2022 High School Trip - Daily Reports
Condensed Daily Reports are listed below.
Days 1 and 2
First, thanks for everyone's patience and attention before and during the Delta Terminal Dance Friday afternoon. Everyone got to the (final) designated meeting point and boarded the flight successfully. To help make up for the inconvenience earlier in the day, the airline arranged for a nearly 2 hour delay on the tarmac, allowing for a fuller night of sleep before landing in Prague!
The team landed in rain and boarded our private bus to the Michelangelo Hotel in the city center. After a short break to shower and change, Stephan and Alan Dean (our strength coach and trainer, who fills the same role for Great Britain Baseball) led a walk over the famous Charles Bridge, to the Lennon Wall, and then to the funicular to climb the rise above the Volta river to Petrin Tower. Petrin Tower offers the best views in Prague with an overview of the city and beyond. After climbing the 299 tower steps, everyone trudged down the hill and back across the bridge before settling into our first of many large, traditional meals from each region. The walk paired with several pieces of schnitzel and roasted veggies put everyone in position to return to the hotel and sleep deeply.
The rain has continued to stay away for the afternoon and evening here, and it seems we'll be able to start our game schedule as planned Sunday morning. We play the Czech national u23 team at 11am (7 innings), then the Czech u18 team at 2pm(also 7 innings).
We're glad that the excitement of air travel is behind us, and we're off to a good start exploring and bonding as a team.
Day 3
We followed 6 miles of walking on arrival day with 6 hours of baseball on our first full day in Europe. We defeated the Czech U23 team 11-10 in Game 1, hanging on to the win by our fingernails after blowing a large lead with a cavalcade of walks and hit batsmen in the bottom of the last inning. Notable performances in Game 1 included 2 hits for each of Aiden Armstrong (including a singer), Jack Vnenchak and Cooper Bowen, and solid pitching outings from JT Glasgow and Jacob Posner.
The walks and hit batsmen were contagious and carried over into Game 2 against the Czech 18U team, which began with a 6-1 lead for OWB but ended with a 12-10 loss. Fatigue mounted in the hot conditions as the free passes piled up and the hours passed, but we still had the tying run on base when the game came to an end. Notable Game 2 performances included 2 hits each for Bowen (again) and James Weber, and a couple of quality innings from Dan Bass on the bump.
We learned today that we have a talented group, and it will be fun to see what we can do against Germany on Tuesday after 48 hours away from the field.
After a hotel stop to shower and change, we went to a Brazilian rodizio in Old Town for an enormous meat feast, at which Aidan O’Sullivan and Alec Skriloff demonstrated particularly strong eating prowess. Dinner was followed by a stroll through Old Town Square and a little free time, with the team having a chance to sleep in a bit tomorrow morning before we get rolling again.
Day 4
We took full advantage of our last (hot and humid) half day in Prague with a guide-led walking tour and a couple of hours of independent exploration time. Our tour focused on Old Town Square and Prague’s Jewish Quarter, with our guide providing a poignant reminder that we must understand history in order to learn from it, which was particularly well-timed given that our next stop is Nuremberg (i.e., the site, among other things, of Hitler’s massive Nazi Party rallies and the post-war Nuremberg trials).
After the tour, we distributed lunch money and the players split up into smaller groups to find food and explore a bit more on their own. By 3:00, we boarded our bus for the nearly 4-hour ride to Nuremberg, followed by a stroll from Nuremberg castle through the Altstadt to dinner at Kopernikus, a traditional German restaurant with a lively Biergarten atop the old city wall. Intermittent rain began while we were finishing our schnitzels, etc, but we still took a post-dinner stroll and saw a bit of the city without getting completely drenched (only a little soggy).
Tomorrow, we plan to do a quick morning stop at the Nazi rally grounds before getting on the road to Heidenheim, the location of our 2 scheduled games against the German 18U national team and our base for the next 2 nights. En route to Heidenheim, we’ll break for lunch in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, perhaps the best-preserved medieval city in Germany.
