by Bob Fromer
Pardubice, Czech Republic: August 3 – “I'm a 
little bit worried about Lisicke,” said Chromies' Co-Manager Doug Clouston on the morning of an eventful day on Friday at the 2012 European Slowpitch Cup. “They've played really well,” he said, “they have speed, and they're a good base-hitting team.”
It had rained overnight, it was raining as Doug spoke, the main field was saturated despite being covered, and the main casualty of all this was Chromies' last game in the round-robin pool scheduled for 9.15 Friday morning – against Lisicke. Since Chromies and Lisicke were going to finish 1-2 in the pool whatever happened, the Technical Committee decided to lose that game, since the other three pool games scheduled for the morning would all have a bearing on which teams would take the other playoff places.
And so it was that Chromies and Lisicke
had their first encounter, not in a relatively meaningless morning pool game, but in the 1 v 2 Page Playoff game on Friday afternoon after the rain had given way to sunshine and the field had been reclaimed from its soaking. The result was a classic game of high-level slowpitch softball, full of power, great defense, good pitching and crucial errors – and in the end, it turned on one Chromies' error in the top of the seventh inning that allowed Lisicke to break a 9-9 tie and score seven unearned runs, handing the Chromies their first defeat of the competition by a score of 16-9.
As a result, Chromies will need to play the winners of the 3 v 4 Page Playoff game, the dangerous German team UCE Travellers, at noon tomorrow for the right to meet Lisicke in the 4.00 pm final. UCE prevailed 7-6 over the host Czech team Pasos Pardubice in a tense and exciting game that went to nine innings and was decided in fading light.
If Lisicke wins the final, or if Chromies fail to get there, it will mark a turning point for European slowpitch – the first time that a European Championship or Cup will have been won by a team not from Britain or Ireland. And it won't be a complete surprise, because seven of the eight teams here are pretty good, an indication of how the standard of slowpitch is improving on the Continent.
But a Continental win tomorrow is still a big if, because Chromies will come out fighting, first to get to the final, and then to prove that Britain still reigns supreme in slowpitch. But if Doug Clouston was worried today, he might be even more worried tomorrow.
Shaky start
The postponement of the morning pool game with Lisicke gave the Chromies' players plenty of time to rest and relax before the 1 v 2 Page Playoff game finally got underway just after 4.15 pm.
And maybe that had something to do with a very shaky start.
Lisicke leadoff hitter Grega Vacancic looked at a strike from David Lee, then powered the next pitch to deep right centre field for an inside-the-park home run. The next batter, Tjusa Skabar, reached on the first of three Chromies' errors in what turned out to be a nightmare half inning. Lisicke batted through their line-up, the Chromies fumbled the ball, and the Slovenians put five big runs on the board.
Power
But the Chromies always have one big weapon that most other teams don't – the power hitting of BSF Hall of Famer Brett Gibbens. So after Michael O'Sullivan and Jenny Ball led off the bottom of the first inning with singles, up stepped Brett and powered a pitch from Ales Mravlje over the fence in left field and into the trees, and suddenly the score was 5-3. Chromies then scored one more and the first inning ended Lisicke 5, Chromies 4.
But Brett Gibbens wasn't done. A 4-6-3 double play kept Lisicke off the board in the top of the second, and in the bottom of the inning, with Michael O'Sullivan and Jenny Ball again on base, this time with two out, Brett did it again – a towering drive that just dropped over the fence in left, and now it was 7-5 to the Chromies.
Tension
The game then settled down and neither team scored in the third or fourth. In the third inning, Jenny Ball made a fine grab of a sharp line drive off the bat of Ales Mravlje, and in the fourth inning, with Grega Vacancic on first and two outs, Brett Gibbens was almost burned by a fly ball hit by Tjusa Skabar, but managed to make a leaping over-the-head catch.
