| European
Slowpitch Championships: The First Ten Years |
The idea of holding a European Slowpitch
Championship (in a continent that almost exclusively plays
fastpitch) began to be promoted to the ESF by the British
and Irish Softball Federations in the mid-1990s. The ESF finally
agreed to the idea in 1997, with the first tournament planned
for 1998 – but many ESF members were cynical and predicted
that it would be difficult to achieve the minimum number of
countries (four) required for a European Championship to be
held.
Great Britain, as the main proponent of the idea, had little
choice but to put their money where their mouth was and volunteer
to host the first edition.
And so, in August 1998, the first European Slowpitch Championship
was held on a distinctly makeshift field at Brunel University
on the outskirts of London, with Great Britain, the Czech
Republic, Ireland and Guernsey as the competing teams. Early
that year, both The Netherlands and Israel had signed up for
the tournament, but both withdrew in the weeks before the
competition, with the Israelis citing religious concerns about
having a mixed team and playing games on Saturday.
Fortunately, the Czech Softball Federation pledged from the
very beginning that they would support the concept, and they
have been true to their word: there has been a Czech team
at every one of the five tournaments played to date, and only
Great Britain and Ireland can say the same. The fact that
the Czechs came from the continent of Europe to play in the
first-ever tournament (while the three other teams all came
from this side of the English Channel) gave the event a credibility
that has been vital to its continued existence.
And so five European Slowpitch Championships have been played
to date, and here are the bare statistics – the dates,
places and competing countries:
1998 in Uxbridge, London, England
Great Britain, Czech Republic, Guernsey, Ireland
2000 in Maynooth, Dublin, Ireland
Great Britain, Czech Republic, Germany, Guernsey, Ireland
2002 in Mlade Buky, Czech Republic
Great Britain, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland,
Slovakia
2004 in Linz, Austria
Great Britain, Austria, Czech Republic, Ireland
2006 in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Great Britain, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ireland, Slovenia
Great Britain has won the competition on all five occasions,
and there is a perception that it’s been easy –
that of course Britain will win every time because we play
more slowpitch and have more slowpitch teams by far than any
other country in Europe.
The reality is very different. Great Britain did win easily
in Ireland in 2000, when a dominant team swept all opposition
before it and had only one close game in the whole competition.
But GB only won in 1998 and 2002 by the skin of their teeth,
and the team faced serious challenges in 2004 and 2006.
So the European Slowpitch Championship is certainly a competition
worth playing – and with interest in slowpitch growing
in Europe, it shouldn’t take long before more countries
will have medal aspirations. The fact that a European Slowpitch
Cup got off the ground in 2007 is another good sign.
But European slowpitch competitions will be perpetually under
threat while only a small number of countries enter and even
fewer are prepared to host them. What money there is in European
softball on the Continent – and this will of course
diminish following Olympic exclusion – still goes almost
entirely to fastpitch, with slowpitch as an afterthought.
This makes international slowpitch competition difficult to
sustain.
But there are hopes that the 2008 European Slowpitch Championship,
when the tournament “comes home” to Britain, might
see as many as eight countries competing and mark the point
when slowpitch becomes genuinely established as a viable competition
format in Europe.
Meanwhile, let’s look back at the five tournaments
held over the past decade:
England 1998
“This slowpitch – it is very competitive, but
at the same time it seems so friendly! We are not used to
this in fastpitch in Europe!”
The words came from ESF Secretary General Patrice Bienfait,
who was seeing competitive slowpitch for the first time as
a member of the ESF Technical Commission at the first-ever
European Slowpitch Championship, played at Brunel University
in Uxbridge, outside London, from August 18-22, 1998.
Although only a four-team affair played on a grass field,
the tournament was attended by then-ESF President Jos Gieskens,
who had championed the idea of the competition, and by International
Softball Federation President Don Porter. Speaking to teams
at the Closing Ceremony, Don Porter said, “You have
started something here this week that will certainly expand
into a World Slowpitch Championship in the very near future.”
That World Slowpitch Championship still hasn’t happened
– but the ISF did hold a Slowpitch World Cup in Plant
City, Florida in 2002 (won by one of two GB teams that took
part) and re-staged the event in 2005, won this time by a
pick-up team from Britain, The Clan.
