Greater London Mixed League wins BSF All-Star Nationals Gold title in thrilling extra-inning final
A team from the Greater London Softball Mixed League, thrown together during the week before the tournament by Manager Kim Comer and others, started slowly on Saturday, won some tough games on Sunday to get to the final, then outlasted Edinburgh in a 12-11 eight-inning thriller to win the BSF All-Star Nationals Gold Championship.

The Silver All-Star Nationals was won by the Solent League, who led the tournament table from start to finish and proved their superiority with a 21-16 win over Manchester in the final.

The tournament was played on July 14-15 at Birmingham City University’s Moor Lane Ground at Sutton Coldfield, on a weekend that was mainly dry but surprisingly cold for mid-June when the sun didn’t manage to escape the clouds.

Last year’s inaugural All-Star Nationals attracted eight teams; this time, it was up to 10 teams representing eight leagues, with Edinburgh and the East Midlands entering teams in both competitions. But while the 2007 tournament had all eight teams playing in one division, BSF Tournaments Officers Liz Graham and Lesley Morisetti made the decision this year to go with a six-team Gold (Comp) and a four-team Silver (Rec) section from the start. And what a great decision it turned out to be!

The result was that both tournaments were full of close and competitive games, and in the Gold Tournament, with two rounds to go in a 10-game double round-robin, the table showed Edinburgh comfortably in the final at 7-1 and Bristol languishing at the bottom at 1-7, but the other four teams – GLSML, Windsor, East Midlands and the London Advertising League – all sat on identical 4-4 records, with all of them having a chance to reach the final. As you might expect, every game in those last two rounds was full of tension!

This competition, introduced by the BSF last year, is on its way to becoming one of the best tournaments in the softball calendar. Like the World Series, it offers the novelty of playing with different players, but also pride in representing your league and region. But the tournament will only fulfil its potential when more leagues take part or take it more seriously. While some leagues, such as Edinburgh and the East Midlands, hold open trials and others have a selector or selection committee who try to choose a strong representative squad, some simply scramble to fill the roster with whoever is willing and available, which doesn’t really fit the definition of a League All-Star Team.

Although Manchester’s team in the Silver competition played well and reached the Silver final, it seems a valid question to ask why the Manchester Marvels weren’t competing in the Gold tournament, since the Marvels are, formally, a League All-Star Team, and that is exactly what this event is designed for!


The Road to the Finals

The format for both tournaments was simplicity itself: a round-robin followed by a final between the teams finishing first and second after the round-robin games had been concluded. In the six-team Gold competition, this meant a double round-robin plus final, while teams in the four-team Silver competition played a triple round-robin before their final.

In the Silver tournament, the team from the Solent League won three straight games on Saturday morning, beating Manchester 14-9, Edinburgh 8-5 and the East Midlands 12-4, and that gave them a lead at the top of the round-robin table that they never looked like losing.

This left the other three teams to fight it out for second and a place in the final with Solent, and there wasn’t much between them after Saturday. But Manchester pulled away on Sunday morning by winning three out of four games, defeating Edinburgh 11-7, Solent 15-8 and East Midlands 21-3 while losing only to Edinburgh. The final round-robin table for the Silver teams looked like this:

TEAM W L D
Solent 6 3 -
Manchester 5 4 -
Edinburgh 3 5 1
East Midlands 3 5 1


In the Gold tournament, Edinburgh set their stall out early by thrashing Bristol 16-1 in the first game of the day and followed with wins over the GLSML, East Midlands, Windsor and Bristol again on Saturday, while losing only a single game to the Ad League by a score of 8-7. But most of their wins were also close, with Edinburgh defeating GLSML 12-9, Windsor 4-3 and even Bristol by only 10-8 the second time around, and it was clear that every team in this tournament, with the possible exception of Bristol, could be competitive.

Edinburgh continued to win the close games early on Sunday, taking advantage of errors to come from behind and defeat GLSML 9-6, then Solent 9-5. The Scots were then thrashed by Windsor 18-8, but made sure their final place was secure with a 2-1 win over the East Midlands in an extraordinary game that was scoreless until the bottom of the fifth thanks to fine pitching and defense from both teams and was finally settled on a solo home run by Neil Wardrope.