It was in the top of the fifth inning that Chromies were handed some of their own medicine. Andres Skabar and Savina Golicnik opened with singles off David Lee, and then his opposite number, Ales Mravlje, put one into the trees in left, and Lisicke re-took the lead at 8-7. It was the first over-the-fence home run in the tournament not hit by a Chromies player.
Brett Gibbens was the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the fifth, and Ales Mravlje wanted nothing to do with him, walking Brett on four pitches. One out later, it was Danny Gunn supplying the power – an inside-the-park home run to the deep recesses of right-centre field, and Chromies had snatched the lead back at 9-8.
The first two Slovenian batters made outs in the top of the sixth inning, but then Andres Skabar doubled, Savina Golicnik slapped a single to left on a 1-2 count, and the game was tied at 9-9. A fine double play turned by Lisicke shortstop Andres Skabar on Jenny Ball's bouncer to short set Chromies down quickly in the bottom of the sixth, and the game moved to the seventh inning.
The fatal seventh
Being the home team in a game like this is always a huge advantage, and Brett Gibbens was due to lead off the bottom of the seventh for the Chromies. So if Lisicke could be set down without scoring, you would have bet on the Chromies to win.
It almost happened.
Tiga Strvicelj led off with a line drive down the third base line that Jenny Ball just managed to snare, with a lot of ball showing in the top of her glove, for the first out. Tina Kramberger singled and David Lee, pitching a little too carefully to Tiga Bauer, walked him to put runners on second and third. But both runners had to hold as Gabi Humerca bounced out, Danny Gunn to Marketa Sulcova on first, for the second out.
That brought up Slovenian leadoff hitter Grega Vancancic, already with three hits in the game. He hit a low line drive to shortstop and Danny Gunn went for the catch that would have ended the inning. But the ball trickled off his glove into short left field, both runners scored, and the momentum had utterly changed. The next four batters all singled, then Natalie Bailey just missed coming up with a diving catch on Tina Trobec's line drive to left centre, then Tiga Strvicelj doubled.
It all added up to seven huge runs before Tina Kramberger bounced back to David Lee to end the frame.
There were to be no heroics for the Chromies in the bottom of the seventh, even though Marketa Sulcova and Danny Gunn singled with one out. The next batter, Milada Zolobova, bounced into a game-ending 6-4-3 double play.
And though Chromies would probably have won if Danny Gunn had caught that line drive in the top of the seventh, the Slovenians deserved their victory. They out-hit the Chromies by 24 to 15 and committed five errors to eight for the Chromies. This tournament has shown that European teams now know how to play slowpitch, and the Slovenians (as witness last year's European Championships) most of all.
Meaningful games
An indication of how close this competition has been is that after the rain stopped this morning and the final pool games were played, Chromies, Lisicke and the German team UCE Travellers had all clinched Page Playoff places in that order, but four teams – all the other teams except the 0-7 Sunville Tigers from Belgium – were tied with records of three wins and four losses.
It took a lot of searching through the rulebook to figure out how to resolve that logjam, but the result was that the host Czech club, Pasos Pardubice, claimed the fourth Page Playoff spot.
Tomorrow, the other Czech team, DNAce, will play the Dodder Dynamoes from Ireland to decide fifth place, and the Askoe Linz Bandits from Austria, who started the tournament so well and then faded, will play the Sunville Tigers for seventh place.
The four teams that didn't make the main Page Playoff were meant to have a Page Playoff of their own to resolve the bottom four places, but the rain put paid to that, and the teams will simply have the two placing playoff games tomorrow instead.
Pool Standings
The final pool standings after the round-robin was completed were:
1 – Chromies/GBR (6-0)
2 – Lisicke/SLO (5-1)
3 – UCE Travellers/GER (4-3)
4 – Pasos Pardubice/CZ (3-4)
5 – DNAce/CZ (3-4)
6 – Dodder Dynamoes/IRE (3-4)
7 – Askoe Linz Bandits/AUS (3-4)
8 – Sunville Tiger/BEL (0-7)