But back to Uxbridge…. The BSF ran the tournament on
as much of a shoestring as possible (though it still cost
around £15,000), and there was a distinct lack of both
volunteers and spectators, with Bob Fromer and Mike Jennings
doing most of the planning and organising. Except on the final
Saturday, a band of lively Irish supporters from Dublin outnumbered
spectators from the British softball community. The big breakthrough
in paying for the tournament was a £5,000 grant from
The Economist Group, where then GB-player Harriet Hughes worked,
while the ISF donated £1500, Major League Baseball £500
and slowpitch teams around the country pledged £1700
in voluntary £25 donations (not all of which were paid).
The London Indoor League donated £365 and T-shirt sales
at the tournament raised £400. Gate income on the Saturday
was £170 – and the BSF covered the rest.
There was no recognition of the tournament or GB’s
success in winning it from Sport England or UK Sport, both
of whom were given notice and invitations. But Bernie Cotton
from the BOA was there for the whole of the final day and
the team received warm letters of congratulations from BOA
Chief Executive Simon Clegg and then-Chairman Craig Reedie.
Some things never change!
On the field, with GB, Ireland Guernsey and the Czech Republic
the competing teams, GB strolled through a double round-robin
with a 5-1 record, losing only to Ireland 12-10 in a game
in which GB Head Coach Micha Verhagen played mostly a second
team (earlier in the week, GB had beaten Ireland 16-0). The
Czechs finished pool play at 4-2, Ireland were 3-3 and Guernsey
lost every game.
GB’s round-robin wins against the Czech Republic were
close affairs (14-10 and 16-11) and were a harbinger of things
to come when the two teams met in a best-of three Final. The
Czech team was full of players from their national fastpitch
and baseball squads, plus two British-based exiles including
Milada Zolobova, and those earlier games had shown the Czechs
to be excellent technical players – though the British
thought they could always out-hit them. They almost didn’t!
Unexpectedly, the Czechs took the first playoff game 8-6,
when a British rally in the bottom of the seventh ended in
confusion over an umpire’s delayed dead ball call. GB
runners, who thought they had been told to advance to the
next base, found themselves tagged out instead. Suddenly,
GB’s backs were against the wall.
Head Coach Micha Verhagen made just one key change for Game
2, replacing Game 1 starting pitcher Mike Ashley with the
left-handed Colin Hamilton. This was a stroke of genius as
Colin held the Czechs to just five hits and a single consolation
run in the seventh inning as GB cruised to a 14-1 win to set
up the deciding game.
Initially, things looked bad in the decider, as the Czechs
scored seven runs in the second inning on four hits and five
GB errors(!) and held a 9-3 lead after three innings. But
the Czechs never scored again, GB fought back, and a clutch
two-out hit by Gail Inkpen in the sixth inning tied the score
at 9-9. GB then broke the game open in the top of the seventh
on hits by Paul Bullock, Shaun Findlay, Clare Butler and Steve
Quickfall and took a 13-9 lead. The Czechs went down in order
in the bottom of the seventh and the GB Slowpitch Team had
its first European title. But it certainly hadn’t been
easy!
GB dominated the individual awards, as Colin Hamilton was
Best Pitcher, Danny Price was Best Male Batter (he hit an
astounding .786) and Gail Inkpen was the Female MVP. Best
Female Batter was Milada Zolobova, and she also made the catch
of the tournament, diving full length in foul territory in
left field to snare a curving line drive and in the same motion
managed to flip herself over the construction fence that marked
the dead ball line.
Ireland 2000
This was the only European Slowpitch Championship that Britain
dominated almost from start to finish, but that domination
– with the exception of just one game – was convincing
and complete, and a triumph for Head Coach Micha Verhagen
and Team Manager Maurice Baker. GB literally steamrolled everything
and everyone in its path.
The tournament was played from September 4-9 at the suburban
campus of the National University of Ireland at Maynooth,
outside Dublin.
The GB team went 8-0 in pool play, where they outscored the
opposing teams – Ireland, Guernsey, the Czech Republic
and newcomers Germany – by 193 runs to 47, including
an embarrassing 59-0 win over a hapless German team. GB then
won both Page Playoff games to finish the tournament undefeated.
The key ingredient was power, as Brett Gibbens blasted 16
home runs over the outfield fences in going 25-for-30 and
Steve Quickfall pounded 11 round-trippers. But the team also
played brilliant defense, especially Clare Butler at second
base, and hit up and down the line-up. GB batted .528 as a
team and there were only seven innings in the whole tournament
in which they failed to score. Steph Jardine hit .688 (22
for 32), an astonishing feat for a female player against outfielders
playing shallow, and was on base for almost every one of Brett
Gibbens’ home runs.
