News / 26 January 2014

GB Slowpitch shut down in World Cup final

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By Bob Fromer

Plant City, Florida: 26 January – After scoring 45 runs in yesterday's exciting wins over the two American entries in the ISF Slowpitch World Cup, the GB Slowpitch Team came into today's final at Plant City Stadium with every expectation that the gold medal could be theirs.

A GB Team containing a number of newcomers to the squad and others with only brief experience of international competition has grown into this tournament, absorbing lessons and getting stronger along the way.

But today they ran into a team – the USA Ink Daddyz from the local Plant City area – who may not have had more talent than GB, but what they did have was a plan, devised from years of slowpitch softball experience, to shut down the GB offense. The GB Team could see the plan in action, but never managed to adjust to it, and the Ink Daddyz ultimately ran away with a game that was close for three innings but wound up as an 18-3 six-inning mercy rule win for the Americans.

Earlier in the day, the Ink Daddyz had put on an equally impressive performance to stifle the offense of their compatriots USA Fort Walton Beach as well, winning the pre-final 15-3 and earning the right to meet GB in the title game.

In the only other game played on the tournament's final day, France came from behind to beat the Turks & Caicos Islands by 24-16 to finish in fourth place. A three-run home run by Thomas Malecot in the top of the seventh inning put the seal on the win, and so enthusiastic are the French about the event that they are pledging to send two teams the next time it's held.

The full list of placings in the ISF Slowpitch World Cup can be found below.

GB Slowpitch Batter
Image courtesy of Pete Saunders

A cunning plan (part 1)

So what was the Ink Daddyz' plan?

Yesterday, in defeating both the Ink Daddyz and Fort Walton Beach, the GB Team had sustained rallies through excellent hitting from their women, primarily line drives or short fly balls over the infield into centre, right centre and right field. In GB's 13-10 GB win over the Ink Daddyz on Saturday evening, the Americans had played their outfield with the usual four across, with their women outfielders in left centre and right field.

Today, the Ink Daddyz deployed their women outfielders in left and right centre field, and when GB had women at the plate, right centre fielder Gayle Borgen moved in to a rover position behind and to the right of second base and right fielder Michael Crabb played shallow and towards the foul line.

Meanwhile, moving their youngest and quickest outfielder, Robert Bull, from left field into left centre gave them more ability to cover the gap left by using the rover.

The result of the strategy was that the Ink Daddyz caught a number of balls today that were hits in yesterday's game, and GB could never get rallies going. The three GB runs were all scored in the top of the sixth inning, the only frame in which they put anything together, and that was partly the result of three Ink Daddyz' errors in that inning.

The only time the Ink Daddyz' new defensive alignment was pierced was in the fourth inning, when Ruth Macintosh hit a ball into the gap between the rover and the right fielder with Chris Yoxall on first and no one out. But even that turned out badly for GB, as Chris and Ruth somehow wound up together on third base and Chris was put out in the resulting rundown.

The score at the time was Ink Daddyz 1, GB 0 – meaning that the game was still anyone's to win. But after that baserunning error, GB again failed to score in the top of the fourth, and the game swung in favour of the Americans.

A cunning plan (part 2)

However, outfield realignment was only one part of the Ink Daddyz' plan. The other part – and GB had already seen this in their two previous encounters with the Americans – was to use the ability of pitcher Derrick Parker to throw very low strikes with pitches that drop and tail away from right-handed hitters.

Today, Parker had that pitch mastered, helped by a plate umpire prepared to call low strikes but unwilling to allow anything like the 12-foot arc in the ISF rules (most American slowpitch umpires are more used to the 10-foot arc used in ASA softball or the eight-foot arc prevalent in USSSA). So GB pitchers David Lee, who pitched 4.2 innings, and Brad Gilmour, who finished out the game, were unable to throw the ball high, while Derrick Parker could get strikes called on pitches that probably crossed the plate below the knee.

The GB Team would not want to use that state of affairs as an excuse, but they never managed to overcome it. It's hard to drive pitches off your shoetops, and the result was that 14 of the 18 outs GB made in the game were fly balls or pop flies, and the team managed only eight hits in six innings.

The game unravels

For the first three innings of the final, the Ink Daddyz' offense was just as somnolent as GB's, and the only run scored by either team was an unearned Ink Daddyz' run in the bottom of the third inning that came home when a throw back from an outfield catch got loose in the GB infield.

But after GB's mishap on the bases meant another goose egg in the top of the fourth inning, the game began to unravel from the British point of view. The Ink Daddyz scored five runs in the bottom of the fourth inning on five hits, a GB error, but also two walks. Up to that point, GB starter David Lee had pitched with admirable calm and control, but in the fourth inning he started to fall behind in the count and the Ink Daddyz hitters started punching the strikes through the infield.

A 6-0 deficit after the fourth inning become 9-0 after the fifth, and yet another walk to an Ink Daddyz hitter brought Brad Gilmour in to relieve David Lee and finish the inning.

Time was running out for GB, and they finally got on the board with three runs in the top of the sixth inning on three hits and three American errors. Brad Gilmour, Ruth Macintosh and Ben Taylor had singles, and Ruth and Ian Kulka had RBIs, but it was too little and too late.

In the bottom of the inning, Ink Daddyz' batters punched single after single through or just over the GB infield, the runs started to pile up, and then a triple by Kellie Berning that bisected the GB outfield brought in the runs that took the score to 18-3 and ended the game on the mercy rule.

Looking for value

While the standard of competition in this first ISF Slowpitch World Cup for nine years may have been uneven, and the overall quality less than the last edition in 2005, the tournament will still have had great value for many of the younger players on the GB Slowpitch Team. Suddenly, these players have found themselves with key responsibilities in an international competition, and have been put through the pressure cooker against the two American teams, even if none of the other teams was able to pose an equivalent challenge.

All of the GB players responded well, and will be better players for the experience. They have beaten every team in the competition, even if the final game eluded them.

As for the ISF, they would like to see the Slowpitch World Cup become an annual event on the softball calendar, but that can only happen if more interest can be generated and more countries and teams commit to it. While the GB Team and probably the American entries would want to see somewhat better teams in the competition, the important thing is to get it established on a regular basis, and the British Softball Federation will do everything it can to help.

Image courtesy of Pete Saunders