all-stars on the fourth of july

July 4, 20131 Comment

I just got back from my son’s little league t-ball All-Star Game. It’s the second time he has taken part, and it was a very hot July 4th Independence Day morning. Very humid too, unusual for Davis. We are in the middle of a really strong heatwave out here in the Western US, and we’ve had temperatures of between 100-111 (or more, some reported) for the past week. That scuppered some of the afternoon practice sessions, but the all-star game itself, made up of kids from various different teams, was early enough not to be in the scorching heat. I felt sorry for some of the older kids. Afterwards we went over for the pancake breakfast.

Happy 4th of July!

littlest league

March 23, 20131 Comment

My son is playing t-ball again this year, for the second time. T-ball is little league baseball for the very young. They don’t keep score, play two or three innings, everyone gets a chance to learn. I sketched a little at his second game of the season – he plays for the Diamondbacks. He’s an old hand now of course! Sketched on a sunny early evening at Community Park, Davis, in my Moleskine diary. Not easy to sketch these types of things, especially the bit where he was about to bat, but fun trying to capture it quickly. Fun memories!

if there’s a bright centre to the universe…

September 13, 2011September 15, 2011Leave a comment

Last weekend, we went on a family trip to the ballgame. It was both mine and my son’s first San Francisco Giants game, though my wife and her mom (big Giants fans) had been earlier in the season, when things had been going a little better for the Giants. This game however was crucial – playing the Arizona Diamondbacks, who were leading in the division, and being several games behind we really needed to win. But that didn’t matter – it was Star Wars day, and the Force would be with us!

Which side of the force was less clear. Stormtroopers escorted the umpires out, mascot Lou Seal dressed as a jedi and waved about a lightsabre, and the opening crawl on the big screen set the scene, hoping that the Giants would beat Arizona and ‘restore freedom to the galaxy’. I love Star Wars, so I loved all this. And maxibig-da-force – the first pitch to the Giants resulted in a home run straight away from Cody Ross, and the ballpark went wild. AT&T Park is a great place. Set right by San Francisco Bay, it’s one of the great stadia of the world. Behind the seat, in the ‘breezeway’ (I think I have my terminology correct, my reference is a Curious George book) are rows and rows of beverage stands and souvenir shops and beer and garlic fries and t-shirts and TVs showing the action.

"imperial troops have entered the base! imperial troops have ---"

My three year old son is a big baseball fan, though we’re on about the same page in our understanding of all the terms. It’s a simple enough game, someone throws the ball and you hit it and run, complicated by all the subtleties and statistics and terms. There’s a lot of standing around and not-much-happening, but to the baseball fan it’s tense stuff, and while there’s ample time to get up and walk around and get your garlic fries, you really don’t want to miss that three-run-homer or that spectacular catch. It’s typical to compare a big sport to the big sport you follow, but baseball is a completely different type of game to football (and I know little enough about cricket, though I kept calling the pitcher the ‘bowler’, and shouting ‘howzat!’ every time someone caught the ball). No comparison there may be to footy, but being a Giants fan is a lot like being a Spurs fan. Last year we were World Series champions/beating both Inter and AC Milan, this year we’re losing by baseball scores. It’s a frustrating life, made more so by success.

There’s my son Luke above left, and my brother in law Kris on the right, the biggest Giants fan I know. He in fact took me to my only other baseball game, at the Oakland A’s, back in 2002, the first time I came to America and the first time I tasted garlic fries. I wore a Spurs shirt that day, but here I wore a Giants top. I did however spot a guy in an Arsenal shirt (he stood out a bit); after the previous week’s 8-2 drubbing by Man United, baseball scores probably felt a little light to him. Hey, you can’t let an 8-2 Arsenal defeat go without comment, can you? (And after Spurs lost 5-1 to Man City, it was pretty much the only thing that could cheer me up!)

first page of moleskine #9 under way... top of the ninth, you might say

Decorating the breezeway walls were framed examples of old Giants kits. As a football kit fan I’m hugely excited by baseball jerseys, since they are so classic, and (usually) so unchanging. This one is from the early 60s, and the differences to today’s tops are very subtle. This aspect of the sport adds to its classic Americana feel. Baseball loves its heritage, and the Giants especially, with statues of its great players dotted around the area. Below is Willie McCovey, beside McCovey Cove, where many home runs do splash (it’s not like Henman Hill). I can’t pretend to know much about these guys, but I will say this – what an amazing view, with the Bay Bridge in the background, and baseball players really do look like lightsabre-wielding Jedi, don’t they?

The Force alas was not with us. The Arizona D-Backs (seriously, the fans sing that?) won the game, and will probably win the division. As Vader might say, “NOOOOOO!!!!!” (and don’t EVEN get me started there…) But we had a great day out, and Luke ran the bases after the game, and I got some nice sketching in, and it was a great family day out, so in a way we did win, from a certain point of view.

much more important than that

May 1, 20101 Comment

I never thought I’d see the day. A couple of weeks ago, I bought the England away shirt, the new Umbro ‘tailored’ kit in red. I’ve never bought an England shirt before, but this one is nice. I live in America now, so I can wear it without getting the urge to throw chairs. I am getting ready for the summer, when I will be following the South Africa World Cup. For those who aren’t aware I am World Cup crazy, and have been since I was a kid. I watched the last one on the Mexican stations, but this time I have upgraded to the English-speaking sports channels, which means I’ll nderstand when they talk stats, but will have to provide my own exclamations of“goooooooooooollll!!!!!”.

