Living for a week on New Zealand Time

The International Softball Federation World Championships were held in New Zealand last week. It was broadcast on the internet as a pay-per-view. I got a little confused about how to pay and what it cost. Fortunately, I got a nice email from the lady running the show telling me that I had overpaid and would get a few days of free viewing.

I watched the tournament every day for 10 days. I especially enjoyed seeing my friend Matt Roy hit lead off for Canada and have a lot of great at bats. He must have had a great on base average.

The funny thing was that the tourament was live from New Zealand time which is 18 hours ahead of us. So the games started at 5 pm and ran continuously until 4 am. For a week, I was up all night and slept all day. I was also confused about what day it was because the tournament schedule was listed aas their day which is the next day to us. The tournament ended on Sunday their time and Saturday our time.

It was also funny that Barb got involved in watching the playoffs with me. She got very excited a couple of times.

In the semi-finals, the Australian coach started his second string pitcher because he thought they would easily beat the Venezuelan team. The second string pitcher allowed three runs in the first two innings before the coach put in his best pitcher. The Australians never scored and they lost because the coach was over-confident.

In the finals, Barb got upset at some calls by the umpire and the fact that the umpire was trying to control the game instead of letting the players play. One time the pitcher didn't like the ball he had to use and asked for a new ball. The umpire wouldn't let him have one because he said they were delaying the game. Then the pitcher, umpire, catcher and coach got into a long argument that delayed that game much more than if the umpire had just let the pitcher have another ball. The next pitch hit the batter. So he got on base. The next batter almost struck out looking but the umpire called, what looked to us and the Venezuelan pitcher as the third strike, a ball. Then he walked that batter. The next batter hit a three run homerun and that homerun decided the game.  The home team, New Zealand, won the tournament.