By Donald Morris-Vincent
Saturday 18 June – Three astonishing innings at the end of a long, hot day, during which they put 48 runs on the scoreboard, led the GB Men to the gold medal today at the European Men’s Slowpitch Championship in Colorno, Italy.
GB did it the hard way. An 18-12 loss to the Netherlands in the 9.00 am Page Playoff 1 v 2 game this morning meant that GB had to face a revitalised German team this afternoon for the right to play the Dutch in the final. A close game that could have gone either way was suddenly torn apart by a 17-run fourth inning for GB that ended the game on a 33-13 mercy rule win.
Then, just a half hour or so later, in the gold medal game against a rested Netherlands team, GB ripped off 16 more runs in the first inning and 15 runs in the third, and then kept scoring when they had to against a Dutch team that never gave up to record an amazing 47-31 win that brought GB its second gold medal in the second edition of the competition.
Just the bare statistics from the final are remarkable. GB had 47 runs (47 runs!) and 42 hits; the Dutch had 31 runs and 37 hits. The Dutch had eight errors, which unquestionably gave GB a helping hand: only 34 of those 47 runs were earned. GB only committed three errors and the Dutch had only three unearned runs. And yet, for all those hits and errors and the odd walk and runners twirling around the bases, GB left only five runners on base and the Dutch six.
The most runs anyone scored in a game when the European Men’s Slowpitch Championship was first held in 2018 was 31, by the Netherlands against Ireland. The most runs scored before today in this tournament was 27, by GB against Germany. And yet, this afternoon, the GB Men scored 80 runs in their final two games over 11 innings.
There’s no question that the gold medal the team will bring back to the UK is well-deserved!
The Final: GB 47, Netherlands 31
What do you do when you have mercied your previous opponents in a crucial playoff game, scoring 17 runs in the fourth and final inning? Why, you start at the top of the first inning of the gold medal game and score 16 more runs to make it 33 runs scored in back-to-back innings.
Luis Arrevillagas’s two-run home run might have been the standout moment in any other inning, but when GB had 13 hits and six doubles, it just seemed part of the fun.
But the Dutch are a powerful hitting team themselves, and they knew there was a long way to go. So they made a start in the bottom of the first inning with Bas De Jong and Bryan Engelhardt home runs that brought in four runs and they added three more before the inning was over. It was GB 16, Netherlands 7, but nine runs didn't seem all that big a margin.
So GB added five more runs in the top of the second inning.
But Bryan Engelhardt hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the second, Jos De Jong hit a trip-over-the-plate-and-stumble-to-first single and then Johan Flaneur hit a second home run. Five runs kept the margin at GB 21, Netherlands 12.
Netherlands then made a pitching change to start the top of the third inning, Hans Kluck for Rinaldo James, and it did them no favours at all as GB rolled out the big guns once again.
With two out, having walked Robbie Studholme, Rinaldo James intentionally walked Mike MacDowell, only to have Chris Yoxall hit a three-run home run into deep left field, soon followed by a matching three-run shot from Kelvin Harrison. Then Luis Arrevillagas and Adam Hugill singled and Roger Grooms walked to load the bases. Robbie Studholme walked to score Luis before Duncan Waugh singled to score two more runs. That brought Mike MacDowell up again and he validated that intentional walk by blasting a home run deep to left field for another three runs. To top it off, Joe Grantham also hit a three-run home run before the inning ended, and GB had posted another 15 runs.
Joe Grantham then impressed in the bottom of the inning too, with a magnificent ground ball grab at third base and throw to first for the first out. The Dutch did score two runs, but the score was now GB 36, The Netherlands 14.
Surely, the game was over. But somehow it wasn't....
The top of the fourth inning brought a solo home run for Luis Arrevillagas, but that was the only GB run.
The bottom of the inning brought up the heart of the Netherlands order and Bryan Engelhardt did not disappoint with a two-run space shot home run. Jos De Jong also hit a solo home run but the inning seemed under control when Josse Josemans hit into a 4-6-3 double play. But it wasn't: the Dutch tacked on a further eight runs with ‘small ball’, and GB's lead was down to a slightly scary 37-25.
The top of the fifth inning brought solo home runs from Mike MacDowell, Chris Yoxall and Joe Grantham, and the Netherlands needed four runs to avoid the mercy rule. They got five on a Josse Josemans inside-the-park home run, a flurry of singles and a couple of errors to keep their hopes alive. The lead was down to 40-30, and GB must have been tiring after their long, hot day in the sun. Could the unthinkable happen?
