Loan Wolves 6 - 17 Finsbury Dazzlers

You've come a long way, baby...
Our first ever league match, in May 2006, was against the Dazzlers. We lost 25-1 in four innings, and had a player taken to A&E afterwards. This time, though that final scoreline doesn' reflect it, things were very different. We were 4-2 down after one inning, but took the lead and were 6-5 up at the top of the fifth. Sadly, their strong batting brought them enough runs to regain the lead and put the game out of our reach at the end.
so we lost. But looking at us as a team, you can see the difference those four seasons have made. Our offense still isn't what it could be, but everyone's batting's so much stronger than when we started, our judgment of what to swing at and how to time our hitting has come on so much. Birthday girl Kate was pitching excellently, and we were fielding well to make the outs we needed. We didn't make every play, but we weren't making silly mistakes and our tactical sense was fantastic. we were putting one of the strongest sides in the division under real pressure, and for a time it looked as if the game was going to go our way.
The Dazzlers beat us again, but this time they weren't playing novices, tharn like rabbits trapped in headlights. They'd had a fight against a pack of WOLVES! And they knew it.

Fat Cats 21 - 15 Loan Wolves

I'm still in the team. The softball team at least, if not the library team...
Was glad to have something to do this evening. A match with the Fat Cats, who were promoted as Div 6 champions last year, with us on their coat tails. A warm evening with plenty of sun, in the really rather splendid setting of Finsbury Park softball fields. Don't know if I've ever mentioned how nice it is in Summer. A quiet green oasis in North London, with tall trees swaying in the breeze. We had spectators, for once - Val who used to play for us turned up to watch a last game before she moves out of London, and some friends from other teams showed up to cheer us on.
The game started well enough, with runs on the board in our first inning and two quick outs to us at the start of theirs, but the Cats rallied on the second and took a significant lead. The chase was on. We started to make some progress, never quite shutting them down as they had some good batting that kept the runs coming, but steadily narrowing that lead until by the bottom of the sixth we were only three behind. We restricted them to two from their inning, and set out to bat ourselves into contention. Perhaps we were too aggressive, too eager to take the fight to them, perhaps just unlucky, but the outs came before the runs we needed to make them bat again. Still, it was a good game with some great moments in the field and with the bat, and we were always in it. I was happy to be out in the fresh air, hitting things with sticks.
Afterwards we went to the Finsbury to drown our various sorrows.

Fat Cats vs Loan Wolves - Highs/Lows/Lessons Learned

Lows: not all my throws from SS made their target, certainly one hit I should have dived for - it ultimately went between Matt and Claudia and for a home run.

Highs: home run first time round, bit fortuitous (think I scored another....), an ultimately pointless dive into 2nd behind the SS back, but it looked nice and hurt for a while. Took the force off too but unfortunately Claudia was just out at 1st next play.

Lessons Learned: base running was better but still moments where runners were not pushed on when they could have been. Base coaches be alert! If a throw goes home and you have someone safe on first, they have to go! When there's two on base, always shimmy and look to move. Make them think. Make them work. If we can sneak a few bases per innings, it's easy runs overall.

PS. We batted a lot better than we've done for a long time.......it'll be enough to beat most teams at our level if we field well.

It's International Loan Wolves Day tomorrow!

Don't forget to wear your colours in celebration of the anniversary of our first ever league win!

Intellect 12 - 8 Loan Wolves

Umpire of the Senseless

We were up on the hated high, sloped, exposed Pitch Five on Primrose Hill. Visibility was actually a little better than in the last game we were there, but it was sunny and pretty scorching for most of the evening.
With Gabs still injured from the weekend, we didn't have any spare women players.
I led off, but failed to convert a walk into a run. Our opposition did better than us in the first few innings, and we just couldn't get back into the game with the bat. The umpiring calls were really not helping us. Still not sure about that strike zone. I struck out looking, on three balls, when two flat pitches went past me and I confidently left them. Both were called strikes. Among other incidents, there was a rather confused play where the umpire changed his call repeatedly then made the point be replayed. Didn't do our cause any favours, it's true, but ultimately we still didn't manage to bat ourselves back into contention, even though we rallied somewhat as the sun went behind the clouds and made it easier to pick out the ball in flight.
Second quarter of the season hasn't gone as well as the first, but there's a long way to go yet.

