by Bob Fromer
Mlade Buky, Czech Republic – As expected, the Chromies and H2O finished at the top of their first round-robin groups at the European Slowpitch Super Cup in the Czech Republic after play ended on Wednesday evening. Both British teams were unbeaten, and neither really ever broke sweat. Now, unless something totally unexpected occurs, the two British team look set to take their domestic rivalry all the way to the European Super Cup final, while the best of the rest will be setting their sights on third place and a Bronze medal.
Here is a measure of the gap between the two GB teams and the other 10 teams in this competition, from six other countries.
In their five games played in Group A, the Chromies outscored their opponents by 85 runs to 11, and hit eight home runs to none for the opposition.
But H2O was even better. In their five games in Group B, they outscored the opposition by 102 runs to 5 (yes, 5 is not a misprint), and out-homered them 16 to 0. On Wednesday, Steve Hazard (who has hit seven) and Brian Connolly (with four) were having their own private home run contest for H2O, while some of the Czech observers were wondering if maybe the ESF should look at a home run rule to make the playing field between the British and the rest a little more level.
Mind you, the shortstop for the Czech team Wayne's World, Jakub Prochazka, hit three over the fence in one game today, and no Chromies or H2O player has done that – yet.
Scores
For the record, here's how the two British teams fared on Wednesday.
Chromies defeated Kiely's Kegs from Ireland by 19-4 in six innings (but this game could have been closer than the score suggests) and then easily handled the host club, Sparks Mlade Buky, by 18-3 in the featured evening game that went the full seven innings before a large crowd of spectators.
Meanwhile, H2O played three games today, defeating the German team UCE Travellers 15-0, the Czech team Wayne's World 23-3 and the Afterburners from Belgium 24-1, with all three games ending on the mercy rule in five innings.
So far, this tournament has really consisted of two parallel universes. In one universe, teams play the Chromies or H2O and get hammered, in games that are neither competitive or close. There is probably a limit to how much fun this can be for the hammerer or the hammeree.
In the other universe, where the Chromies and H2O don't play, you get a lot of close and exciting games, including four games today (out of the 10 games that didn't involve a British team) being decided by a single run.
One result of the parity in this second universe could be seen in the final standings for Group B, where the three teams behind H2O finished with 3-2 records and had to be separated by runs conceded.
Standings
The scores of all the games in the first round-robin groups are given below. Here is how the group tables looked once all the games had been played and the runs conceded rule had been applied in Group B:
GROUP A
Chromies (5-0)
Askoe Linz Bandits (Austria) (4-1)
Kiely's Kegs (Ireland) (3-2)
Sparks Mlade Buky (Czech Republic) (2-3)
Mortsel Skywalkers (Belgium) (1-4)
Hangarounds (Germany) (0-5)
GROUP B
H2O (5-0)
UCE Travellers (Germany) (3-2)
Lisicke (Slovenia) (3-2)
Wayne's World (Czech Republic) (3-2)
Afterburners (Belgium) (1-4)
Rytiri Trutnov (Czech Republic) (0-5)
What happens now is that the top three teams from each group – Chromies, Askoe Linz Bandits and Kiely's Kegs from Group A and H2O, UCE Travellers and Lisicke from Group B will start a six-team Championship round robin tomorrow. Each team will play the three teams it hasn't yet met from the other group, while results from within their own group will be carried over. When this round comes to an end on Thursday afternoon, two teams will be eliminated and the surviving four teams will go to a Page Playoff to decide the medals.
Exactly the same format will be employed for Consolation playoffs for the teams that finished fourth, fifth and sixth in Groups A and B.
From this point on, as far as the Championship playoffs are concerned, we are still likely to see two different tournaments played out in two more parallel universes.
In one universe, the Chromies and H2O will almost certainly play each other three times – on Thursday morning at 9.00 am in the Championship playoff group, on Friday afternoon in the 1v2 Page Playoff game, and on Saturday afternoon in the tournament's Grand Final. Although predicting results in softball is often a mug's game, it will take an upset of earth-shattering proportions to stop that from happening.
