Take me out to the Ballpark
Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie… you just can’t get more American than that! Frank Bell gives us a look at baseball, no longer just America’s favourite sport!
Baseball is sometimes called a national pastime in America because it is a much loved national sport. Of course, baseball is not limited to the USA. It has played for many years in the countries of South America and is very popular in Japan. Europe is another matter, not many baseball teams exist in Europe today. That, however, is slowly changing. Since baseball is an Olympic sport, more and more countries are putting together teams and joining the game! (A)
Going to baseball games is a way of life for many fans. They sit in the stands on hot and sunny spring and summer days, eat hot dogs or popcorn, sip cola or lemonade and enjoy the game. Adults and children alike attend games, and it's a sport that everyone seems to love. Baseball is such a part of American life that nearly everyone's favourite childhood memory includes a day at the ballpark.
When and where did the game of baseball start? Well, people have been playing games with a stick and a ball for hundreds of years! Modern baseball, however, about 150 years ago in New York, USA and has been a popular sport ever since. It has changed a little bit over the years but the basic game remains the same.
Baseball is played with a bat, which a stick about 100 cm long is made of metal or wood, and a small hard ball. Each player also wears one heavy leather glove to catch the ball. Baseball gear usually consists of a lightweight shirt and trousers that come down just past the knees. (B)
Baseball is played on a special outdoor field which has two parts, the infield and the outfield. In the infield is an area shaped like a diamond that indicates the boundaries of the playing area. On the diamond, there are also the three bases that the players must run over to score. The outfield is an open grassy area where players wail to catch balls that are hit by other players.
The game of baseball is divided into nine parts, called innings. During an inning, each of the two teams takes its turn to bat, which means trying to hit the ball that is thrown to them by the pitcher of the other team. After the ball is hit, the player tries to run and touch three different bases before running to home base. The team not batting tries to catch the balls that are hit and stop the runners before they score. The team that scores the most runs by the end of the ninth inning wins. It's a game that can go very slowly for a while then suddenly have a series of fast and exciting moves! (C)
Fans love baseball games! The stands are usually filled for the games. People enjoy a day at the ballpark cheering on their favourite team and relaxing in the summer sun. So what are you waiting for? Put on your baseball cap and give it a try! (D)

Ten Events, One Champion:
THE DECATHLON
Fay Webster takes a look at the world of athletics and finds out what it takes to be a true champion.
The Olympic Games have changed a lot since their origins in Ancient Greece. Today, athletes from countries all over the world take part and the Olympics are big business, watched by millions on television. Some things, though, have stayed the same. The athletes then could make a lot of money from winning, just like today's competitors. In the ancient Games, a great champion might have received as much as a year’s pay for winning a race.
Another thing that hasn't changed is the search for an all-round champion, somebody who can defeat their opponents at a number of different sporting events. In the ancient Olympics, athletes competed in the pentathlon. This consisted of the long jump, the discus, the javelin, a running race and wrestling. The first winner, in 708 BC, was Lampis of Sparta, who must have been a great athlete to beat so many others from all over the Hellenic world. The pentathlon was an important part of the Olympics until Emperor Theodosius of Rome banned the Games in 393 AD.
The Stockholm Olympics of 1912 brought back this tradition of the search for all round greatness. The modern pentathlon was included (shooting, swimming, fencing, riding and running) and so was the modern decathlon (ten events), with the heptathlon (seven events) for women being introduced later. So what drives someone to take on this running, throwing, jumping challenge and push their body to its limits? I met American decathlete Bruce Thorpe in New York and told him he must have been crazy to take up the decathlon. He laughed.
‘Yes, I think I probably was. I could have done lots of different sports, but I chose the decathlon. It’s very tough and it demands a lot of different skills. You have to train just as hard as other athletes, only you have to do it in ten different events! I think we’re probably all a little crazy, but it’s very satisfying in the end,’ he said. I asked him to explain what happens in the decathlon.
‘The way it works is you complete each event and you get points, depending on how well you do in that event. At the end of two days, the person with the most points is the champion and takes the gold medal, the second person gets the silver and the third the bronze medal. We start with the 100 metres, the long jump, the shot put, the high jump and the 400 metres. The second day, it’s the 110 metre hurdles, the discus, the javelin, the pole vault and the one that we all dread, the 1500 metres.’ I asked him what made the 1500 metres such a struggle. 'All the other events demand speed or strength. With the long race, it’s stamina. Really, decathletes aren’t built for that event.'
So what tips does Bruce have for those of you thinking of taking up the decathlon? ‘Start as early as you can and join a good club,’ he said. ‘It takes a long time to master ten different events, or seven for the heptathlon, and you need expert help. And don’t expect to have much free time!’
Ten events, one champion. Think you might be the one? If you’re Interested in finding out more about the decathlon, contact your local athletics club.

