Life as a Missionary
It's been awhile since my last posting. I apologize but life has been a bit hectic.
One of the ways I manage to make a living directly through baseball is by contracting out my services in other areas of the game besides scouting. Some of those duties include things like coaching the Norwegian National team and performing other various forms of development work, primarily in Norway but from time to time in other countries.
One of the jobs I am working on now is through Major League Baseball International. I serve as something called an envoy. Essentially I go around and do baseball missionary type work for a 3 week stint. Currently I am in the back end of this tour of duty.
It's a great experience and the work is badly needed in Norway. One of our biggest problems at the moment is that we have such a low membership base. In most European countries they have a centralized means of organizing sport. So in every country there is a National baseball federation that is responsible for organizing the various leagues, assisting with funding and marketing the game. In Norway our small base means we have very few people to run our programs, so having an envoy provides us a great resource which is someone who has the time to spread the game.
I have been in a bunch of different schools throughout the country in the last couple of weeks. It is a ton of fun but pretty demanding work. I have to haul equipment with me on trains, planes, and busses to get it to some of the most remote places imagineable. Then I show people the game and work on establishing clubs through local contact people who show an interest.
The past 2 days I was in Kristiansand in southern Norway. I will be moving down there in a year so I have a direct motivation to get the game going and to develop a club. We got a lot of interest through the local media and I was even in a local news clip on television using my terrible broken Norwegian to teach some kids.
One thing I have noticed is that the kids here just don't have much coordination with their hands. From and an American perspective this is a difficult concept to grasp. But answer this question, if I throw a ball at you, any ball, how would you react? I imagine you would try to catch it. Well, most European kids respond by trying to stop it with their feet or chest, like a soccer ball. This isn't surprising, but it says a lot about how we need to teach the game.
I did notice however that when playing with my little Norwegian nephew I rolled him a ball. His reaction was not to kick it, but instead he picked it up and threw it. It leads me to beleive that their must be some innate connection between a baseball and throwing that needs to be explored and provides hope that they just might get the picture here.
Well, the season is underway so writing will be tough, but bare with me.
One of the ways I manage to make a living directly through baseball is by contracting out my services in other areas of the game besides scouting. Some of those duties include things like coaching the Norwegian National team and performing other various forms of development work, primarily in Norway but from time to time in other countries.
One of the jobs I am working on now is through Major League Baseball International. I serve as something called an envoy. Essentially I go around and do baseball missionary type work for a 3 week stint. Currently I am in the back end of this tour of duty.
It's a great experience and the work is badly needed in Norway. One of our biggest problems at the moment is that we have such a low membership base. In most European countries they have a centralized means of organizing sport. So in every country there is a National baseball federation that is responsible for organizing the various leagues, assisting with funding and marketing the game. In Norway our small base means we have very few people to run our programs, so having an envoy provides us a great resource which is someone who has the time to spread the game.
I have been in a bunch of different schools throughout the country in the last couple of weeks. It is a ton of fun but pretty demanding work. I have to haul equipment with me on trains, planes, and busses to get it to some of the most remote places imagineable. Then I show people the game and work on establishing clubs through local contact people who show an interest.
The past 2 days I was in Kristiansand in southern Norway. I will be moving down there in a year so I have a direct motivation to get the game going and to develop a club. We got a lot of interest through the local media and I was even in a local news clip on television using my terrible broken Norwegian to teach some kids.
One thing I have noticed is that the kids here just don't have much coordination with their hands. From and an American perspective this is a difficult concept to grasp. But answer this question, if I throw a ball at you, any ball, how would you react? I imagine you would try to catch it. Well, most European kids respond by trying to stop it with their feet or chest, like a soccer ball. This isn't surprising, but it says a lot about how we need to teach the game.
I did notice however that when playing with my little Norwegian nephew I rolled him a ball. His reaction was not to kick it, but instead he picked it up and threw it. It leads me to beleive that their must be some innate connection between a baseball and throwing that needs to be explored and provides hope that they just might get the picture here.
Well, the season is underway so writing will be tough, but bare with me.
posted by Andy Johnson at 11:37 PM
1 Comments:
Have you become a Monk???? How about some more new AJ.
Cheers from someone afar.
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