by Kirsty Whiteford
Swindon Softball League
Could this have been the first competitive outdoor softball game of the 2014 season? On Thursday 30 January, a team from the Swindon Softball League took on trainee officers from the Defence Academy in Shrivenham in temperatures of 2 degrees C, and the Swindon team eventually won by 31-10.
But there was a reason why the game took place at this time of the year – it was to help the softball novices from the Defence Academy when they travelled to the United States this spring to play a team from the US military.
First contact
The Defence Academy first contacted the Swindon League back in October last year. As part of their officer training course they travel to America in the spring and take on US forces at various sports. Softball is seen as the compromise between cricket and baseball!
Historically, the teams that have gone out in the past have not done too well – not understanding the game or the rules certainly doesn't help! This year the Defence Academy decided that enough was enough; they wanted to improve their performance.
Enter the Swindon Softball League, some of whose players have spent a number of weeks training the officers in the core skills and rules in an indoor hall. There has been a great improvement in basic skills, but nothing teaches you more than putting those skills to the test in a proper game.
At around two degrees in temperature on 30 January, it was certainly not for the faint-hearted. Thankfully, we managed to pick the only night of the week when it didn't rain!
The game
As the fog descended, the Defence Academy won the toss and elected to field first.
Playing with an indoor ball to protect our precious bats took it little bit of getting used to, especially for the experienced players from the league! The ball didn't travel as far, which caught the outfielders out to start with, and also resulted in a few fumbles.
At the end of the first inning, the teams were evenly matched at 5-4 to The Defence Academy. All that coaching was really proving itself!
The second inning saw the rust start to come off the Swindon players, several of whom hadn't picked up a bat since September. Bringing five runs in and then shutting out the Defence Academy put Swindon into a strong position, leading 9-5. However fortunes were reversed in the third inning, with the Defence Academy taking the inning by five runs to four, reducing Swindon's lead to just three runs.
By the fourth inning, however, the Swindon team got their eye in and became much tighter in defence, managing to prevent the Defence Academy from scoring another run for the rest of the game. Meanwhile, the Swindon team continued to score consistently, and the final score was 31-10 to Swindon.
Learning points
Learning points from the game were:
- It turns out that even when playing with an indoor ball, it can still be hit for monster home runs if you connect with it well enough.
- Military training comes in handy when running the bases – or rather over-running the bases. If you do this, the best way to avoid the tag is to hit the deck like you are about to crawl under a cargo net!
The result
Sadly, the training that the Defence Academy received from the Swindon League didn't allow them to beat the Americans during their trip to the States -- but it did result in an improved performance. One of the Defence Academy players wrote to Swindon Softball League Committee member Dave Jones: "We got back at the weekend after a very enjoyable game of softball that we lost 30-16! We played very well, much better than they were expecting and we even managed four home runs! Our fielding kept them contained, aided by the fact they couldn't run very fast, but we fell down on the batting. They were hitting almost every ball first time and hard, hence they scored more runs! Once again, many thanks for all the help you and Kirsty gave us. We would certainly have lost by a much greater margin without your guidance."
The current Defence Academy class are at the end of a one-year course, but the next class will start at the base soon and will go through the same training, followed by their trip to the States early in 2015. The hope is that this year’s class will be able to enter a team in the Swindon League over the summer so that by next spring they will be a much more able side.
