Dear People,
Good morning from Shanghai! As promised, this Saturday's 6PM game will be on the North Diamond of Chou-en-lai Park, which is on the riverfront side of the Bund, where Lingling Lu Street runs into Xujiahui Lu. As you can imagine, this quaint little town of 14,000,000 softball-starved souls is frenzied with anticipation, and for me to have to tell Mayor Yanan that I have to cancel the game because I wasn't able to muster a mere 9 players from my home province would be a true besmirchment of the burgeoning relations between our two fine metropolitan areas. This, of all times, is not the time to play coy. Yes, the roundtrip ticket from San Francisco to Shanghai will now cost you $3,500, and yes it is currently 102 degrees with 99% humidity, and yes, an outbreak of Hepatitus A has penetrated the local foreign community to the very marrow of its being, and yet I think that you would agree that these are trifling considerations in the scheme of the athletic whole. I believe that you see my point. Make that commit (a critical part of this process that I'm sure you can imagine Frank now understands all too well). Do it for the children of Xujiahui Lu, who have thirsted for this game since Mao's comrades closed down the Hunan Softball and Chess Leagues way back in 1949. Bless you...Raymond