The only game in which GB was challenged was their first
pool game against Ireland. Britain had a comfortable lead,
but the Irish came back, cut the British lead to 16-15 and
would have won if Steph Jardine hadn’t made a diving
catch on a liner to right field to end the game. After that,
it was plain sailing for the British.
This was the first European Slowpitch Championship in which
the Czechs made their philosophy explicit of “it doesn’t
matter until the playoffs.” An ambitious Irish team
beat the Czechs twice in pool play, but then were ambushed
26-7 by the Czechs in the Page Playoff and had to settle once
again for third place.
Czech Republic 2002
The rain poured down for most of the week in the small town
of Mlade Buky in the central mountains of the Czech Republic
from August 12-17, 2002 – the same rain that was causing
devastating floods in Prague. Left field was full of puddles;
right field was often a lake.
The usual suspects – Great Britain, Ireland, the Czech
Republic and Germany (but minus Guernsey) were joined by Austria
and Slovakia, giving the tournament a total of six teams –
a total that has not been matched since. And Austria, with
players from their national fastpitch and baseball squads,
gave the tournament another competitive team – as they
showed with a 14-2 win over the Czech Republic during pool
play.
As the week began under lowering skies, a GB team much changed
from 2000, with new coaches (Dave Owen and Gary Crock) and
a new manager (Pearl Bramhall), struggled to find its way.
Meanwhile, a seasoned and talented Irish team were confident
that this time the crown would be theirs. They had trained
and prepared relentlessly, and they were supported by a strong
group of fans that had followed them into the heart of Central
Europe. And right up until the final denouement on Saturday,
nothing suggested that the Irish would fail.
Thirty-six hours of rain wiped out all play on Tuesday, and
GB then experienced a devastating “Black Wednesday”,
first committing 11 errors in a crushing 18-6 defeat by Ireland
and following that with five more errors and four appalling
baserunning blunders in a 9-4 loss to the Czechs. Altogether,
GB committed 35 errors in eight games, and the weather was
only partly the problem. GB morale was low on Wednesday evening,
with coaches and players alike wondering how this could happen
and who was to blame.
But a GB recovery started with a shaky win over Austria on
Thursday in which a key change took place: Mark Saunders,
who had been the #3 pitcher in Ireland in 2000, took over
the pitcher’s spot from David Lee. Still, GB could only
finish third in the pool standings, behind Ireland and Austria,
and that meant that every game in the Page Playoff was sudden
death – starting with a game against the Czech Republic
on Friday afternoon, played at last in welcome sunshine in
front of a large home crowd.
GB stayed with Mark Saunders on the mound, and they still
had one huge asset that none of the other teams could muster:
home run power. Fence-clearing home runs by Brett Gibbens,
Shaun Findlay and David Lee and a wonderful running catch
by second baseman Paul Bullock that choked off a Czech rally
turned a tight game into a 16-7 GB win. And a more routine
11-0 win over Austria put GB into the Final. But a supremely
confident and undefeated Irish team was waiting for them.
Afterwards, when the Final was over, long-time Ireland stalwart
Brian Connolly said wistfully, “We were certainly the
team of the week out here. But not on the day when it mattered….”
GB coaches Dave Owen and Gary Crock had studied the Irish
batting line-up in minute detail, and they laid out the plan
at a lengthy team meeting on the morning of the final day.
The plan was based on the fact that the Irish hit well throughout
their line-up, but had little power. Even more important,
many of their hitters were one-dimensional, unable to hit
to all parts of the field. So each hitter was analysed: where
to pitch the ball to negate their strengths or preferences,
and where the defense should play as a result. The defense
was told to crowd in, to take away singles and prevent singles
becoming doubles, so the force play at second would always
be on. It was a plan that could strangle the Irish –
but it depended crucially on execution by the pitcher. Finally,
the undefeated Irish had earned the right to be home team
in the final – but Dave and Gary reckoned that this
could work against them if GB could get out of the gate with
a lead.
Sometimes, plans go astray. Sometimes they work so well it
sends shivers up your spine. GB scored four runs in the first
inning (two of them on a triple by Bruce Saunders), and then
brother Mark went to work, pitching carefully, always aware
of location, and the Irish managed nothing except the odd
run here and there. GB was still committing errors, but so
were the Irish, crumbling under the strain, and GB bats were
booming. A long two-run homer by the inevitable Brett Gibbens
off Ireland reliever Drew Hennessey in the fourth inning took
the heart out of the Irish, and in the end it was easy: GB
took the game and their third straight title by a score of
16-3. But it was a long and improbable comeback for Britain,
and a stunning loss for the Irish, who were without doubt
the best team there.
