Fat Cats 11 - 14 Loan Wolves
Fat Cats are a re-formed team - the "Black Cats" of a few years ago, a very capable side. When they re-entered the league they had to start in our division. They'd played five and won five - easily - before tonight. Our run of wins had been ended last week, as you may remember. Could we pick ourselves up again and give a decent account of ourselves against the strongest team in the division?
We were playing at Finsbury Park again, so didn't have the wonky pitch from last week to contend with at least. A dark rain cloud hovered overhead, launching showers on us, but there were blue skies and ice-cream white clouds visible beyond it. At one point, looking out from Catcher's position, I saw a vision of luminous green grass, long shadows, raindrops like diamonds in the late evening sun and even a rainbow, which would surely have won us an Oscar for cinematography had it been a movie. But it wasn't a movie. It was a ball game.
The opposition were strong, but we were not weak. Excellent pitching from Kate gave us the framework we needed. Our batting was solid. I batted 1.000, with no walks all night, and made one hit fine inside the Third Base line out of the infield which I was quite pleased with. We ran extra bases where they were to be found without taking stupid risks. Our fielding was sharp. We kept them from getting easy runs and ended their innings quickly, which gave us a lead. Then they rallied and nosed ahead. But we reversed that, and went into the bottom of the final innings defending a five point lead. A couple of outs, a couple of runs to the opposition. Then Vic intercepted a hit to right field and tagged out the runner trying for second. And it was over. The Cats' five game winning streak was ended.
Over to you, Mr Kipling:
"For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf
And the strength of the Wolf is the Pack"
We were playing at Finsbury Park again, so didn't have the wonky pitch from last week to contend with at least. A dark rain cloud hovered overhead, launching showers on us, but there were blue skies and ice-cream white clouds visible beyond it. At one point, looking out from Catcher's position, I saw a vision of luminous green grass, long shadows, raindrops like diamonds in the late evening sun and even a rainbow, which would surely have won us an Oscar for cinematography had it been a movie. But it wasn't a movie. It was a ball game.
The opposition were strong, but we were not weak. Excellent pitching from Kate gave us the framework we needed. Our batting was solid. I batted 1.000, with no walks all night, and made one hit fine inside the Third Base line out of the infield which I was quite pleased with. We ran extra bases where they were to be found without taking stupid risks. Our fielding was sharp. We kept them from getting easy runs and ended their innings quickly, which gave us a lead. Then they rallied and nosed ahead. But we reversed that, and went into the bottom of the final innings defending a five point lead. A couple of outs, a couple of runs to the opposition. Then Vic intercepted a hit to right field and tagged out the runner trying for second. And it was over. The Cats' five game winning streak was ended.
Over to you, Mr Kipling:
"For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf
And the strength of the Wolf is the Pack"