Now it was the top of the sixth inning, and for the only the second time in the 17 innings they had played today, GB failed to score. Thankfully, the Dutch only managed one run themselves in the bottom of the sixth, so it was now GB 40, Netherlands 31.
When you are ahead in a game it never hurts to add more runs and GB summmoned one last effort. A Chris Yoxall home run began the top of the seventh inning, some singles and a double scored two more and then Dan Patterson and Duncan Waugh hit inside-the-park home runs to bring the total in the inning to seven and the margin to 47-31. .
It was only at that point that the Dutch succumbed. Needing 17 runs to win, The Netherlands went down in order in the bottom of the seventh and the win was GB’s, along with the gold medal.
But it was a well-earned silver medal for the Dutch.
Summing up
The GB Slowpitch Men certainly had to fight for this result.
In the first European Men’s Slowpitch Championship, in 2018, GB had one or two close encounters but didn’t lose a single game. This time, they lost twice, both to the Netherlands, and it took heroic late rallies to avoid losses to Italy and Ireland in the initial round-robin.
The standard of European men’s slowpitch, as GB pitcher Roger Grooms noted early in the competition, has definitely got better and every one of the six teams in this tournament was competitive. This bodes well for the future of international slowpitch competition, especially given the recent announcement that a first-ever WBSC Co-ed Slowpitch World Cup for national teams will definitely take place in 2023.
Now the GB Co-ed Slowpitch Team has to emulate the Men and bring home the gold medal – or at least a medal of some colour – from the European Co-ed Slowpitch Championship next month in Ljubljana, Slovenia, to make sure that they qualify for that World Cup. And a number of the men who were successful here in Colorno will be with the co-ed team to help them do just that.
Here’s how GB got to the Championship game….
Page Playoff 1 v 2 Game: Netherlands 18, GB 12
Another morning, another 9.00 am start, and another game against the Netherlands: the GB Team could have been forgiven for starting the day with a sense of déjà vu.
However, both teams were probably grateful to be playing in pleasant 26° morning sunshine in the Campo Dorotea Sofia – and the first few innings reflected that.
Runs were being put on the board by both teams, but not that many, and in a professional display, the Dutch kept GB at bay for six innings and then turned the screw with seven runs in the top of the seventh to pull away and win the game 18-12.
GB pitcher Dan Spinks started well, setting the Dutch down in order in the top of the first inning, and GB then scored four runs in the bottom of the frame.
But the pattern changed over the next two innings, with GB registering nothing in the second and only one run in the third while The Netherlands racked up three and four runs respectively to take a 7-5 lead.
Two runs for each team in the fourth inning kept the run difference the same: Netherlands 9, GB 7.
In the top of the fifth inning, lefty Bryan Engelhardt hit a two-run bomb to deep right field for the Dutch. In the bottom of the inning, Kelvin Harrison doubled to left field and Josh Smith singled to bring him home, but that was GB’s only run and the Dutch lead crept up to 11-8.
Three quick outs for The Netherlands in the top of the sixth brought GB in with a chance to turn the game around. Joe Grantham signalled as much with an opening triple to right centre field and was scored by Adam Hugill’s single. But then a fly out and a 4-6-3 double play snuffed out the inning before it got going and so the Dutch still led by 11-9.
GB entered the top of the seventh inning with one job -- three quick outs -- and they almost managed it
After a Dutch double and single took their lead to 12-9, GB pulled off a slick 6-4-3 double play. There were two outs, no Dutch runners on base, and if GB could get one more out, they would go into the bottom of the seventh with a very manageable deficit to overcome.
But it took nine more batters before GB pitcher Dan Spinks could get that final out, and during that time the Dutch had seven hits, good for six more runs and an 18-9 lead.
What was GB’s reply to this display of focused hitting? A Mike MacDowell walk and a Kelvin Harrison home run deep to left field that brought in two runs, and then singles by Josh Smith and Chris Yoxall that put runners on the corners. With Rinaldo James in to pitch for Hans Kluck, a Dan Spinks sacrifice fly scored one more run -- but then a 6-4-3 double play quashed any hopes for GB and ended the game.
The final score was 18-12.
The Dutch were through to the Championship game while GB would have to take the harder route of winning two more games to achieve gold, first against the winner of the 3 v 4 Page Playoff game – Germany against Ireland – and then, if successful, against The Netherlands once again.
