Successful Final 4 National Baseball Championships and Softball
Nationals
 For
the first time, the Final 4 National Championships, British
baseball's pinnacle event, was staged together with the British
Softball Federation’s A-Nationals Championships, softball’s
top tournament of the year, where the best co-ed slowpitch
teams compete for the national title. Organised jointly by
BSUK, the BBF and the BSF, the weekend of September 3-4 became
a colourful celebration of the best in both sports –
and given the favourable comments received, this conjunction
may well happen again.
FINAL 4
 Croydon
Pirates’ first team successfully defended their 2004
National League Championship, defeating the Brighton Buccaneers
in a best-of-three final by two games to none. But how close
it came to going to a third and deciding game!
Croydon Pirates 2 captured the Premier Division Championship
with an unexpectedly easy 16-4 mercy rule win in seven innings
over league champions Cambridge Monarchs, who turned up for
the Final 4 with only eight players, the result of two unexpected
bereavements that took team members back to America in the
week before the tournament.
Windsor Bears, who only two years ago were National Champions
themselves, capped their first year of rebuilding by pulling
away from Division 1 Midlands champions Marston Green to win
the Division 1 national title 17-6 on the mercy rule after
five innings.
A NATIONALS
 This
year’s A Nationals Final was the final of the bridesmaids;
the could have won - should have won - would have won - but
didn’t teams. Slammers have not won since 1994, despite
having played in a number of finals. Dragons have tried but
failed to reach the finals over the years even with their
offensive capabilities. On 4 Sept both made it to the final.
The game was won by the Slammers who out scored the Dragons
8 – 6 in what was a gripping end to a fantastic weekend
of softball!
B & C NATIONALS
It was very nearly a clean sweep for the Manchester Softball
League at the B & C Co-ed National Championships, played
on the weekend of September 11-12 at Keele University in Staffordshire.
This is the national tournament for mixed teams at a lower
level than the A-Nationals.
Maybe it was the proximity of Keele to Manchester (a 40-minute
jaunt down the M6), or maybe it was because Manchester teams
are used to playing in the kind of persistent rain that turned
many of the pitches into quagmires on Saturday afternoon and
Sunday morning. Or maybe – despite the fact that some
Manchester folk will tell you their player base is aging and
there aren’t enough replacements coming in – the
talent in Manchester is still there.
Whatever the reasons, when the weekend was over, Manchester
Mavericks were the B National Champions, Manchester Mutineers
were the C National Champions and Manchester’s Jammy
Dodgers were the C Plate winners. The possibility of a Manchester
Grand Slam was only averted by the Nottingham Pyros, who took
the B Plate trophy.
Despite the rain, which almost brought the tournament to
a halt on Sunday morning, it was a highly successful weekend.
A record 20 teams competed in the B Nationals. The facilities
at Keele were excellent, as the University went all out to
make it’s first-ever softball event a success. And the
standard of play – especially in the finals of both
tournaments – was extremely high.
And as usual with teams at B and C level – even though
the competitions are taken seriously – sportsmanship
and good humour were the dominant motif.
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