The BSF website will be publishing monthly reports throughout the season from slowpitch softball leagues. Below are June reports from the Cardiff and Manchester Softball Leagues. Other leagues that want to send monthly reports should send them by the 25th of the month to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
CARDIFF SOFTBALL LEAGUE
by Matthew Insell
The Cardiff Softball League began with two weeks of postponements back in May, but since then the softball action has been non-stop! This year the league is turning out to be dramatic, exciting and competitive, with no one team dominating. It seems like anyone can win on their day!
The usual suspects – the Orioles, Red Sox and Pirates – all have winning records, as does Cardiff Chaos, but the most improved team has to be the Hurricanes, who at the end of June sit on top of the table. But just to show that anything can happen, the Hurricanes beat the Orioles to overtake them at the top, only to promptly lose the following week to the Tiger Bay Rays, our newest team.
After a slow start, the Rays have been strong recently, winning three games on the bounce with victories over the Red Sox, Chaos and the eight-inning overtime win over the Hurricanes. With two months of games left to play this season, there will no doubt be plenty of twists and turns before the champions are crowned.
Other News
At the start of June, members of the Cardiff Red Sox successfully ran the first Diffodil Softball Tournament, with teams attending from Bristol, Manchester, Oxford and Southampton. A Cardiff League All-Star team took part and finished a creditable fourth against some very experienced tournament teams.
It was great to see players from all the Cardiff teams come together for the weekend and have fun.
Meet the Teams
This month we have profiles of the top two teams from 2011 and our newest team.
The Cardiff Red Sox: The Red Sox were formed in 2006 by a mutinous Pontcanna Pirates splinter group led by Caitlin Davies. Up until the 2102 season they were the Sophia Gardens Red Sox. Caitlin went on to captain the team for the first two years and set up the core group of players still kicking up dust today.
The Sox are among the original non-corporate Cardiff softball teams and as such have a tradition of forming close friendships with both new players and experienced vets looking to get back into the sport they love. Open to all, the team has had a noticeable international feel over the years and at one time or another has boasted players from Australia, the USA, Ireland, France, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and even Swansea!
The Red Sox core values have always been to introduce and support new players interested in the sport while creating a friendly atmosphere for all. At the same time, over the last few years under the stewardship of Holly Ireland, the Red Sox have started to challenge the more traditional top teams and became double winners with the 2011 League Championship and 2011 Llandaff Cup.
Holly hopes to carry on the tradition started by the founders. Her first and foremost concern is that fun is gratuitously had, and that runs are gratuitously scored! She is very proud of the team, in particular that they are seen as a formidable but friendly group of softballers.
The Sport and Leisure Orioles: The Sports & Leisure Orioles were founding members of the original 1998 Cardiff Softball League. Bob Fromer, then BSF National Development Officer, visited Cardiff over the summer months to give assistance to the new league and also encountered the 100-year-old art of Welsh Baseball -- a full-page feature later appeared in the Autumn 1998 issue of Double Play. The Orioles remained undefeated throughout that inaugural season and were viewed as the first Welsh Champions!
The Orioles reformed in 2010 under the direction of previous team manager Mark Munnery. Mark has had over 35 years experience of coaching team sports and quickly introduced a second generation of players to the uniqueness of the co-ed game. The Orioles' philosophy has been to play the game well and have fun. Mark has been greatly assisted in the coaching of technical skills and game tactics by Dave Roberts. In their second season together, the Orioles emerged as League and Cup runners-up and are viewed as a talented group of players.
The Orioles support their own Facebook page and social events, holding an end-of-season awards evening each year. Since reforming, pitcher Iain Munnery and third base player Miriam Salo have been voted team MVPs in two successive seasons.
The Tiger Bay Rays: In 2012, the Tiger Bay Rays were formed from a group of people who responded to an open invitation to come out and experience the game of softball prior to the start of the season. Out of those first few open practices, 16 people have committed to the team and of those 16 only five of them had any prior experience of playing the game. American Marc Verlander has taken on the role of Team Captain.
In spite of their inexperience, the team has come together in an amazing way, especially considering most of them had never met before! Marc focuses on the fundamentals of the game each week at practice and confidence throughout the team is growing, with everyone thoroughly enjoying the sport.
After losing the first four games of the season, the Rays are now clawing their way back into things with three straight wins, including a big win over last year’s league champions the Red Sox and that previously-mentioned eight-inning win over the league-leading Hurricanes.
MANCHESTER SOFTBALL LEAGUE
by Harry Somers
It has been a bad month for the Lions, who topped the table with a 5-0 record at the start of the month, and find themselves 6-3 four games later. Their game with the Greensox was always going to be close, but the 2-1 scoreline after seven innings is the lowest aggregate score since records began in the MSL 20 years ago. Mavericks and Thunder were the other Lion-tamers this month.
Outlaws were having a good month and were briefly in second place until the last week, when they were shut out 9-0 by the Mavs. So it's Greensox top on at 8-1, then Mavs 7-2, Lions and Outlaws 6-3, Thunder 5-4, Dodgers 4-5.
Divisional Split
At this time of year, having completed one round-robin, our nine-team Divisions 1 and 2 split into three divisions of six teams each, with the bottom three teams in Division 1 joining the top three from Division 2 in the "Playoff Division".
Mutineers, who were 0-8, immediately demonstrated why this scheme makes sense, with their first win of the season against the Dragons, who made it into the Playoff Division after an 11-9 win over Outlaws II in a decider that had conveniently though coincidentally been scheduled for last round of the opening round-robin. This is a great achievement for the Dragons, promoted from Division 3 at the end of last season.
Bullfrogs and Lightning are the other two to drop down from Division 1, while the Camels and Bats, both with 1.000 records in Division 2, met in the last round of the nine-team Division 2, with Camels coming out on top.
Outlaws II now top the reduced Division 2 with a 5-4 record, with Speeders 4-5, Meerkats (having been promoted last year) at 3-6, Clangers 3-5 with one forfeit, Storm 2-7 and Blue Gnus with a 1-8 record propping up the table.
Division 4
In July, for the first time ever, the MSL will have a fourth division. The top seven in Division 3 will play a further round robin, followed by playoffs, while the bottom five will be joined by a new team formed from rookie sessions.
Steaming ahead with an 11-0 record in Division 3 are Mossley Mayhem, with the Tigers and Bluesox three games behind. Delighted to make the cut and stay in Division 3 are the Pirates, who joined the league mid-season last year and have come on in leaps and bounds.
Last year's Division 3 champions Drizzle, who refused promotion in order to re-group, find themselves in Division 4 along with Camels II, who also did much better last year.
Bottom team Phoenix have won only one of their 11 games, but are showing the rest of the league that softball is primarily about having fun, with winning a bonus when it happens but not essential.
Doubleheader experiment
On June 19, Division 3 teams played doubleheaders to make up for the rained-out opening week.
The first games were timed (no new inning after 75 minutes), but in fact all the games were completed within that limit. Half the teams moved to another pitch for the second game against different opponents and the late sunset meant that we could easily fit in two games, a new experience for many teams who do not travel to tournaments.
Unfortunately, one team preferred to go off to watch the England match and forfeited their second game, but otherwise the experiment was judged a huge success.