Back From Edam.....

As many of you know, I often use biblical references in my work, hence the headline about that beautiful place where Adam and Evelyn began life together.  Amsterdam, though it did not provide the Ju-Ju I went there to find, is a modern day, " Garden of Edam."

My journey there was intended as a master stroke of International Ju-Ju, designed ( and timed ) to allow me to watch the Yankees play the Dodgers in the WS, with our Urban Dutch Farmer guy.  Had it worked, I would have broken new ground in an effort to humiliate myself and cause the Yankees to win. Instead, per usual, I accomplished nothing of value.

Point of reference;  no human from our blog had ever connected, personally, with Urban Dutch Farmer.  He had simply appeared on our blog one day, about two years ago, making pithy comments and indicating a clever wit. So I was assigned to check him out.  Why our blog, why baseball, why the Yankees?

Not much of my effort bore fruit:

The Yankees got mustered out of the playoffs by umpires who squeezed us but not them.

The Gods decided that the floods favored Houston.

Our guy lives in Rotterdam.

Luckily, that country is pretty modern when it comes to transportation.  And the Dutch guy made it over to Amsterdam for a " hands across the diamond" kind of meeting.  Turns out, he can stream some yankee games and, using a still-functioning WWII underground radio, listen to John & Suzyn broadcasts at 2:00am, Holland country time.  With plenty of time left over, post-game,  to pick the Kale, harvest the beets, and prepared a tasty, vegetable slurpy for breakfast.

He took me to the oldest bar in Amsterdam where, to his credit, the owner/ bartender recognized him the second we walked in ( he had lived about 100 yards down the road a few years back).  I never really got an explanation for some of my key questions, but "the Yankees are the Yankees.  No other team exists in Europe."

 So that's why his interest in our team.  I think he found " IIHIIFIIC" by accidental surfing.  He feels we are a fountain of American and baseball culture.  He has to look up phrases and expressions each time he reads us ( as do I ).  But he appreciates how different we are from normal sports blogs, and is convinced that John & Suzyn do read us.

He also played on a Dutch league baseball team.  Not the national level team where Didi and Burt Blyleven played, but hardball in the sandlots like we did.  He knows no one with the same baseball interests as his, so leveraging our blog readership internationally bombed right away.

 As for his (formerly) home base city, I see it as a paradise because there are no rules.  Beautiful women sit in windows and beckon to anyone except those wearing Red Sox hats.  There is Johhny Walker and unlimited beer on the canal boats.  The coffee houses sell weed ( " what kind of high are you looking for, today?").   Best of all:  there are hot dog stands everywhere, with spicy brown mustard, and all the fixings ( at half the price of those fake ones at the new stadium).  It is like a perfect setting for baseball.  Only no one plays the game.

The day it became clear the Yankees didn't make the series, I was lying prostrate on restaurant settee, recovering from a sudden change in blood sugar or something, due to a cool combination of Dutch gin and weed.

So Gerardi is gone?