Day 1: Meetings, Etc.

Just got back to the hotel an hour ago (11:30 pm). We met in the lobby at 7:30 am (after getting all of 3 hours sleep). Half of the umpires are here in Taichung (17 of us) and half in Taipei. All the umpires from Taichung (as well as some tournament officials) took the bus into Taipei for our umpires meeting. That took about two hours (an interpreter was present to make sure everyone got all the information).

I believe there are two ballparks in each city. We will stay in our respective cities until sometime next week when the tournament is down to quarterfinals, semifinals and finals. At that point all the games will be in Taipei. About half the umpires are from Taiwan. Some of the other countries represented are the United States, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Japan, France and Mexico. In most cases, there are two from each country (one in each city).

Following our meeting, we received our equipment and uniforms, courtesy of SSK. I was pleased with the quality of everything. They outfitted us with everything: equipment bags, uniforms, plate and base shoes, chest protector, shin guards, mask, etc. Pants were tailored on-site as to length and were in our hotel rooms when we returned at the end of the day.

We had a little break, then had lunch in the hotel the Taiepi umpires are staying at. During the break, a few of us walked around the downtown area. It's amazing the number of people driving scooters, and they are parked absolutely everywhere. The city appears to be old and extremely crowded. It was overcast and rainy all day today...hopefully it will clear up by tomorrow.

Following lunch, we boarded a bus to go to a party for tournament personnel hosted by the city. The party was on a boat that ran up and down a river (I'll have to look up which one) while we had dinner, drank and got to know each other. Spirits appear high as we get ready to start the tournament. The boat got back to shore around 8:00 pm, at which point the Taichung group boarded our bus again for a three hour trip back to our hotel. I arrived at about 11:30 pm and am very much looking forward to my first good night's sleep in a while.

There is only one game tomorrow. Opening ceremonies first, then the game. I am not assigned to this one, so will probably not make the trip. Everything is on television here, so we still should be able to watch. We've got a meeting in the morning to go over umpire mechanics, then I should be on my own for the rest of the day. I took some pictures on Monday and will try to post some of the good ones on Tuesday.

Good night, all.