The new Birmingham Softball League (BSL) will begin play in mid-May, marking the first softball league in the city for 10 years. Teams are currently preparing for the season by holding Softball4Beginners courses and pre-season friendlies.
Titans v Minotaurs
The first of these pre-season friendlies took place between the Stourbridge Titans and the Birmingham Minotaurs at the Titans home ground at Thorns Community College in Stourbridge. The Titans, predominately a male baseball team, decided to enter a team into the BSL to enable their team to join forces with the Community College’s softball team, who have rarely played outside the school. The aim of the friendly was to introduce new members to competitive softball while also enabling the BSL to gauge what level of play the league is likely to see in its first season.
The Titans started off strongly in the first inning, proving that months of indoor and outdoor training was certainly worthwhile. However, in the second inning, the Minotaurs woke up after their quiet winter season and showed the Titans exactly why they won the BSL pilot league last year.
The game progressed for the next four innings with neither team scoring any runs, as both sets of players showed excellent defensive skills. In the bottom of the seventh inning, the Titans scraped in enough runs to take the game by a score of 6-3.
Both teams are now eager for league play to start!
Other competitors
The Titans and Minotaurs will be joined in the league by another baseball team, the Birmingham Maple Leafs, and by the Birmingham Bobcats Softball Club, who are expected to enter several of their 2012 pilot league teams.
The BSL has also been running a Softball4Beginners Course for the last five weeks, funded by Sportivate, and it is likely that the participants will form a new team called the Pixies.
The Birmingham Softball League is expected to run for 12 weeks, with games at Birmingham City University's Moor Lane Sports Ground in Perry Barr.