Day 5
Today involved 3 cities, 1 birthday and 1 ballgame. We began the day in Nuremberg with a somber visit to the unfinished Nazi Congress Hall and the Zeppelin Tribune, site of some of the largest pre-WWII Nazi rallies. It was a poignant follow-up to yesterday’s tour of the Prague Jewish Quarter. On that note, below is a link to an explanation of the “Stolpersteine”, shown in one of the photos attached to yesterday’s team email, as well as a link to a video showing the Allies’ destruction of the swastika atop the Zeppelin Tribune.
https://www.stolpersteine.eu/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FTodK24KG6E
We then proceeded to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a charming, very well-preserved town on Germany’s “Romantic Road”, where we had a long, but excellent Italian lunch, capped by tiramisu for Jack Vnenchak’s 17th birthday. It seems to us as if many of the OWB players would like to return some day to Rothenburg with their significant others.
Our next and final stop was Heidenheim, where we defeated a strong German 18U team 10-8 in a hard-fought game. Our pitching was much-improved (with Jacob Posner having a strong outing and Dan Bass pitching 4+ stellar innings), and we ran the bases well and got some timely hits and productive outs. Heidenheim has one of the best baseball facilities in Germany, and the host club made a nice event out of our game. We finished the evening breaking bread with our German opponents, whom we’ll see again at 3pm tomorrow.
Day 6
The forecasted rain fortunately held off for the duration of our morning/early afternoon visit to Ulm, where we climbed almost 400 steps to the 70 meter high viewing area in the Ulmer Munster. The Ulmer Munster is the tallest church in the world (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulm_Minster), but we couldn’t climb all the way to the top due to ongoing repairs. Following some free time in Ulm with a chance for the team to explore the outdoor market and find lunch in small groups, we returned to the Heidenheim ballpark for Game 2 against the German 18U team, who prevailed 9-5. Max Brunngraber, JT Glasgow, Alex Shane, and Aidan O'Sullivan all pitched effectively, allowing seven hits combined in nine innings. Alex Shane also had two hits, while Louis Friedrich, Anthony Gross, and Adrien Armstrong each had an RBI. Alex Glasscock scored the tying run in the sixth inning all the way from first base on a broken pick-off attempt, before the Germans retook the lead.
After dinner, we had a traditional Swabian meal at our hotel, then some time to enjoy a peaceful evening in relatively sleepy Heidenheim.
Tomorrow is our longest travel day, as we’ll traverse much of France on our way to Ghent, Belgium. We won’t waste the day, however, as we’ll have a long lunch stop in Strasbourg en route.
Day 7
We spent many hours on the bus today traveling from Heidenheim to Ghent, but the benefit of this route was the opportunity to add extra countries to this trip. Strasbourg is a spectacular French city in the Alsace-Lorraine region, and we spent 3 warm midday hours there lunching and strolling through the Grande Ile and the picturesque Petite-France district (https://www.visitstrasbourg.fr/en/discover/must-see-attractions/the-petite-france/).
Three hours after Strasbourg, we stopped at a Luxembourg rest area for a prescribed 15-minute break for Bart, our bus driver. This gave us the chance to buy snacks and/or pay for the use of a toilet, thus allowing us to say we went shopping in Luxembourg. After another four hours, we finished the long drive to Ghent, arriving in time for a late pizza dinner and a little night exploration of the city center surrounding our hotel (which is across the street from the cathedral). For the remainder of the trip, Ghent will be our base (ie, no more hotel changes), and tomorrow we’ll take a short ride to the outskirts of Antwerp to play the Belgian 18U team at the Royal Greys’ club facility.