While Edinburgh were mostly winning and Bristol mostly losing, the four teams between them were taking games and points off each other until, with just two rounds of games to go, GLSML, Windsor, East Midlands and the London Ad League all had 4-4 records and everything to play for.

East Midlands was the first team to blink, losing a 5-4 thriller to the GLSML and then losing all hope with a 12-6 loss to Windsor. The Ad League beat Bristol 12-5 but then had the misfortune to meet Edinburgh and an 11-5 loss ended their hopes. Windsor hung in there by inflicting that 18-8 defeat on Edinburgh and then knocking out the East Midlands. But the GLSML also won their last two games, the 5-4 squeaker over the East Midlands and then an easier 21-7 rout of Bristol.

That left the GLSML and Windsor as the last two teams standing, with 6-4 records. But the London team had beaten Windsor twice on Saturday, and those head-to-head results put the GLSML into the final. After all that excitement, round-robin standings for the Gold teams were:

TEAM W L
Edinburgh 8 2
GLSML 6 4
Windsor 6 4
London Ad League 5 5
East Midlands 4 6
Bristol 1 9

The Gold Final

This was a tremendous game of softball between two very fine teams. “This kind of game is as good as it gets,” said GLSML catcher Kelly Page after it was all over and the London team had scored two runs with the tie-breaker in effect in the top of the eighth inning, then held Edinburgh to one in the bottom of the inning for a 12-11 win.

But there were two crucial turning points that led to the teams being level at 10-10 after the seventh inning had ended, which we’ll get to in due course.

Singles by Brian Salkovich, Mike Povelone and Dan Spinks gave GLSML a run in the top of the first inning, but Edinburgh tied the score in the bottom half on a booming triple to left field by Fiona Hunter and an RBI single by Neil Wardrope.

And there was a great example in the first inning of what the baseball writer Roger Kahn used to call the “ugly finder”, meaning that if a team has any kind of weakness, the ball will inevitably find it. GLSML’s fine outfielder Laura Brockman, the MVP of last year’s All-Star Nationals, went out to left field for the final nursing a slight groin strain – and of course four of the first five Edinburgh batters hit the ball to left field, making her run in for a fine catch on Eric Fraser’s leadoff fly ball, back in a vain attempt to chase down Fiona’s triple and sideways to field Neil Wardrope’s single and a double by Roddy Hill. “I’m exhausted, and it’s only the first inning!” Laura said when the inning had finally ended.

GLSML took a 4-1 lead in the second inning, thanks mainly to a two-out single by switch-hitter Sandra Forbes, batting left-handed, that sneaked through the right side of the Edinburgh infield and allowed Brian Salkovich to get to the plate and drive a home run deep to left-centre field.

GLSML stretched the lead to 5-1 in the top of the third, but failed to score more thanks to a great throw from right-field by Fiona Hunter to cut down Mike Povelone at second base. Edinburgh then scored five in the bottom of the inning to take a 6-5 lead. Errors on the first two hitters opened the door, and then Ruth Macintosh walked to load the bases, Roddy Hill doubled home two runs, Bruce Wilson’s single drove in two more and an RBI double by Shawna Hendry brought in the fifth.

Neither team scored in the fourth, but GLSML tied the score in the top of the fifth on a RBI double by Dan Spinks. Edinburgh came back with two runs in the bottom of the fifth to lead 8-6, but GLSML took a 9-8 lead with three runs in the top of the sixth. The inning featured two missed force plays at second base by Edinburgh, GLSML hits by Kelvin Terreblanche and Richard Brown and another fine throw from Fiona Hunter to cut down a baserunner. But that was only the prelude to the real drama and the bizarre twists and turns that took place in the seventh inning.

In the top of the seventh, GLSML got a crucial insurance run on another double by Dan Spinks and a clutch two-out single by Kelvin Terreblanche to stretch their lead to 10-8 with Edinburgh coming up for their final at-bat.

Ruth Macintosh led off with one of her patented line drives to right field, only to find that Julie Calver was positioned perfectly near the foul line to take the catch. But Roddy Hill, Lesley Morisetti and Bruce Wilson hit consecutive singles to bring in one run and put runners on first and second. The count then went to 3-0 on Shawna Hendry, and pitcher Dan Spinks and the GLSML team had their backs to the wall. Dan threw strike one down the middle, but the next pitch came in high and inside. Plate umpire Chris Moon took his time, replayed the pitch in his mind, and called: “Strike two!” There was a collective gasp from the crowd and Shawna dropped her bat to the ground in astonishment.