Austria 2004
The European Slowpitch Championship played in August 2004
in the pleasant provincial town of Linz in Austria had less
melodrama than there had been in Mlade Buky in 2002. But if
anything the softball was even more compelling, as two mature,
confident and well-coached teams – the British and the
Irish – met five times in all during the week.
Sadly, the tournament was back down to only four countries
– GB, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Austria. But all
four teams were competitive, the tournament was very well
staged by the host club Askoe Linz and a great spirit of respect
and friendship prevailed among the teams. GB Head Coach Gary
Crock (Dave Owens had gone back to the States) marshalled
a group of international veterans and novices – and
got the best out of absolutely everyone.
After three straight one-run games between GB and Ireland
during the double round robin and the first playoff semi-final,
the teams met again, inevitably, in the Grand Final. And while
Britain came from behind to defeat the Irish by a score of
6-2, don't let that score mislead you. This game was almost
as close and every bit as tense as the ones that had gone
before it.
And the tournament was tense all the way through –
especially after GB lost their first two games before coming
back to win seven straight. In the little mini-tournament
between Britain and Ireland that was at the heart of this
European Championship, GB won three times and Ireland twice,
and the total difference between the teams over five games
was just nine runs.
The scores of those GB-Ireland games -- 9-7 and 4-3 to Ireland,
and then 5-4, 5-4 and 6-2 to Britain -- will tell you that
this was not the Slowpitch Softball seen week in and week
out in British domestic tournaments. This was Slowpitch where
every play mattered, where every pitch was considered and
where every run and every out was worth its weight in gold.
This was a European Championship utterly different from the
three that had gone before it. The field, the wind, the fence
distances and the dead fastpitch balls the ESF chose to use
removed power from everyone's game, but most of all from Britain's.
Not a single home run was hit over the outfield fence during
the tournament by any team. In the Czech Republic, in 2002,
more than 20 home runs had flown over fences, and in Ireland
in 2000 it was well over 30.
So this was Softball totally about defence, pitching, base
hitting, baserunning and keeping your head together. In the
end, and especially in the Grand Final, the GB team kept their
heads a little better than the Irish and won the game that
mattered most. The result was a fourth straight Championship
for GB and another long, dark night of the soul for Ireland.
And GB had a hero -- Lazarus risen from the dead -- in the
person of Brett Gibbens.
On Wednesday night, Brett was in shock and in the hospital
after a fierce throw from Austria's shortstop had hit him
directly on the elbow. On Thursday, he couldn't move or bend
his right arm. On Friday, the sling came off, but swelling
from a massive blood bruise was still a terrifying sight.
But on Saturday, to the consternation of the Irish, Brett
was back in the line-up.
In a must-win game against the Czechs on Saturday morning
to decide who would play Ireland in the Grand Final, Brett
went two-for-three, with a double, a triple and three RBIs.
And in the Grand Final itself, he went four-for-four, with
two doubles, a single and a solo inside-the-park home run
in the top of the seventh inning that drove the final psychological
nail in the Irish coffin as Brett dived headfirst into home,
heavily strapped arm notwithstanding.
For the second straight European Championship, the Irish
had come expecting to win, certain they had the better team
before the tournament started -- and still believing it after
the tournament ended. After the first day's play, they were
relishing the fact that GB home run power would not be able
to batter them into submission as it had in Dublin and Mlade
Buky. On a more level playing field, they were sure they would
prevail.
But they didn't. "Once again," said Irish coach
Pat Reddy, afterwards, and sadly, "the better team didn't
win." But the GB players and coaches were happy to take
the gold medals and the first place trophy and leave that
judgment to others.
Slovenia 2006
By 2006, GB Head Coach Gary Crock had stepped down and the
first GB player ever to make the move to the Head Coach position,
Mark Saunders, took over – with brother Bruce as Assistant
Coach.
For many long months, it seemed that the 2006 European Slowpitch
Championship might not happen at all because no country had
stepped forward as host. But then the small ex-Yugoslav Republic
of Slovenia contacted the ESF to ask for help with Slowpitch
development, and
Bob Fromer, who holds the Slowpitch brief as a member of
the ESF Development Commission, responded with a range of
suggestions and a question: “Er … by the way,
would you be interested in hosting a European Slowpitch tournament?”
