The London Meteors Men's Fastpitch Team took one of their largest and strongest squads to the annual Zeisterslot Tournament in the Netherlands, played from June 11-13, but was knocked out at the semi-final stage thanks to a pair of defeats at the hands of RAF Lakenheath.
The Meteors' team mixed experienced men's fastpitch players, including a number from the GB Men's Team, with high-level slowpitch players such as Steve Hazard and Michael Lee who are trying out fastpitch and coming to terms with the new skills the game requires.
Below are brief reports on the eight games the Meteors played, and then BSUK South East Regional Coach Stan Doney, who put the team together, and GB and Meteors player Wesley Knapp, offer their thoughts on the event.
Saturday
Meteors 9, Young Czechs 7
The Meteors got off to an unusual start to the tournament by piling on seven runs in the first inning against the Young Czech team. Usually, Meteors teams take a while to get used to playing fastpitch again, but Steve Rice, Curt Taylor, James Chalmers, Kenny Pregnell, Jorge Dominguez, Wesley Knapp and Daryl Herrmann all scored in the first inning to get the Meteors out to a 7-0 lead. And every run was needed! The Young Czechs slowly chipped away at the lead but additional runs in the third and fourth innings allowed the Meteors to stay ahead and come away with the 9-7 win. GB Slowpitch shortstop Steve Hazard had a rough start to his international fastpitch career with two strikeouts and a ground out to third.
Denmark B 11, Meteors 4
The Meteors had the mercy rule applied to them in this game, even though they were only 7-4 behind going into the bottom of the fifth inning. The Meteors had plenty of runners on base but couldn't get the key hits to bring them in at crucial times. Then Denmark strung a few hits together and suddenly it was all over, with the score 11-4 to Denmark B after five innings. But this was not entirely a Denmark B team, as the European Champions had their best pitcher, Jesper Panduro, and best batter, Freddy Terkelsen, in their lineup.
Meteors 7, Phoenix 1
The Meteors got off to a quick start once again, putting three runs on the board in the first inning and another three in the second. It's hard not to relax when your opponents aren't scoring, and so the Meteors could only manage one more run. But that matched the Dutch team's total and Meteors had a relatively easy 7-1 win.
Meteors 7, Germany 3
The Meteors ran their record to 3-1 in the final game on Saturday, scoring in four of their seven innings, with the lead-off batters doing their job and getting on base for others to drive them in. Germany managed single runs in the first, third and sixth innings, but they are a new team put together with the same amount of funding GB has been used to in recent years (£0). They will get better the more they play at tournaments like Zeist.
Sunday
RAF Lakenheath 4, Meteors 3
Meteors used their strongest line-up for this game as they were topping the table on six points after Day 1 and could remain in first place by winning their two games on Sunday, which would mean a prized 1.00 pm start on Monday. The game see-sawed throughout and was great for spectators as it came down to the bottom of the seventh with the Meteors trailing by a run. Ninth-place batter Steve Rice led off with a single to second base and Stan Doney bunted him to second, which gave the Meteors two chances to get Steve in and force a tie-breaker. But as was the case for most of the weekend, the Meteors couldn't cash a runner in scoring position and lost 4-3.
Netherlands 8, Meteors 1
Ten strikeouts in six innings of softball. Mercied. Enough said.
Monday
Meteors 8, Young Czechs 4
Games are reduced to six innings on Finals Day at Zeist in the quarter-finals and semi-finals and the Young Czechs were leading this game 4-1 going into the fifth inning, meaning the Meteors had only six outs left to get at least three runs. But in a massive fifth inning, seven runs were scored to seal a Meteors' win. And this was despite a rare occurrence: James Chalmers, one of the best Meteors and GB hitters, made both the first and third outs in the inning. You see this fairly often in slowpitch but rarely in fastpitch.
Lakenheath 6, Meteors 0
Five strikeouts and five fly ball outs were enough to see the Meteors go home early after this semi-final. Stan Doney said, "The writing was on the wall in the first inning when the umpire did something I have never seen called in my life -- an illegal pitch due to our pitcher, Russ Snow, supposedly not delivering the ball within 10 seconds. There was a runner on third so their first run came courtesy of a call I have never seen in my 27 years of playing. It just goes to show that you never stop learning or seeing something new in this game. And you do not win any games when you score 0 runs and that summed up our weekend: not enough runs scored."