Later, Chris Moon said, “There was a lot of movement on that pitch, but I thought the ball caught just a bit of the back shoulder and a bit of the plate. So I called it a strike.”

What it meant was that instead of Edinburgh having the bases loaded with one out and Richard Taylor coming to bat with a run needed to tie and two to win, Shawna Hendry was still at the plate with a 3-2 count. The next pitch also looked high but was right over the plate and Shawna had no choice but to swing and hit a routine fly ball to Kelvin Terreblanche in left centre. The ball wasn’t hit very deep and Lesley Morisetti on second base wasn’t even thinking about tagging up and going to third after the catch. So all that was needed was to get the ball back to the infield. But the throw wasn’t to anyone in particular and bounded into dead ball territory to send a grateful Lesley Morisetti home with the tying run and put the winning run in the person of Bruce Wilson on third.

But Dan Spinks bore down to get Richard Taylor to bounce out to third and the game went to extra innings and the tie-breaker.

The strategy in playing the tie-breaker, where each team starts with a runner on second base, is to score that run and at least one more. And that was a strategy that the GLSML executed and Edinburgh didn’t.

GLSML struck quickly: leadoff hitter Richard Brown doubled to left to put runners on second and third, Sandra Forbes bounced out to drive in one run and Brian Salkovich’s sacrifice fly drove in the second. The Londoners had what they wanted: two runs to defend.

The crucial difference may have been that GLSML started with a female tie-break runner and led off with a male batter. Edinburgh, in the bottom of the eighth, had Richard Taylor on second and Mhairi Hastie-Smith leading off the inning. Her ground ball out moved Richard to third, and another groundout by Eric Fraser scored him. But now Edinburgh still trailed by a run with two outs and no one on, and Fiona Hunter’s fly ball to Laura Brockman in left field ended a wonderful game.

MVPs for the Gold Final were Dan Spinks and Sandra Forbes from GLSML.


The Silver Final

Although Solent had topped the round-robin table, Manchester had actually beaten them in two of the three games the teams had played and Solent had to approach the final with some trepidation.

It turned out to be one of those high-scoring back-and-forth affairs until Solent exploded for seven runs on seven hits and two Manchester errors in the top of the sixth to run the score to 21-9 and put one hand firmly on the trophy.

But Manchester wasn’t done, and cut the lead to 21-12 on a three-run home run by Andy Rawson in the bottom of the sixth. After Solent failed to score in the top of the seventh, Manchester were back at it and four more runs brought the score to 21-16 and induced a few Solent tremors before the final out was made.

While there were errors from both teams, Manchester committed more of them, including five in the top of the third inning when they were lucky that Solent didn’t cash in for more than the four runs they scored to take the lead for the first time at 7-6. But Manchester also had a great diving catch in the outfield from Gordon Milson, and pulled off a fine pitcher-to-short-to-first double play.

Solent, who were generally steadier in the field, had a great diving catch from shortstop Eugene de Beer in the first inning when Manchester scored four but might have scored more. Eugene also contributed two doubles and a single to the Solent attack, while Steve Boor had four singles and four RBIs in four at-bats and pitcher John Russell-Saunders chipped in with two singles, two doubles and three RBIs. Belinda Alker, Jess Trofimovs and Kelly Allers each contributed a single, but the Solent attack was generally carried by their men.

For Manchester, Jo Furlong had two singles and Trisha Clancy, Emma Waterhouse and Tracy Ashworth one each, but the men again led the way. Gordon Milson had a long three-run home run to right field to give Manchester a first-inning lead, Andy Rawson had a single to go with his three-run homer in the sixth that started Manchester’s comeback and Chris Fulton had a single and a double.

But Solent’s men outslugged their opponents while their defense committed fewer errors and that, in a nutshell, is why they are 2008 Silver All-Star Nationals Champions.

MVP awards for the Silver Final went to Chris Fulton of Manchester and Jess Trofimovs of Solent.