Ashes Summer Musings: Vol IV
A Lion. A Bridge, and Sunday Night Baseball.
A Lion. A Bridge, and Sunday Night Baseball.
Sunday 25th June 2023
With heavy thunderstorms predicted to pockmark a sweltering, some might say muggy Sunday in the industrial beating heart of central England, I chanced my arm at a late morning stroll into my spiritual hometown of Ironbridge as the rowing regatta was in full weekend swing and I’ll never tire of the walk beside the River Severn as she gently flows with the river of life from Coalbrookdale, and the site of the regatta, to nearby Ironbridge. The rowing club, local park and all available viewing sites at the start of the regatta were teeming with the very essence of excitable life and as busy as I’ve ever seen it, even matching the yearly festival to celebrate Ironbridge’s status as a World Heritage accredited site. Being too busy and merely the starting line for a parade of races heading away from Ironbridge in the direction of Shrewsbury, it became of little interest to a mere interloper seeking “action shots” of the boats on the river and besides, the storm clouds were gathering fast and I decided to go and say hello to a lion on a bridge instead.
Ironbridge was its busy Sunday self as always and remains a joy to see alive with the pitter patter of human life. Before I exchanged pleasantries with some poor soul encased within a ginormous and very colourful lion outfit, I marvelled at two dogs scurrying for tennis balls in the river, scattering nearby ducks as they had the time of their canine lives before retreating to a fishing peg on the banks of the river with the most charming view you could wish to imagine. It’s maybe a couple of hundred feet from the bridge itself but with the river still it affords the most magnificent of reflections of the bridge and surrounding river banks. Visitors rarely if ever take the opportunity of relishing this view and so for ten minutes I smoked a cigarette and watched the world go by on the other side of the river. Then I received a cheery wave from a poor wretch inside a blisteringly hot looking lion costume collecting for a local charity and their “Silver Across the Bridge” campaign, resisted the temptation of fish ‘n’ chips from the local chip shop (leftover curry awaited me later) and returned home before the heavens opened and the thunder roared.
The afternoon was spent writing a film review for a film I’ve secretly seen twice and bragging into The Matrix that I’d shaken hands with a lion on a bridge before I settled into the highlights of day four of The Ashes Test Match between an England on the brink of defeat and a visiting Australia demonstrating why they, in league with the country’s men’s team, are the Champions of the World. Whereas the first three days of this one-off Test Match have seen a huge bagful of runs being scored for the loss of very few wickets, today was the complete reverse with 15 wickets falling in a day headlined yet again by an English cricketer (Sophie Ecclestone for 10 wickets in the match) yet Australia as a team are streets ahead, heavily on top and mighty favourites to wrap up victory tomorrow morning.
The 15 wickets to fall fell in cricketing “clumps” as both teams suffered batting collapses, but it appears to be fatal for England at the close of play this evening. Closing on 110–5, the hosts still require a further 158 runs to win but with only 5 wickets in hand. All hopes are pinned on Danni Wyatt tomorrow to score the vast majority of these runs whilst being ably and assisted by her four remaining teammates in the process. It could be one hell of a finish at a free to enter Trent Bridge tomorrow if England can bat into the afternoon session or, whisper it, the Test Match could all be over in a dominant hour from a far superior Australian team.
I foresee an early Aussie victory and the first in a points based “Best of 7” Series this English Summer and just before the scheduled Lunch Break in the morning, it’ll be a 1–0 lead for both the ladies and the men’s teams. But this Ashes Summer is only in its infancy and hope, as ever, springs eternal.
I concluded my Sunday evening with a leftover curry and some Sunday Night Baseball (as it’s billed) but it’s actually early Monday morning baseball and it always has been. Since those college days of watching the first UK broadcasts of “America’s pastime” in the early 1990’s to a real fandom of the great game and of the Los Angeles Dodgers, those perennial underachievers who finally, finally won the World Series in a now long ago year of 2020, baseball, like cricket, grips me, and when I’m watching, then I’m in for the rest of the season. Which in the case of baseball is 2/3rd’s of the year and so I tend to fall into line after the vaunted mid-season break for the “All Star Game” and then I’m Dodger blue until preferably mid October.
Alas my team of baseball heroes in blue are much changed after a record breaking season ended in utter heartbreak and a transitional season has now seen club legends such as my favourite player Justin Turner and the big hitting Trea Turner leave for the exit. My team in baseball blue mirror my football team dressed in the red of Liverpool. Both teams won their respective “Big Dance” in recent years. Both teams followed this up with almost winning everything in sight only to fall agonisingly short, and both of my sporting loves are now ailing and in somewhat of a transitional stage ahead of once more going for it all in the sporting distraction of the bread and circuses that surround our lives.
I departed from the beautiful confines of a bright and sunny Sunday evening at Dodger Stadium in the dark of a UK Monday morning with my Dodgers trailing 2–1 after taking a 1 run lead via a home run from Mookie Betts. They would then trail 4–1 before Freddie Freeman notched a double in the 8th inning, his 2,000th all time career hit, and one which was rousingly celebrated as well as scoring Betts who scampered home from 2nd base. Freeman’s record setting hit cranked a comeback into motion that would ultimately lead to a 6–5 defeat in extra innings to their newly bitterest rivals the Houston Astros, but the baseball will roll on with only my briefest of glances until this Summer of Ashes cricket is over.
Tomorrow is a “rest day” to use a term from the oldest of cricketing memories from matches of yesteryear when they used to, believe this or believe this not, schedule a rest day in the middle of the Test Match! A day planned to hang out with my son and catch up with some writing before I go in search of another picturesque stretch of a local canal somewhere on Tuesday and Wednesday, a cinema trip and treat once more as we join Harrison Ford in a time travelling escapade with Indiana Jones and a dial of destiny apparently.
Oh, and the 2nd Test Match of the Men’s Ashes starts on Wednesday too.
All hail this beautiful Summer of 2023.
Thanks for reading. More musings from The Ashes to follow in the coming days and weeks of this Summer. For non-cricket related musings, here are my three most recently published articles:
“Asteroid City” (2023)
“You can’t wake up if you don’t go to sleep”.medium.com
Pictorial stroll from Bratch Locks to Stourton Locks
15th June 2023.medium.com
Sunshine filled greetings from Ironbridge
Wednesday 14th June, 2023.medium.com