaust period here in Prague. One particular thing that was interesting was that the city would and should have been completely crushed during the Holocaust by Hitler and the Nazis but instead, Hitler maintained this city due to its beauty.

Then after the tour we had an exhibition game that we played against the Swedish team. They were blonde and big! We however played fairly and pitched extremely well. We won 5-0 on some timely hitting.

That brings us to Tuesday. We had an early game at noon against the Russian team from Moscow. We were at the field two hours before preparing for the game while the Russian's showed up five minutes prior ready to play. We came out and played very well. Beating them 10-0 in a 10 run rule that ended after 7 innings. This evening we will be heading downtown to eat at some unique places and spend more quality time learning about the culture of Praha!!!

Stayed tuned for more updates.

Michael VanderVelde
Michael Dekker