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| London Mets and Herts Falcons take honours at National Baseball Championships |
Sunday, Sept 7, 2008
London Mets and Herts Falcons came away from a rain-sodden National Baseball Championships at Roundshaw Field, Croydon, with national titles in their respective levels. London Mets saw through to the end a successful campaign which has been on the cards for the majority of the season, beating Richmond Flames 11-4 in the National Baseball League Final to retain the trophy they won in their inaugural season in '07. Herts Falcons officially validated their transformation into one of the leading baseball organisations in Britain by securing their first national championship in their twelve-year history. A closely-fought 6-3 victory over Oxford Kings captured the British AAA title.
That both these contests were decided by the end of the weekend was in itself an accomplishment given that wet and windy weather threatened to curtail the end-of-season activities over Sept 6-7. Saturday morning's blustery showers turned into more persistent precipitation by the afternoon, with regular long and heavy outbursts made worse by gusts which swept the rain across the diamonds. With a tight schedule to maintain it is a credit to the teams which played through, the umpires calling only one or two pauses in the action for participants and spectators alike to shelter in much-appreciated gazebos and tents.
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The rain continued on Sunday morning and threatened the first postponement of the Final 4 since 2002's final had to be played a few weeks after the rest of the August playoffs. However, the downpours ceased in enough time for the AAA and NBL finals to go ahead albeit with the latter shortened from a best-of-three series to a one-game, nine-inning showdown. The only real casualty of the weekend was the AA final between a pair of Final 4 debutants Sidewinders and Bournemouth Sharks which will now be rescheduled.
London Mets 11, Richmond Flames 4
National Baseball League Final, Sunday
The verification of the London Mets as the best team in British Baseball was completed on Sunday afternoon as they successfully defended the national title they somewhat unexpectedly won in their inaugural season in 2007. This time their 11-4 victory over Richmond Flames in the NBL Final was completely unsurprising.
Rarely has a team dominated the league so strikingly, going 23-1 in the regular season entirely against NBL opposition (Croydon Pirates were impressively unbeaten the season before but it has to be taken into account that the majority of their games were against lower-division opposition). There has been a tendency in recent years for the favourite to lose when it comes to the final but it would have taken an immense collapse from the Mets or an exceptional performance from even the second best team in the country to change the destiny of this game.
Offensively and defensively the Mets have been successful this season by working as a team. There are greater power hitters on other teams but the Mets could boast solid hitting all the way through the lineup, ambitious and heads-up baserunning, fundamentally-sound glove work and – importantly – consistency, discipline and strength in depth. You just have to look at the players who were on the bench in Sunday's final - including Alex Pike, Callum Woods and Carlos Diaz – who have all had productive spells in the starting lineup during the season.
Pitching, on the other hand, has been of the spectacular kind. London went into most double headers this season with the enviable one-two punch of Great Britain international Brian Essery (7-0) and Troy Kantor (6-0) as starters, notching up strikeout rates of 11.03 and 15.8 per nine innings respectively. Essery came into the final with a regular season ERA of 1.58, second only to Kantor's of 0.57.
The pair combined to douse the Flames on Sunday, Kantor – having flown in from the States especially for the weekend – taking over from Essery in the eighth inning with the commanding scoreline of 10-4. Essery picked up the win. Between them they scattered seven hits and struck out 13.
It is hard to rattle the Mets and once they take the lead they don't often give it away. Richmond, whose own pitching this season has not been unimpressive, had an uphill battle as they helped the Mets to an early lead. Simon Pole's single to right scored Jason Holowaty in the first inning and two more were added in the second. An error by second baseman Euan Shields on Josh Chetwynd's grounder allowed Mark Rigby to come home from second base. After Will Lintern had bunted Chetwynd to second, two consecutive hit-by-pitches loaded the bases although Flames starter Cody Cain expressed doubts about how much effort George Lintern and Kantor had made to get out of the way. Dependable Holowaty's sacrifice fly then scored Chetwynd and the score was 3-0 at the end of the second inning.
Cain didn't last long, being replaced part way through the fourth inning by Ryan Bird after the bases had been loaded with no outs and Phil Clark had singled to score two more. Holowaty came home on Pole's grounder and a wild pitch allowed Clark to scrabble home from third, making the score 7-0 going into the bottom of the inning. The victory now seemed inevitable.
Richmond put one on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fourth when Grant Delzoppo singled in Cain but London added further insurance runs in the next inning when Pole smashed a flyball to right field which bounced under the fencing for a two-run ground-rule double. He subsequently scored on a wild pitch to make the score 10-1.
In the bottom of the seventh Richmond picked up some consolation runs, bringing in three, but London's lead was too great by this stage. They had extended it by one more by the time they extinguished the Flames in a 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth, Mets' manager Josh Chetwynd making the final put-out at first base before being buried under a heap of his celebrating team-mates.
The question now – can London Mets three-peat in '09?
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NUMBER ONE: London Mets celebrate a second consecutive national championship. Manager Josh Chetwynd holds the Final 4 trophy.
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Herts Falcons 6, Oxford Kings 3
British AAA Final, Sunday (seven-inning game)
Having already avenged last year's Division 1 Final defeat at the hands of Humber Pilots by beating that same opposition in this year's AAA semi-final, the Falcons finally got their hands on a championship trophy after overcoming the Kings in this seven-inning final. For the Kings it was a case of missed opportunities because despite recording eleven hits off Hert's Darrin Ward and loading the bases on three occasions they left a total of fifteen players on base during the game and could not catch the Falcons once they'd taken an early lead.
Herts were powered by strong offense which combined for nine hits off Oxford's Masaharu Egawa. Stand-out performances came from Kimiyoshi Saionji (1-for-2, 2 walks, 2 RBI's) and Aspi Dimitrov (2-for-3, 1 triple, 1 RBI). Those two combined for Herts' first run in the bottom of the second when Dimitrov's single to centrefield scored the Japanese second baseman.
The Kings loaded the bases for the first time in the top of the third with one out but Jaroslav Rajos and Aaron Kahn popped up to shortstop and catcher respectively to end the inning. Herts responded with three runs in bottom of the inning through Saionji's 2-run double and Dan Kerry's RBI single.
Oxford got on the scoreboard with two in the top of the fourth thanks to Jorge Pinto Machado's 2-run double. Machado was the stand-out in the Oxford lineup, going 3-for-5 on the day with double, homerun and three RBI's. The Kings has a good inning going, loading the bases again but Rajos flew out to centre to end the rally.
With the score close at 4-2 Herts club president and rightfielder Dimitrov led by example, smashing a triple to rightfield in the bottom of the fourth and subsequently coming home on Ward's single. Jason Greenberg singled in another to make the score 6-2 but with bases loaded Kerry couldn't put the result beyond doubt, popping up to the first baseman to end the inning.
Oxford added a third run in the top of the sixth through Machado's solo homerun. A single and two errors from Herts' shortstop Nic Goetz saw the bases loaded for a third time, with two outs. Representing the go-ahead run at the plate, Tom Williams' grounder to third base allowed Andy Cornish to step on third for the easy out and terminate what proved to be Oxford's last chance to turn the game around. Herts shut them down in the top of the seventh prompting wild scenes of celebration on the field quite in contrast to the sullen skies overhead.
Thanks to the Great Britain Baseball Scorers' Association for providing game records. You can view and buy photos from the weekend from the website of the official photographers of the National Baseball Championships, DE Photo.
LINKS
Full results from Saturday
Full results from Sunday
The BBF and BSUK are not responsible for the content of external websites.
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