But before the summer of World cup, there’s a week of highly exciting Premier League left. It’s between Man U and Chelsea for the title, but for me it’s all about my own team Tottenham, and that fourth Champions League spot. If you’d have told me at the start of the season that Spurs would be in fourth place with a week to go I’d have said you were nuts. Well we have to thank that guy on the left there, Harry Redknapp, Tottenham’s manager (drawn in my football journal-cum-sketchbook). That could all change in the next couple of hours of course, and we have to beat (or not lose to) Man City, so I am still expecting us to throw it away again. Even if we do, we haven’t been below 6th all year and that is incredible. Come on you Spurs!

Over in France meanwhile, the team I followed when I lived there, Olympique Marseille, are set for their first title since the early 90s when they dominated and then exploded in match-fixing disgrace. Again, I’m still expecting that familiar capitulation but I’m hopeful for l’OM. Besides, my other old favourite equipe, Auxerre, are right behind them. Lyon’s time is over, and Bordeaux have lost it. Allez allez!

“Football football football football football. What you men see in it I don’t know. A load of men kicking a bit of leather around a field. You men, the things you think are great fun.” (Mrs. Doyle, Father Ted)

bravely ran away, away

August 26, 2009September 3, 20092 Comments

When I was in my teens, I learned to run. My mate Terry was really into running at the time and so he always wanted to run around the park after school. My dad, and I don’t quite know why, got a running machine at home, put it in the living room, and I used it to practice. And I got quite quick. Not as quick as Terry, but pretty quick. At sports day I would usually do pretty well, in the 100 metres anyway – I didn’t have the stamina for much else, except 200m. Oh, and the javelin. I tended to get lucky in that I’d race against really slow people too. I obviously won enough races that the sports teacher picked me for the athletics team one time, to race at Copthall in the 100 metres sprint. I think Terry may have had something to do with it. I was about 14. Everyone I was racing against was at least 16. Even though I was just as tall as most of them, I felt tiny. You never know, I told myself. Maybe the Force will be with me. And then they bolted. Sure, I gave it my best shot, but contrary to lying cartoons the tortoise does not beat the hare, came a woeful last. Oh well. I went back to the art class, and never raced again.

I don’t run any more, don’t exercise much at all.

#22 of 30. Incidentally, I have decided to name this series “I hold my pen in an unusual way”, after the first (and most appropriate) entry.

non-sports fans, turn away now (and sports fans too)

October 10, 2007June 18, 2010Leave a comment

I’m officially disappointed with sport. I blame Mystic Pete, naturally, for jinxing everything. Tottenham, what the hell is going on?? what the hell? And letting Arsenal go top? I apologize on behalf of Mystic Pete (who is unavailable to comment, of course).

And the Rugby…yes, they did remarkably well, but this week isn’t England’s. Mystic Pete to his credit said they’d probably lose, but was still disappointed. I bet there were a lot of four-year olds called Jonny who weren’t too happy, either.

Quite a time if your name’s McLaren, too. I’m sure the England footy manager was crucified, I’m in no doubt of that. Now they’re very unlikely to go to euro 2008, and play in Bern’s Wankdorf stadium (they’ll just be Pissdorf at home). And Scotland, conquerors of France, they go and lose to Georgia, or Alabama or whoever it was. Now they have to beat Italy, world champions. As for my two Irelands, well my beloved Republic were just awful, but the North, my granddad’s land, were amazing, and mathematically (i only in fantasy world) they can still qualify…

Lewis, you did bloody well for your first year in Formula 1, and at least your pouting team-mate didn’t pip it from you. but I knew that would happen, I’ve used those same tactics in the final race of Super Mario Kart against my brother, leave a green shell here, a banana skin there, win all the points at the end.

And Celtic, losing to 3-0 to Rangers, despite having beaten mighty Milan (whose goalkeeper Dida coincidentally studied his at DIDA, the Dirty Institute of Dramatic Art).

Grrr. One consolation to all of this – I live in America, which is blissfully unaware of any of these events. “Rugby World Cup? rugby has a world cup? Formula 1, that’s a type of toothpaste isn’t it? Steve McLaren? Oh yeah, that guy should not be in charge of the england soccer team…”

Originally posted at 20six.co.uk/petescully

Week Twenty-Five: It’s a Funny Old Game

March 21, 2006June 11, 2010Leave a comment

Boy, do I have a red face. Well, half a red face. We went to a college softball match on Sunday, and the midday sun beating down on my left side left me looking like a Feyenoord shirt. To top it off, my Harry Potter-esque scar now glows an ominous purple. After a week of rain, the clouds have finally parted, and it took me by surprise. Either that or Lord Voldemort has moved to Sacramento.

The softball was fun; it was women’s college softball, Princeton vs Nevada. It’s a bit like baseball, except the ball is different (and it ain’t soft, as anyone who ever encountered one at school has ever found out). We sat right behind the batting area, behind the high fence where I thought we would be safe from errant balls. I thought wrong; never mind a sun-hat, I could have done with a helmet, the amount of slices that came our way. All in all though, it was good, wholesome American fun. Princeton absolutely trashed Nevada, despite Nevada’s best efforts to put them off with some bizarre, possibly sectarian team chanting. I half expected them to be standing around a cauldron.

Speaking of sport, local NBA team Sacramento Kings are having an exciting run of form. I managed to watch their televised game against the LA Lakers last week, which despite the clash of purple polyester was a pretty great showdown. The Kings eventually won fairly comfortably, with Ron Artest winning a battle of wits against Kobe Bryant, and Mike Bibby scoring some cheeky three-pointers. Are you impressed I remember all the names? Well, I had to look them up.

And I have decided that I will watch as much of this summer’s World Cup Deutschland 2006 on Mexican TV. I caught a match on Saturday between, um, two Mexican teams (one of them was called ‘Tigres’, I caught that) and I was reminded of how much more fun it is listening to Latin American commentators when somebody scores. Motson, Pearce, Gubba, Davies… you guys just cannot pull off the famous cry of…

GOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!