British softball has carried out a long-standing campaign to help the slowpitch format gain a foothold on the European continent, and has been rewarded with a slow growth in the number of countries playing the sport and sending teams to the European Slowpitch Championship and Cup.
But on the weekend of May 25-27, there will be an all-out invasion of Europe in the name of slowpitch promotion, with the GB Slowpitch Team playing a high-profile series of exhibition games in the Netherlands and the TourCats, the international touring arm of the Birmingham Bobcats Softball Club, co-organising and playing in a three-country tournament in the German city of Cologne.
GB Slowpitch tour
The GB Slowpitch Team tour to Holland is the brainchild of European Softball President Andre van Overbeek, who is keen to grow interest and participation in slowpitch in his home country.
The GB Team will play evening exhibition games on 
Friday, Saturday and Sunday, May 25-27, against a hand-picked group of Dutch ex-national team baseball and fastpitch players.
On Friday, the teams will play at the Olympia Softball Club stadium in Haarlem, and on Saturday, the game will be staged at the Gryphons Softball Club field in Rosmalen, as part of a “Super Saturday” tournament involving the country's top women's fastpitch teams.
On Sunday, the show will move to Zeist, where the slowpitch exhibition game will be featured during a men's fastpitch tournament.
The Netherlands has long been considered ripe for slowpitch development, and getting the format going in Europe's leading softball country will provide a huge boost for the future of slowpitch in Europe.
Bobcats abroad
Meanwhile, on that same weekend, the Birmingham Bobcats Softball Team, winner of the BSF President's Club award for 2011, will send its international travelling squad, the TourCats, to Cologne, Germany for a co-ed slowpitch tournament involving the host fastpitch club Cologne Cardinals, two other fastpitch teams from Germany and a slowpitch team put together by the Sittard Condors baseball team from Holland.
The event is the outcome of the TourCats' first venture into Europe, when they went to Maastricht in Holland last summer for games against the Sittard Condors.
A video from the trip recently won BSUK’s 2011 video competition.
The TourCats will leave Birmingham on May 24 and head first for a sightseeing tour in Gent, Belgium. Then they will then join the Cardinals, Condors and the other German teams on Saturday, May 26 for a day of slow-pitch softball, followed by an evening of traditional German entertainment hosted by the Cardinals in honour of the TourCats.
Birmingham Bobcats Tournament and Marketing Manager Kate Page-Smith said: “The aims of the trip are to build team spirit, enhance individual and team skills, develop the profile of the Birmingham Bobcats in the softball community – and, more importantly, to have fun! However, the tournament will also develop links between European softball and baseball teams and promote slow-pitch softball to teams outside the UK.”
For more information about the TourCats, visit the team's website blog.