Vin Scully and a Koala

It's one of the best pictures I've ever seen.

This koala will tell his grandchildren that he met Vin Scully.

And then there's this:

The Kershaws and a kangaroo.

Anyway, I had always wanted to blog about my appreciation of Australia, and today seemed like the right day to do it.  I went to Ireland to see Notre Dame open its football season.  Today, the Dodgers opened their season in Australia.  I tried to figure out a way to go, but it just wasn't possible.  I used to say that there were two places I needed to get to before I died:  Dodger Stadium and Australia.  One down, one to go.

Ordinarily, I would be opposed to baseball starting its season in another country.  I stand by my plan to fix Opening Day, but I'm much less opposed to this than I was to opening the season in Japan two years ago.  Why?  A few reasons.  First, this game was on TV live, unlike the last opener in another country.  Second, opening in Australia is less disruptive than opening in Japan.  You might not think so because the time difference is less in Tokyo than Sydney.  When the Mariners and A's opened in Japan, there was a 16-hour time difference for the teams.  For the Dodgers and Diamondbacks in Australia, it was an 18-hour time difference.  When the Yankees and Rays opened in Japan 10 years ago, it was a 13-hour time difference for those teams.  That was the worst.  The worst jet lag can be is 12 hours.  Eighteen hours ahead is exactly the same on the body as six hours behind.  I've done a five-hour time difference twice (England and Ireland) and that wasn't too bad.  West coast teams that go to Japan really have to deal with an eight-hour time difference (24 - 16).  When east coast teams go to Japan, it's really an eleven-hour time difference (24 - 13).  That's almost as bad as it can be.  As far as going to Australia, it's a really long flight, but the jet lag isn't that bad for teams from the Pacific time zone (Arizona claims to be in the mountain time zone, but they're on Pacific time from March until November).  And finally, if you want to grow the game of baseball, you don't need to go to Japan.  They already love baseball.  I think Australia is a place where the game can grow.  Baseball is not big in Australia, but Australians love sports.  And there are a lot of similarities between Australia and the US, so maybe baseball could grow in popularity in Australia (the crowd seemed pretty excited today).

It was a solid Opening Day for the Dodgers.  I woke up at 3:50 to get ready for the game.  The listed start time was 4:00, but I think it wasn't really supposed to start until 4:45.  Rain pushed back the actual start to 5:00.  Once they finally got going, Clayton Kershaw's performance was strong ... to quite strong.  It wasn't quite like Opening Day last year, but one run over six and two thirds is very good (his first ever run allowed in four Opening Day starts, and he would have gotten through seven if not for some poor fielding).  Scott Van Slyke had a double and a two-run home run.  The bullpen was great for the final seven outs.  The only bad news was that MLB Network sent their own crew for the game rather than carrying the Dodgers' broadcast with Vin Scully.  Matt Vasgersian and John Smoltz were fine (and the Australian cricketer that they had as a sideline reporter type guy was a plus), but I'm pretty sure that a very solid majority of the people who were watching this game at a very unusual hour would have preferred Vin Scully.  He doesn't travel east of Denver anymore, but he made it all the way to Sydney.  How many people were watching that game besides Dodger or Diamondback fans?  And there are definitely more Dodger fans than Diamondback fans.  Come on, MLB Network.  So that was the first ever regular season baseball game played in Australia (the White Sox and Giants played there during a world tour in the offseason 100 years ago).  Hopefully the Dodgers will get another win tonight (tomorrow afternoon in Australia) and come back home 2-0.