Day 8
We left our hotel at 9:15 this morning for a single game in Antwerp against Belgium 18U and returned at 5:00 with a 24-2 win in hand. This edition of the Belgian team wasn’t strong, but we had over 20 hits (including 4 from each of Alex Shane and Matt Eichner) and pitched effectively. Shane blasted a long home run and knocked another one off the wall. Jacob Posner gave us 4 good innings on the hill, and then a few position players got in on the pitching action and acquitted themselves well (Anthony Gross, Jack Vnenchak and Alec Skriloff). Not to be outdone, all of our pitchers got a chance to hit and/or play a position, with Max Brunngraber and JT Glasgow each getting solid hits and Dan Webb gunning a runner at home on a throw from RF. The game finally came to a merciful end on a stellar defensive play by James Weber at short.
After a clubhouse meal at the Royal Greys’ facility with plenty of frites, we returned to Ghent for some pre-dinner free time and a copious spaghetti dinner at De Kastart (https://www.dekastart.be/en/eat). Dinner was followed by a little more free time in Ghent’s historic city center and lights-out. Tomorrow, given the previously-announced schedule change, we are playing a noon doubleheader against the top-level Belgian club Merchtem Cats at their facility: J. Stallaertstraat 50, 1785 Merchtem, Belgium.
Day 9
We played our last games of the trip today, under bright sunny skies at the pristine Merchtem Cats’ multi-field facility outside of Brussels. The Cats are a middle-of-the-pack team in the Belgian “major” league, comprised mostly of Belgian players from a wide age range plus a pitcher-shortstop-catcher from the US, and they have the nicest field in Belgium. Game 1 ended in an unsatisfying 4-4 tie, with our umpire vetoing the concept of extra innings. Our pitchers struck out 16 in Game 1, with Alex Shane K’ing 11 in 4+ innings. Game 2 was a 12-1 victory for the good guys, with our bats coming alive (Anthony Gross, Cooper Bowen, Matt Eichner and Connor Nicolas each had multiple hits). Aidan O’Sullivan and Dan Bass combined to complete the 7-inning game, with 11 Ks, 0 BBs and only 3 hits, thus securing a winning record for the 2022 OWB team (4-2-1).
Following a walk along the cafe-strewn canals and lively streets of Ghent, we had a team dinner at an “a volonte” (all you care to eat) ribs place (https://degekroondehoofden.be/ons-restaurant-gent#main), and it’s hard to imagine how the restaurant could’ve made a profit this evening given the pile of ribs consumed by our group (roughly 60 racks). The anticipated eating re-match between Alex Shane and Alec Skriloff did not come to pass, following their draw earlier in the week at the rodizio place in Prague, as this time Aidan O’Sullivan pulled out the victory with a final count of 4 full racks of ribs.
With only tourism on tomorrow’s schedule (a trip to Bruges with a countryside bike ride) and a chance to sleep in a bit, most of the team is taking full advantage of our latest curfew on the trip (midnight).
Day 10
The Old World Baseball crew just wrapped up their last full day together in Europe. After a hotel breakfast right in the center of Ghent, we rode the bus 45 minutes or so to Bruges - a medieval city full of canals and cobblestones. Better late than never, we saddled up tour bikes for the first time on the trip, traversing 12-15 miles of paths along the city canals and through the local countryside. We returned to central Bruges for a late lunch, with time for some exploring, shopping, and tasting the local delicacies - both for lunch and as snacks. Whether it was the mussels, the local beef, waffles, Belgian chocolates, fries... it seemed that the group was happy with what they found.
We returned to Ghent for our last group meal, at a traditional restaurant not far from the hotel. Everyone had the possibility to try something they'd missed to date, to double up on a meal they really enjoyed, or to get something straightforward that provided a bit less heft than a lot of our recent meals. The boys now have a couple of final hours to see what is around the next corner(s) in Ghent.
Tomorrow morning we leave the hotel at 7am for Brussels airport, with a few players and coaches going separate ways on their respective ways home. We'll provide a note tomorrow after the group flight lands at JFK confirming the arrival.
The 2022 team represented Old World Baseball, their families, and their country well. Hopefully you'll receive your son home with a tired smile on his face and lasting memories and stories to fill the days ahead.
