by Bob Fromer
Saturday, July 28 -- GB Men's Fastpitch
Team Head Coach Russ Snow had a plan.
The GB Team had finished 5-1 in pool play, good for second place in the round-robin phase of the 2012 European Men's Championship in Amstelveen, near Amsterdam in Holland. This meant that the GB Team could finish no lower than third, and this in turn guaranteed qualification for the 2013 Men's World Championships to be played next March in Auckland, New Zealand.
So far, so good -- GB's first goal
in the competition was already accomplished. And second place in the round-robin also meant that GB faced the undefeated Czech Republic on Friday night in the 1 v 2 Page Playoff game, with the winner going straight to the Grand Final -- an enticing prospect.
But GB has only one frontline pitcher in James Darby, since #2 Mark Elson was injured earlier in the week. If GB threw James Darby against the Czechs on Friday night and GB lost, Darby would have to throw two more games today for GB to win the title. If, on the other hand, GB pitched #3 Curt Taylor against the Czechs on Friday night and didn't worry about the probable loss, then James Darby would be fresh to throw those two games today.
What's more, in the 3 v 4 Page Playoff game on Friday, the Netherlands had unexpectedly defeated Denmark. So even if GB lost to the Czechs on Friday night, it would only be the Netherlands standing between GB and the Final, and GB usually defeats the Netherlands. It all seemed set up perfectly. Baldrick would certainly have approved of the cunning plan.
Mice and men
But the best laid plans of mice and men, etc.... GB did lose as expected to the Czechs on Friday night with Curt Taylor pitching, but they turned out this morning in confident mood against the Dutch.
The game was tight, but GB got off the mark in the first inning on a single by Ryan Martin, a sacrifice by Morgan Ottridge, a wild pitch and a groundout.
Another run was added in the second inning on a walk to Steve Hazard, a sacrifice by Steve Fullan and a single by Steve Rice. The score was GB 2, Holland 0.
And there the GB offense stalled against three different Dutch pitchers. But it didn't seem to matter because James Darby was making pitches when he had to and setting down the Dutch, striking out seven over the first five innings -- though the Dutch had left seven runners on base at that stage and Darby had issued six walks.
Fatal inning
But then came the top of the sixth inning, and GB's carefully laid plans went out the window. A walk, a single and another walk loaded the bases with no one out. A Dutch pinch-hitter struck out swinging for the first out, but Darby walked the next two batters to tie the game, and then the defense began to fall apart, with two errors in quick succession. When the inning finally came to an end, the Dutch had scored five runs on only one hit, with three of those runs unearned. More importantly, the Dutch had a 5-2 lead and GB had only six outs left to do something about it.
But they never came close to mounting a rally. GB hitters went up and down in order in the bottom of the sixth and seventh innings, and suddenly the Dutch were in the Final, GB had to settle for third place, and a first-ever European Championship had eluded GB yet again.
The Dutch had pulled off this win with only two hits in the game, but there were three GB errors (none for Holland), and then there were all those walks. James Darby had pitched his way around a ton of walks during most of the tournament, but they finally caught up with him in the end.
Nor did getting to the Final do the Dutch a lot of good -- they lost 9-2 to the Czech Republic in five innings on the mercy rule, and the Czechs reclaimed the title that they unexpectedly lost to Denmark in 2010.
Still, the GB Team is already making preparations for the trip to the World Championships next year after another excellent all-round performance in the Europeans, and GB will be looking to improve on their current world ranking of eighth.