I guess I've wanted to go to Australia since I was in college.  My favorite professor in college was an Australian priest, Father Bill Miscamble.  I took two classes with him.  The first was US Foreign Policy, 1945 to Present.  The second one was Australian History.  Did I know anything about Australian History before taking the class?  Not much other than that it was once a British prison colony.  In high school, I was on News 12's Long Island Challenge and there was a question about Australia and New Zealand joining a certain organization in the 1950s.  I guessed NATO even though I knew it didn't make sense.  I couldn't think of SEATO.  Mr. Hennessy (my favorite high school teacher) was disappointed, but I felt better when my brother Sean also guessed NATO also when I asked him.  Did I have any interest in Australian history?  Not really.  But it filled a requirement.  As a history major, I had certain history class requirements.  I think I had to take at least two US history classes (I took lots, but one had to be pre-Civil War and one had to be post-Civil war), one European history class (Irish History, 1800-Present for me), one ancient history class (History of the Roman Empire), maybe one Latin American history class (I don't know why else I would have taken Mexican History), and there was a requirement to take one class about any other part of the world.  Australian history sounded more interesting than any African or Asian history class, but the real reason I took it was because Father Miscamble was such an awesome professor.  He would fall behind in class and have us over to the seminary (which served as Rudy's dorm in the movie) at night or on the weekend a couple times during the semester.  We didn't mind going because he was such a great professor and he would offer us dinner (which included "age-appropriate beverages").  The first book he had us read for Australian history was In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson.  It was a travel book about Australia that spent a lot of time talking about all the things in Australia that could kill you (like the box jellyfish), but it still made me want to go to Australia.  I remember him writing about being chased by wild dogs at some point.  I should really read that book again.  The last class I attended at Notre Dame before finals my last semester was Australian history.  Father Miscamble ended class by saying to us, "My friends, get the hell out of here."  Great way to end my college career.  Besides being a great professor, Father Miscamble is also a great guy and I've said many times that he should be the president of Notre Dame.  Sadly, he is not.

Although, I've never been to Australia, I feel like I have a lot of experience with the Australian accent.  My gym teacher until high school was Australian.  There was Father Miscamble.  And I've been listening to Leigh Ellis five times a week on The Basketball Jones/The Starters for about a year now.  The Aussies definitely have the best accent.  I would take the American accent because I love the United States, but objectively, the Australian accent has to be the best accent of all the English-speaking countries.  I've been to Ireland and England, and their accent isn't as good as the Australian accent.  I haven't been to Canada yet, but two of the four guys on the Starters are Canadian.  To me, the Canadian accent is indistinguishable from the American accent except for the fact that they just pronounce certain words wrong (which I covered in this post).  So my English-Speaking Accent Power Rankings go like this:

1.  Australian
2.  American
3.  Irish
4.  English
5.  Canadian

I mentioned that there are similarities between Australia and the United States.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I think Australia is more similar to the United States than Great Britain.  Both the US and Australia are very large countries (geographically anyway, the US has a much larger population).  Both overcame difficulties to become great countries.  For the United States, we needed to defeat the most powerful empire in the world.  For Australia, they overcame a start as a prison colony to develop into a prosperous nation.  Both are Christian nations with Catholics representing the largest denomination (around 25% in both countries).  Both are nations of immigrants that have an unfortunate history when it comes to dealing with the native population.  Sports are a big part of both cultures and both countries have sports that aren't really popular anywhere else (American football and Aussie rules football).

One thing that I've always admired about Australia is their willingness to fight for what is right.  In World War I, 1.38% of their population died.  The only non-European nation with a higher percentage was New Zealand (1.64%).  I have very complicated feelings about Ireland.  There are definitely things that I like about Ireland.  But one of my issues with Ireland is that they refused to fight Hitler because they hated the British so much even when Churchill offered them everything they wanted.  Of course, Australia was there with us and the British fighting to save the world from Hitler.  And I do appreciate the special relationship that the United States has with Britain, but Australia is an even more loyal ally (though probably not as important of an ally as Britain).  The United States and Britain have fought on the same side in several wars, but Australia has always been on our side.  Unlike the Brits, the Aussies were there with us in Vietnam.  Fighting communism in Vietnam was not a bad thing; the bad thing is that we didn't win.  Fortunately, we were able to get past our all-time low in Americo-Austalianian relations in 1995.

Finally, there's the story of Harold Holt.  Can you imagine the leader of any other powerful nation just disappearing without an explanation?  It's fascinating.

So there it is.  I won't say that I love Australia (that word is reserved for the United States), but I strongly like Australia.  If anybody else wants to visit Australia, we need to talk.  I got to Ireland in 2012 and England in 2013.  I'm going to Canada in May.  Australia in 2015?