Days 1 and 2
First, thanks for everyone's patience and attention before and during the Delta Terminal Dance Friday afternoon. Everyone got to the (final) designated meeting point and boarded the flight successfully. To help make up for the inconvenience earlier in the day, the airline arranged for a nearly 2 hour delay on the tarmac, allowing for a fuller night of sleep before landing in Prague!
The team landed in rain and boarded our private bus to the Michelangelo Hotel in the city center. After a short break to shower and change, Stephan and Alan Dean (our strength coach and trainer, who fills the same role for Great Britain Baseball) led a walk over the famous Charles Bridge, to the Lennon Wall, and then to the funicular to climb the rise above the Volta river to Petrin Tower. Petrin Tower offers the best views in Prague with an overview of the city and beyond. After climbing the 299 tower steps, everyone trudged down the hill and back across the bridge before settling into our first of many large, traditional meals from each region. The walk paired with several pieces of schnitzel and roasted veggies put everyone in position to return to the hotel and sleep deeply.
The rain has continued to stay away for the afternoon and evening here, and it seems we'll be able to start our game schedule as planned Sunday morning. We play the Czech national u23 team at 11am (7 innings), then the Czech u18 team at 2pm(also 7 innings).
We're glad that the excitement of air travel is behind us, and we're off to a good start exploring and bonding as a team.
Day 3
We followed 6 miles of walking on arrival day with 6 hours of baseball on our first full day in Europe. We defeated the Czech U23 team 11-10 in Game 1, hanging on to the win by our fingernails after blowing a large lead with a cavalcade of walks and hit batsmen in the bottom of the last inning. Notable performances in Game 1 included 2 hits for each of Aiden Armstrong (including a singer), Jack Vnenchak and Cooper Bowen, and solid pitching outings from JT Glasgow and Jacob Posner.
The walks and hit batsmen were contagious and carried over into Game 2 against the Czech 18U team, which began with a 6-1 lead for OWB but ended with a 12-10 loss. Fatigue mounted in the hot conditions as the free passes piled up and the hours passed, but we still had the tying run on base when the game came to an end. Notable Game 2 performances included 2 hits each for Bowen (again) and James Weber, and a couple of quality innings from Dan Bass on the bump.
We learned today that we have a talented group, and it will be fun to see what we can do against Germany on Tuesday after 48 hours away from the field.
After a hotel stop to shower and change, we went to a Brazilian rodizio in Old Town for an enormous meat feast, at which Aidan O’Sullivan and Alec Skriloff demonstrated particularly strong eating prowess. Dinner was followed by a stroll through Old Town Square and a little free time, with the team having a chance to sleep in a bit tomorrow morning before we get rolling again.
Day 4
We took full advantage of our last (hot and humid) half day in Prague with a guide-led walking tour and a couple of hours of independent exploration time. Our tour focused on Old Town Square and Prague’s Jewish Quarter, with our guide providing a poignant reminder that we must understand history in order to learn from it, which was particularly well-timed given that our next stop is Nuremberg (i.e., the site, among other things, of Hitler’s massive Nazi Party rallies and the post-war Nuremberg trials).
After the tour, we distributed lunch money and the players split up into smaller groups to find food and explore a bit more on their own. By 3:00, we boarded our bus for the nearly 4-hour ride to Nuremberg, followed by a stroll from Nuremberg castle through the Altstadt to dinner at Kopernikus, a traditional German restaurant with a lively Biergarten atop the old city wall. Intermittent rain began while we were finishing our schnitzels, etc, but we still took a post-dinner stroll and saw a bit of the city without getting completely drenched (only a little soggy).
Tomorrow, we plan to do a quick morning stop at the Nazi rally grounds before getting on the road to Heidenheim, the location of our 2 scheduled games against the German 18U national team and our base for the next 2 nights. En route to Heidenheim, we’ll break for lunch in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, perhaps the best-preserved medieval city in Germany.
