Göteborg Baseboll

Windshield wipers were working the entire two-hour drive up to Skövde and Hajarna players wagered as to the odds of actually playing Saturday’s quarterfinal match in the Swedish Cup. But, by the time Gothenburg arrived in at the field the rain had stopped and nay-sayers were now tying their shoelaces and getting ready to play nine innings of baseball.

Coming off of two losses last week against Vidingsjö, Gothenburg’s Sharks were ready to come out fighting to change the tide of their recent defeats. As opposed to the two weekends previous, the team was in full force with a line-up lead-off to number nine that could rip the ball.

As Skövde took the field in the top of the first inning, mother nature decided water her flowers. The showers were not too heavy and so came the first pitch. Strike one to Sharks new lead-off man Curtis Dionne. The next pitch was also a strike, but this time Dionne swung and drove a hard line drive into the left-field corner for a ground-rule-double. Nice start…and trust me, it was just a start.
A bit shaken by Curtis’ hard smash Skövde Saint’s starting pitcher threw two quick balls to Sharks Andreas Wahlin. Wahlin with help of cheering from Gothenburg’s bench and some good foul balls worked a ten pitch walk.

With runners on first and second base, number three hitter Mattias Niklasson layed down a nice 1-0 sacrifice bunt to move the runners over to second and third. With nice hustle, Niklasson almost beat the throw to first. This would be the only out the Saints would earn all day.

What happened next?

Long story short:

Jonny Edgren walks…bases loaded.
Tobias Angser beats out a dribbler that gets by the pitcher and second-baseman throws in the dirt past first…two runs score. (2-0)
Rookie third baseman Leonardo de Mexico hits a solid, two-strike base hit to left scoring Edgren from third (3-0)
Johan Weidolf walks on five pitches. Bases loaded.
Rain comes down harder. Umpires call time and the teams return to the dugouts for about 10 minutes.
The showers subside.
Skövde change pitchers.
Andy Vanecek hits a would-be double down the left-field line. Two runs score. (5-0)
Catcher Daniel Ibarra is hit in the helmet with a slow curve ball. Bases loaded.
Curtis Dionne, up again, is hit in the back on what looked to be an intentional hit. Run scores. (6-0)
Wahlin drives a base-hit to right, Vanecek and Ibarra score (8-0). Dionne is thrown out after rounding third a bit too long.
Wahlin is thrown out stealing second. Bad jump.

Then came the incompetence.

After throwing his warm-up tosses, Martin Pennycook and the rest of the Sharks are stunned as the base umpire runs out of Skövde’s dugout and screams that the game is post-poned due to the weather. The rain wasn’t even coming down that hard!

The day wasn’t even an hour old and the umpires called off the game because they thought they knew how the weather was going to be the rest of the day! I have lived here for three years and I can promise that not even the cute little Norweigian weather-lady on the TV news can say for certain how the weather in Sweden is going to behave.

A poor job of umpiring, not the rain, wash out Gothenburgs electric first inning!

But, as they say in Swedish, “dömt är dömt” (which is a really short and effective way of saying “whatever the umpire has decided even if is complete crap, is already decided and you can’t do shit about it”) Guess Gothenburg will just have to do again someday when the sun is shining!