The rest is history, as Slovenia, with the help of a £2000
grant from the ESF via BSUK, proved to be excellent hosts
in the last week of August in the country’s capital,
Ljubljana. And two new countries – Slovenia and neighbouring
Croatia – joined the competition, raising the total
of competitors this time to five (though Austria dropped out
and was missed and Israel once again signed up and then withdrew).
GB’s new Head Coach, Mark Saunders, summed up the story
of GB’s fifth straight European title:
GB went to the European Championship with the UK softball
community expecting nothing less than the Gold Medal. After
all, GB had won every other European Championship so why should
this be different?
The squad selected only had seven members from the 2004 team
remaining plus two other players with previous European experience.
With nine players (half the squad) making their European debut,
plus a new Head Coach, this was a very different team to the
one that had won the 2004 title in Austria.
Due to the domestic schedule, we had the unexpected luxury
of being able to arrange two training weekends for the squad
in August, including warm-up games against some of the best
UK-based players, before heading for Slovenia at the end of
the month. This, added to the fact that we were able to train
with the actual make of balls that were going to be used in
the tournament, meant that this was the best-prepared GB squad
to go to the Europeans.
The tournament schedule (at last the ESF was beginning to
draw up schedules suitable for slowpitch rather than fastpitch!)
gave us eight group games over three days, which meant I had
the opportunity to give plenty of game time to all the players
and get them prepared for the tougher games they would face
during the Page Playoff round. Right from the start we knew
our main rivals would be the Irish and the Czechs, and although
we won all the group games against them I knew that didn’t
mean anything unless we were able to beat them in the knockout
stages.
The second group game against the Czechs really showed the
character and the depth of the GB squad. Even though we were
one run down in the fifth inning we were able to use all our
bench players to eventually win the game by five runs. What
this showed the other teams was that we always had options
and weren’t afraid to use them. And this stood us in
great stead for the semi-final against the Irish where again
we came under pressure.
Two runs down with two out in the bottom of the seventh,
we again turned to the bench. Martin Cartledge came in to
run for Steve Patterson and Fiona Hunter was put in to pinch-hit.
Fiona belted a line drive to left-centre that gave Martin
the chance to move from first to third and, by drawing the
throw, Martin enabled Fiona to get to second. This gave our
top batter, Dan Spinks, the opportunity to knock in the crucial
two runs, which he did with ease.
This win gave us the confidence to turn it on in the final
against the Czech Republic (who once again ambushed Ireland
in their semi-final matchup) and we did the one thing we hadn’t
done all tournament: score in every inning and also win every
inning. The Czechs were tough opponents but in the end GB
was too strong and finished with the Gold Medal.
The key to GB’s performance was the balance between
talented new players and seasoned veterans, a great team spirit
and the ability of everyone in the squad to contribute in
clutch
With two new teams in the Europeans Championships and a good
discussion between GB, Ireland and the ESF about the format
next time, I’m hopeful that the 2008 European Slowpitch
Championship should be even better.
Southampton 2008…?
And so, after a decade of successful competition –
especially for Great Britain! – the European Slowpitch
Championship will come home in the summer of 2008, returning
once again to a university venue at Southampton from July
8-12.
The hope is that Southampton 2008 will be the biggest and
best European Championship yet, and fingers are crossed that
as many as eight teams or more might attend – especially
as Jersey and Guernsey are only a short flight away, France
hosted this year’s inaugural European Slowpitch Cup,
Austria would like to return to the competition, Switzerland
and Belgium are both starting to develop Slowpitch, Croatia
and Slovenia are both keen to build on their first appearance
in 2006 – and of course GB, Ireland and the Czech Republic
will definitely be there.
A new feature of the 2008 European Championship will be a
domestic slowpitch tournament – the Solent League-organised
Euroball – running alongside it on the final Saturday
and providing what should be a large crowd for a Grand Final
in which GB will hopefully be trying for a sixth straight
European title.
Mark Saunders will be back for his second Europeans as Head
Coach, but as always, there will be new faces in the GB player
pool that will be selected in December 2007 and then trimmed
to produce a competition squad in 2008.
The BSF, who are organising and financing the tournament,
have already put out a call for volunteer help, which will
be needed from now through and beyond the tournament itself.
The 2008 European Championship will only achieve its aims
with active support from the British softball community –
and as the leading slowpitch country in Europe, it’s
in our interest to make sure the competition succeeds.
To offer your help, contact BSF Slowpitch Officer Roger Grooms
at roger.grooms@britishsoftball.org
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