Day 5
Today involved 3 cities, 1 birthday and 1 ballgame. We began the day in Nuremberg with a somber visit to the unfinished Nazi Congress Hall and the Zeppelin Tribune, site of some of the largest pre-WWII Nazi rallies. It was a poignant follow-up to yesterday’s tour of the Prague Jewish Quarter. On that note, below is a link to an explanation of the “Stolpersteine”, shown in one of the photos attached to yesterday’s team email, as well as a link to a video showing the Allies’ destruction of the swastika atop the Zeppelin Tribune.
https://www.stolpersteine.eu/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FTodK24KG6E
We then proceeded to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a charming, very well-preserved town on Germany’s “Romantic Road”, where we had a long, but excellent Italian lunch, capped by tiramisu for Jack Vnenchak’s 17th birthday. It seems to us as if many of the OWB players would like to return some day to Rothenburg with their significant others.
Our next and final stop was Heidenheim, where we defeated a strong German 18U team 10-8 in a hard-fought game. Our pitching was much-improved (with Jacob Posner having a strong outing and Dan Bass pitching 4+ stellar innings), and we ran the bases well and got some timely hits and productive outs. Heidenheim has one of the best baseball facilities in Germany, and the host club made a nice event out of our game. We finished the evening breaking bread with our German opponents, whom we’ll see again at 3pm tomorrow.
Day 6
The forecasted rain fortunately held off for the duration of our morning/early afternoon visit to Ulm, where we climbed almost 400 steps to the 70 meter high viewing area in the Ulmer Munster. The Ulmer Munster is the tallest church in the world (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulm_Minster), but we couldn’t climb all the way to the top due to ongoing repairs. Following some free time in Ulm with a chance for the team to explore the outdoor market and find lunch in small groups, we returned to the Heidenheim ballpark for Game 2 against the German 18U team, who prevailed 9-5. Max Brunngraber, JT Glasgow, Alex Shane, and Aidan O'Sullivan all pitched effectively, allowing seven hits combined in nine innings. Alex Shane also had two hits, while Louis Friedrich, Anthony Gross, and Adrien Armstrong each had an RBI. Alex Glasscock scored the tying run in the sixth inning all the way from first base on a broken pick-off attempt, before the Germans retook the lead.
After dinner, we had a traditional Swabian meal at our hotel, then some time to enjoy a peaceful evening in relatively sleepy Heidenheim.
Tomorrow is our longest travel day, as we’ll traverse much of France on our way to Ghent, Belgium. We won’t waste the day, however, as we’ll have a long lunch stop in Strasbourg en route.
Day 7
We spent many hours on the bus today traveling from Heidenheim to Ghent, but the benefit of this route was the opportunity to add extra countries to this trip. Strasbourg is a spectacular French city in the Alsace-Lorraine region, and we spent 3 warm midday hours there lunching and strolling through the Grande Ile and the picturesque Petite-France district (https://www.visitstrasbourg.fr/en/discover/must-see-attractions/the-petite-france/).
Three hours after Strasbourg, we stopped at a Luxembourg rest area for a prescribed 15-minute break for Bart, our bus driver. This gave us the chance to buy snacks and/or pay for the use of a toilet, thus allowing us to say we went shopping in Luxembourg. After another four hours, we finished the long drive to Ghent, arriving in time for a late pizza dinner and a little night exploration of the city center surrounding our hotel (which is across the street from the cathedral). For the remainder of the trip, Ghent will be our base (ie, no more hotel changes), and tomorrow we’ll take a short ride to the outskirts of Antwerp to play the Belgian 18U team at the Royal Greys’ club facility.