Meanwhile, in the second playoff universe, the other four teams will be fighting it out for the Bronze medal.
Chromies v H2O
So how do we begin to assess the showdown that is almost certainly going to happen here between the Chromies, winners of many UK National Championships and previous European Cups, and H2O, who have never won either?
This is H2O's first-ever European Slowpitch Cup, but they have been trying and failing to win the National Championship for the past several years, and it has generally been the Chromies who have stood in their way. Some people think that this is less about ability or even experience and more that the Chromies have got into H2O's heads.
But this is a different setting, with a different title at stake.
If you look at the raw statistics so far in this tournament (see above re: runs and home runs), H2O have looked the stronger team.
While all of H2O's five wins so far have been your common or garden blow-out, it hasn't exactly been like that for the Chromies, at least not every time.
In their opening game against the Askoe Linz Bandits on Tuesday, Chromies started slowly and actually trailed 2-0 (H2O have never trailed so far) before taking control of the game.
Today, playing a not very strong Kiely's Kegs team from Ireland, Chromies won by a convincing scoreline of 19-4 in the end, but the Irish team left nine runners on base, and kept making crucial errors when they were on the verge of escaping from innings with little or no damage – errors that let the Chromies pile up additional runs.
In addition, H2O's squad seems completely healthy, while the Chromies suffered knocks today to Jarrod Pretorius and Marketa Sulcova, and while Marketa should be fine, the Chromies will be keen to see how Jarrod feels in the morning.
But the one thing that everyone connected with British softball knows is that the Chromies are never more dangerous than when they might seem to be the underdogs and the chips are down.
And H2O will certainly not see the Chromies as underdogs – and certainly not now.
Both teams will be sizing up each other, comparing offenses, defenses, pitching, power and speed. But in the end, the games have to be played to find out who is better and that will start at 9.00 am on Thursday morning.
Tomorrow
Thursday' Championship playoff games will be:
Chromies v H2O
Askoe Linz Bandits v UCE Travellers
Lisicke v Chromies
Kiely's Kegs v H2O
Lisicke v Askoe Linz Bandits
Kiely's Kegs v UCE Travellers
Results
Full results from the initial round-robin groups were:
GROUP A -- TUESDAY
Kiely's Kegs 13, Sparks Mlade Buky 12
Chromies 11, Askoe Linz Bandits 3
Kiely's Kegs 26, Mortsel Skywalkers 11
Askoe Linz Bandits 9, Hangarounds 6
Chromies 20, Hangarounds 0
Sparks Mlade Buky 16, Mortsel 4
Askoe Linz Bandits 12, Kiely's Kegs 7
Chromies 17, Mortsel Skywalkers 1
Sparks Mlade Buly 4, Hangarounds 3
GROUP A -- WEDNESDAY
Mortsel Skywalkers 11, Hangarounds 10
Askoe Linz Bandits 6, Sparks Mlade Buky 5
Chromies 19, Kiely's Kegs 4
Askoe Linz Bandits 15, Mortsel Skywalkers 0
Kiely's Kegs 17, Hangarounds 16
Chromies 18, Sparks Mlade Buky 3
GROUP B -- TUESDAY
Wayne's World 13, Rytiri Trutnov 1
H2O 20, Lisicke 1
UCE Travellers 9, Afterburners 3
Lisicke 15, Wayne's World 5
H2O 20, Rytiri Trutnov 0
UCE Travellers 7, Lisicke 5
Afterburners 8, Rytiri Trutnov 6
GROUP B -- WEDNESDAY
H2O 15, UCE Travellers 0
H2O 23, Wayne's World 3
Lisicke 17, Afterburners 2
Lisicke 16, Rytiri Trutnov 1
Wayne's World 4, UCE Travellers 3
H2O 24, Afterburners 1
UCE Travellers 23, Ryitri Trutnov 8
Wayne's World 17, Afterburners 2