COAST TO COAST
A 27-year-old graphic designer from Oxfordshire in England completed a record-breaking journey across Australia yesterday. It was a 5,800 kilometre odyssey - and he travelled the whole distance on a skateboard. David Cornthwaite, who started skateboarding less than two years ago, decided on his epic journey after waking up one morning and realising he hated his job. ‘I thought, the only thing keeping me going is the skate to and from work. I was a bit disillusioned and I was looking for something new,' he said. ‘I saw a Lonely Planet guide to Australia. There was a map on the back. Perth was on one side and Brisbane on the other and I thought, “that'll do".'
He decided to prepare by skateboarding from John O'Groats to Lands End: the two points furthest apart on the British mainland. That 1.442 kilometre trek, which he finished in June, took just over a month, during which an infected blister swelled to the 'size of a tennis ball'.
Crossing Australia on a skateboard brought unique challenges. The wind caused by huge road trains, the articulated lorries that thunder across the Outback, was so powerful that he was sometimes blown off his board. Multiple blisters and aching ankles, toes and feet, have kept him in almost constant pain for the last six weeks. ‘I feel like an old man. I'm not sure that anyone has ever had this many blisters,' he said. Temperatures of 40°C and above mean that he has used more than a dozen tubes of factor 30 sunscreen. 'There have been moments where I thought “this is ridiculous, I have to rest", but I never contemplated giving up.' He has worn through 13 pair of shoes and has an over-developed right calf muscle which he compares to ‘a giant chicken fillet'.
Skating an average of 50 kilometres a day and hitting speeds of up to 50kph on downhill runs, he left Perth, Western Australia, and skated across the fearsome Nullarbor Plain into South Australia. After reaching Adelaide he made his way to Melbourne and from there to Sydney. A support team of seven people trailed him all the way in a four-wheel drive vehicle, which included camping equipment for night stops. The journey has smashed the previous record for a long-distance skateboard, set by an American, Jack Smith, who covered 4,800 kilometres across the US in 2003.
David Cornthwaite was less than three kilometres from the end of his epic journey when he hit a hole and was so thrown off his skateboard, suffering cuts and bruises to his shoulders, knees, hips and elbows. 'I was only going at 40km at the time, so although it wasn’t pretty, it could have been a lot worse,' he said.
In the short term, he hopes to spend the next few days surfing on the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane, to build up some much-needed upper body strength. I've got huge legs but a skinny body - it’s a bit ridiculous. I need to give my body a chance to warm down and surfing sounds ideal. For the time being I’m hanging up my skateboard.’ In the longer term, he plans to give motivational speeches and write a book. Another long-distance journey is also on the cards. ‘I’m certainly not going back to the day job,’ he said.

On Tour with the London Symphony Orchestra
‘Footballers and musicians are in the same business. They both do stressful jobs in front of critical audiences. The only difference is that football crowds are noisier.’ So says Rod Franks. And he should know. Franks started his working life with Leeds United Football Club, neatly changed direction, started playing the trumpet instead of football, and is now principal trumpeter with the LSO (London Symphony Orchestra). Franks might have made a further observation about the similarities between orchestras and football clubs: it is playing away that presents the real challenges.
London’s oldest orchestra has been playing away since it was formed almost a century ago. Nowadays, the orchestra’s trips abroad are kept to tours of a maximum of two and a half weeks. But since touring is clearly expensive and presents major organisational and technical problems, why bother to tour at all? Clive Gillinson, the managing director, says: ‘A great international orchestra needs to work with the greatest conductors and soloists. No recording company will record a conductor or soloist if he or she is only known in one territory - they need an international reputation. So for the recording side to work, you have to visit the key markets; you need to tour.’
By touring with projects or festivals, Gillinson is able to create an event, not just provide a series of concerts. It is more expensive to do, but when you leave town you are not so easily forgotten.
For Sue Mallet, the orchestra’s administrator, the difficulties of her job lie in getting a symphony orchestra and its instruments on stage, on time and in one piece. However well she plans each tour, and she does her planning with scientific accuracy, events sometimes take an upper hand. On one occasion a concert had been advertised for the wrong night, and on another the lorry carrying the instruments from the airport to the concert hall broke down and got stuck in snow.
It is a tiring and stressful business flying around the world, and yet on balance it is one of the rewards of the job. Certain moments are unforgettable. At the end of a concert in Moscow an enthusiastic audience had brought the orchestra to its feet. As one of the musicians was about to sit down, an elderly lady in the front row pressed a piece of paper into his hand. It said, in words of simple English, what lovely music the orchestra had made.