Day 8
We left our hotel at 9:15 this morning for a single game in Antwerp against Belgium 18U and returned at 5:00 with a 24-2 win in hand. This edition of the Belgian team wasn’t strong, but we had over 20 hits (including 4 from each of Alex Shane and Matt Eichner) and pitched effectively. Shane blasted a long home run and knocked another one off the wall. Jacob Posner gave us 4 good innings on the hill, and then a few position players got in on the pitching action and acquitted themselves well (Anthony Gross, Jack Vnenchak and Alec Skriloff). Not to be outdone, all of our pitchers got a chance to hit and/or play a position, with Max Brunngraber and JT Glasgow each getting solid hits and Dan Webb gunning a runner at home on a throw from RF. The game finally came to a merciful end on a stellar defensive play by James Weber at short.
After a clubhouse meal at the Royal Greys’ facility with plenty of frites, we returned to Ghent for some pre-dinner free time and a copious spaghetti dinner at De Kastart (https://www.dekastart.be/en/eat). Dinner was followed by a little more free time in Ghent’s historic city center and lights-out. Tomorrow, given the previously-announced schedule change, we are playing a noon doubleheader against the top-level Belgian club Merchtem Cats at their facility: J. Stallaertstraat 50, 1785 Merchtem, Belgium.
Day 9
We played our last games of the trip today, under bright sunny skies at the pristine Merchtem Cats’ multi-field facility outside of Brussels. The Cats are a middle-of-the-pack team in the Belgian “major” league, comprised mostly of Belgian players from a wide age range plus a pitcher-shortstop-catcher from the US, and they have the nicest field in Belgium. Game 1 ended in an unsatisfying 4-4 tie, with our umpire vetoing the concept of extra innings. Our pitchers struck out 16 in Game 1, with Alex Shane K’ing 11 in 4+ innings. Game 2 was a 12-1 victory for the good guys, with our bats coming alive (Anthony Gross, Cooper Bowen, Matt Eichner and Connor Nicolas each had multiple hits). Aidan O’Sullivan and Dan Bass combined to complete the 7-inning game, with 11 Ks, 0 BBs and only 3 hits, thus securing a winning record for the 2022 OWB team (4-2-1).
Following a walk along the cafe-strewn canals and lively streets of Ghent, we had a team dinner at an “a volonte” (all you care to eat) ribs place (https://degekroondehoofden.be/ons-restaurant-gent#main), and it’s hard to imagine how the restaurant could’ve made a profit this evening given the pile of ribs consumed by our group (roughly 60 racks). The anticipated eating re-match between Alex Shane and Alec Skriloff did not come to pass, following their draw earlier in the week at the rodizio place in Prague, as this time Aidan O’Sullivan pulled out the victory with a final count of 4 full racks of ribs.
With only tourism on tomorrow’s schedule (a trip to Bruges with a countryside bike ride) and a chance to sleep in a bit, most of the team is taking full advantage of our latest curfew on the trip (midnight).
Day 10
The Old World Baseball crew just wrapped up their last full day together in Europe. After a hotel breakfast right in the center of Ghent, we rode the bus 45 minutes or so to Bruges - a medieval city full of canals and cobblestones. Better late than never, we saddled up tour bikes for the first time on the trip, traversing 12-15 miles of paths along the city canals and through the local countryside. We returned to central Bruges for a late lunch, with time for some exploring, shopping, and tasting the local delicacies - both for lunch and as snacks. Whether it was the mussels, the local beef, waffles, Belgian chocolates, fries... it seemed that the group was happy with what they found.
We returned to Ghent for our last group meal, at a traditional restaurant not far from the hotel. Everyone had the possibility to try something they'd missed to date, to double up on a meal they really enjoyed, or to get something straightforward that provided a bit less heft than a lot of our recent meals. The boys now have a couple of final hours to see what is around the next corner(s) in Ghent.
Tomorrow morning we leave the hotel at 7am for Brussels airport, with a few players and coaches going separate ways on their respective ways home. We'll provide a note tomorrow after the group flight lands at JFK confirming the arrival.
The 2022 team represented Old World Baseball, their families, and their country well. Hopefully you'll receive your son home with a tired smile on his face and lasting memories and stories to fill the days ahead.
