May Ball
No, not Oxbridge undergrads partying in DJs and cocktail dresses. This is softball...
And there were enough walks this morning.
"May Ball" was meant to be a two-day tournament, but as most teams couldn't guarantee fielding a team for both days (not so many people can sacrifice their whole weekend to play sport), they rescheduled it for one day only.
At Riverside Lands, Barnes Bridge. A good venue, but ridiculously hard to find if you don't already know the way, if you see what I mean. Luckily, I'd played there last year, so didn't need the "then go through the hole in the fence..." style directions.
Our team was mostly Loan Wolves, bolstered by friends from Meteors, so we had no shortage of players. Everyone had to sit a few out. Which with a seven-game schedule with only a lunch break was maybe no bad thing. I was in it for the morning only, so got three games in a row. First at Right Field, then two at Second. I led off in first game, vs Oblivion, and made our first run of the day. By taking a walk to get on base - which was the pattern for most teams' runs. The weather was fine, with hazy sunshine, but the wind was gusty and didn't help pitchers. Nor did the new rule about using smaller balls to pitch to women batters - supposedly lets them hit further to even things out with big hitting male batters, but actually mostly screws up fielding and especially pitching. I made a few runs, and walked to base every time at bat - which was sensible, but by the end of the morning, if I'd had another at-bat I swear I'dve swung at anything I thought I could hit.
We were up against strong opposition this morning, and lost all three games - but we gave good accounts of ourselves when the runs weren't coming from walks, and we had some decent innings.
And there were enough walks this morning.
"May Ball" was meant to be a two-day tournament, but as most teams couldn't guarantee fielding a team for both days (not so many people can sacrifice their whole weekend to play sport), they rescheduled it for one day only.
At Riverside Lands, Barnes Bridge. A good venue, but ridiculously hard to find if you don't already know the way, if you see what I mean. Luckily, I'd played there last year, so didn't need the "then go through the hole in the fence..." style directions.
Our team was mostly Loan Wolves, bolstered by friends from Meteors, so we had no shortage of players. Everyone had to sit a few out. Which with a seven-game schedule with only a lunch break was maybe no bad thing. I was in it for the morning only, so got three games in a row. First at Right Field, then two at Second. I led off in first game, vs Oblivion, and made our first run of the day. By taking a walk to get on base - which was the pattern for most teams' runs. The weather was fine, with hazy sunshine, but the wind was gusty and didn't help pitchers. Nor did the new rule about using smaller balls to pitch to women batters - supposedly lets them hit further to even things out with big hitting male batters, but actually mostly screws up fielding and especially pitching. I made a few runs, and walked to base every time at bat - which was sensible, but by the end of the morning, if I'd had another at-bat I swear I'dve swung at anything I thought I could hit.
We were up against strong opposition this morning, and lost all three games - but we gave good accounts of ourselves when the runs weren't coming from walks, and we had some decent innings.