But Coach David Lee was full of confidence. “Yes, we need to win two,” he said, “but nothing has changed for us.”
The winner of the 3 v 4 game turned out to be Germany, who scored in every inning for an easy 21-7 win that relegated Ireland to fourth place in the final standings. Now GB and Germany would meet for the right to face the Dutch in the tournament final.
Page Playoff Semi-Final: GB 33, Germany 13
The weather app stated that the temperature in Colorno at the start of this game was 31° centigrade with a ‘real feel’ of 33° -- but who knows the level of heat on the field, especially when standing on the dirt.
All this may have weighed on the GB Team as they contemplated not only this game but also a potential final game against a rested Netherlands team straight afterwards. I say it ‘may’ have weighed on them, because there was little evidence of any nerves on the field.
However, this was a close game that could have gone either way – at least until the bottom of the fourth inning, when the GB Men launched one of those hit-blizzards that only GB seems able to do in European slowpitch competition.
Things got off to a normal start in the first inning, Roger Grooms’s pitching holding the Germans to two runs and GB posting five in reply.
In the top of the second inning, with two runs already scored, Wolfgang Walther and Marc Dütjer hit back-to-back home runs to deep left centre field for Germany to bring in four more.
A Josh Smith triple in the bottom of the second, and doubles from Duncan Waugh and Joe Grantham, plus a two-run single from Luis Arrevillagas, had GB posting five runs of their own to take the score to GB 10, Germany 8.
Germany took the lead in the top of the third inning on a two-run home run to centre field by Marc Beuchert and, later, a two-run single by Christopher Purrington. Four runs for Germany and a 12-10 lead.
In the bottom of the third, with one run already in, Mike MacDowell hit a home run to deep left field to bring home three runs, and an error, a Robbie Studholme triple and a Matt Tomlin sacrifice fly brought in two more. Six runs for GB put them into a 16-12 lead.
In the top of the fourth inning, Germany scored one run and might have had more except for a 1-5-4 double play that prompted a brief umpires’ conference on the merits of the second out. But the play stood and the half inning ended.
So going into their at-bat in the bottom of the fourth inning, GB was leading 16-13, and the question of who would meet the Netherlands in the Championship game was still very much up for grabs.
What is there to say about the bottom of the fourth inning except that there was a lot of it?
Before it was over, German pitcher Wolfgang Walther had to endure 15 hits, including four doubles, two inside-the-park home runs (Duncan Waugh and Mike MacDowell) and two over-the fence home runs, the last of which, by Joe Grantham with two runners on, brought the tally for the inning to 17 runs, the score to 33-13 and the game to an end on the mercy rule (“20 after four”) without a third out ever being recorded.
Mixed in was a walk and one German error, but basically this was the most fearsome one-inning batting blitz the tournament had seen, and it took GB on to the Championship game and left the Germans with the bronze medal.
Tournament bits and pieces
Fifth-place playoff. In an extraordinary fifth-place playoff between Belgium and Italy, the teams were tied at 12-12 after four innings, neither team scored in the fifth, and then both teams scored seven runs in the sixth inning. At that point, the organisers had to call the call the game so the tournament could stay on schedule, and so fifth place was shared between them.
Statistics. Going into the final day’s play, GB’s Josh Smith stood fourth in batting average in the tournament at .708, but the player showing up in most other categories was Mike MacDowell. Mike was third in home runs with six, first in RBIs with 25, second in runs scored with 20, third in doubles with six, second in walks with five and third in slugging percentage at 1.414. Josh Smith led the tournament with four triples while Duncan Waugh was fourth with two, and Josh and Duncan were second and third in on-base percentage at .720 and .714 respectively.
Final day scores
Scores in the Page Playoff and the fifth-place game on the final day of the European Men’s Slowpitch Championship were:
Page Playoff 1 v 2 Game:
Netherlands 18, GB 12
Page Playoff 3 v 4 Game:
Germany 21, Ireland 7 (6 inns)
5th-Place Playoff:
Belgium 19, Italy 19 (6 inns)
Page Playoff Semi-Final:
GB 33, Germany 13 (4 inns)
Championship Game:
GB 47, Netherlands 31
Final Standings
The final standings in the 2022 European Men’s Slowpitch Championship are:
1 – Great Britain
2 – The Netherlands
3 – Germany
4 – Ireland
5 – Belgium and Italy