The winner
Denmark B won the tournament with a fine display of batting from Rody Stam, including back-to-back home runs in the final.
Stan Doney writes:
It was another great softball tournament at Zeist, with more funny and wonderful stories. Special mentions must go to:
Russ Snow: Another year, another tournament for the GB Head Coach. Russ pitched well as always and kept us in the games on Finals Day.
The Pitchers: We had six players pitch at this tournament, the most in a long time.
James Chalmers: James is going back home to Australia next year but has provided the team with awesome utility skills as he can play every position. And he is also one of the people who can keep the team laughing when heads go down.
Steve Fullan: Although he did not travel with the team he still organised all of the guys once again to get there on time.
Moe Flett: Moe played Steve's manager role once he knew he could not make it and doubled up as the team scorer.
Michael Lee (Pieman) and Steve Hazard: Both had a rude awakening to the world of international fastpitch but I'm sure they are going to come back stronger for 2012. Steve Hazard will for sure as he is going to be told by Pieman for an entire year about who has the better batting average. Both guys gained the full respect of their teammates and opposition (especially in the field) and I am personally very thankful that they crossed codes for the weekend, which will just make the slowpitch and fastpitch relationship better.
The Team: We had 18 players this year, two full teams. Many people had to sit on the bench but not one player complained, which is rare in softball teams. Once again it was a memorable tournament, with many great plays and a few ugly ones -- but the team had such a great time that we even forgot to take a team photo!
Many of the players will have one more fastpitch tournament this year when the Richings Park Penguins compete in the European Men's Cup-Winners' Cup in Prague in August and I am always keen on slowpitch players coming to Europe with the team. If you are interested in playing in Europe then please speak to Michael Lee first (as he has the better batting average!) and Steve Hazard and they can fill you in on their experience of fastpitch in Europe.
Then contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for more information.
If it sounds like something you would like to try and I think you are talented enough to hold your own, I will have no problem putting you on the roster. I have to submit the roster in a few weeks' time, but being on the roster doesn't mean you're committed; it just gives you the opportunity to go.
Wesley Knapp's view:
It was another great turnout of all the familiar faces who make this tournament one of the most memorable for one reason or another. From a players' point of view, we all knew that Russ Snow and Stan Doney wanted to be extremely competitive this year with the number of players we had, and we all knew we had a specific job to do once selected to play.
It was great to have such depth in abundance and everyone was fighting for a place on the field. What made it even better was that we had a selection of pitchers to chose from, which meant we could keep the rotation fresh. John Brown, Curt Taylor, James Chalmers, Mark Elson, Stan Doney and Russ Snow all contributed to the pitching duties -- thanks to all who did their part for the team.
The first day was an almost perfect start for the coaching staff looking to see what the new players could do. Mixing the inexperienced with the more experienced players proved to be highly effective as we won three out of four games on Day 1.
The standard of play across all the teams was at a reasonable European level. But as a player, it would have been good to see the Danish and Czech National Teams at Zeist this year -- though holding two of the top men's fastpitch tournaments in Europe in the same month was bound to stretch a few players financially.
I’m sure in the coming years these two top teams in Europe will come back to Zeist to compete and it is such a good chance to see the powerhouses of European men's softball come together at the same event.
A few standout players from my point of view are probably no surprise, such as Kenny Pregnell with a great batting display on the first day and always doing a job behind the plate and James Chalmers for his batting and fielding expertise. With his flexibility you can play him anywhere.
One new face that turned up, young New Zealand Under-19 player Ryan Martin, showed outstanding sharpness at second base. One of the most memorable plays was a full-stretch diving backhand catch of a ball that was certainly going through to the outfield. His batting was also exceptional, though his baserunning at times needed a bit of work as he ended up almost caught in a run down twice on third base in the same game against the Young Czechs. Proper footwear may have helped!
The Meteors always provide entertainment on and off the field and I think we are one of the favourite teams at this event. Many of the players have been going to Zeist year after year, but one of stalwarts of the team, Tony (Taz) Kelly, who has been coming to Zeist since 1995, will be leaving us to live in America and I believe this was his last Zeist trip. So a special thank you to Taz for his contribution to the team.
Stan Doney did a great job organising the team from London and he also contributed on the field by dropping down a textbook bunt and consistently putting the ball in play as a leadoff hitter.
Thanks to all who made the trip to Zeist a memorable one. I will look forward to playing with most of you again in the European Cup-Winners' Cup in Prague.