By Invitation Only

In what has now become an annual event, the Raiders held an invitational tournament for D comp teams, as an opportunity for the less experienced or talented among us to get vital match-play practice and sharpen our skills against sides of our own level. It's an extremely friendly, relaxed affair, but it's still a proper competitive day of playing. They field several sides of their own, and invite entries from the more clubbable lower division teams. Such as the Loan Wolves. This time it was being held as a fund-raiser for the GB Women's softball team ahead of the European Championships. So our entry fees went to this good cause, there was a raffle, and they had T shirts for sale. I can't resist a good T shirt, so am now the proud owner of a Great Britain Softball shirt.
The tournament takes place at Wandsworth Common. Each team had four games, which for us fell as two set of back-to-back matches with a break. Rules were slightly more relaxed than in the league, and there was the quirky "buy back" rule in effect. Each team gets one opportunity per game to buy the umpire a beer in exchange for rewinding and undoing a play which has just happened - a catch isn't dropped, a batter hasn't struck out or whatever after all. But the player who's got the reprieve does have to wear comedy bunny ears for the rest of the inning...
We were a bit short-handed, but we had Mark from the Homers joining us for the day plus a stray female player from one of the other teams each game. First up we took on the Meteors (heavily fortified with spare Raiders), and won. Then we came up against one of the Raiders sides and didn't do so well. After our hour off, we faced another Raiders team. This time we came up with the goods, even with a lot of us playing in unfamiliar positions. This was the game where Gabi got hit by a nasty one to the knee. She was moved to Catcher, to give her a chance to recover out of the line of fire, but was almost immediately hit in the face by a ricochet off the bat.
The final game was against the Tornadoes. The game went our way, as we batted ourselves into a strong position. The final inning saw them with three minutes to overturn a sixteen-point lead, and as a heavy shower started to fall the game came to an end.
We headed over the road to Dexter's, where negotiating the service and getting our two-for-one deal vouchers honoured was a bit of a trial, but we tucked in to our pub food and bottled beer happily as we discussed the day's play. We fielded and pitched well, but more importantly our batting was consistent throughout the team all day - that was probably the heart of our success.

Loan Wolves 11 - 36 Base Jumpers

A couple of plays missed by the umpires maybe did us no favours last night, but I think Kevin was right when he said we were mainly undone by not having played a game in three weeks. We didn't manage to capitalise enough on a sterling pitching performace from Kate, Wolf batting wasn't strong enough overall to keep us in contention, and the Jumpers' lead crept up inning by inning. By the time the seventh inning came around, and the Finsbury Park mosquitoes came out to feast on us in the twilight, it was too late for us to rally.
Still, we aren't even halfway through the season and we can take what we've learned from this to help ourselves prepare for the games to come. There's a Raiders' Invitational tourney on sunday, which should be a good opportunity to clean the rust off and take a whetstone to our competitive edge. There's a lot of the summer ahead of us, and a a lot more games to look forward to, before season's end.

Base Jumpers 36 vs Loan Wolves 11 - Highs/Lows/Lessons Learned

While we wait for Andy's match report....

Low Point: Loads of big high hits in right field which went way over my head. Not much I could do about those, except run faster to get to the ball.It was that one line drive that went past Donnacha that I'm really gutted about though. Clearly in the right position and right place....but it dribbled between my feet. Pooh!

High Point: Managing to get to base on every hit (Kate pointed this one out to me whilst in the pub, thanks Katie). Also my line drive which went somewhere towards 3rd base...obviously I wasn't looking ;)

Lessons Learned: Back up, back up, back up!!!!!

Training day

We had a really good training session last night. It's a week with no match for us, so we got together with some friends from the Meteors, and Mark and Paul of the Homers, for a training session. Excellent coaching from Ian and Dan of the Meteors' highest level team, and a good atmosphere as we spent several hours throwing, catching, batting and doing lots of running round. Which, obviously, raised a bit of a thirst. So we went to the pub for a cold beer or two afterwards. I found myself talking wiith tigger and Julian about the restructuring at work. It's ironic that the only remaining Wolves in the library are at risk in this restructuring when the team's done more than any management initiative to foster inter-site communication and staff team bonding.

Raiders Red 26 Loan Wolves 2 - Highs/Lows/Lessons Learned

Raiders Red are a good side, as they ought to be when they're top of the table with six straight wins. Their infield is very tight but we never got to see how the outfield played and I think their hitting was smart and consistent rather than big. Still....they'll beat every other team they play, some by a greater margin than last night.

Lows: not a great game at SS. If throws aren't caught, it's probably my fault.
Highs: an outfield catch, realising the hit was too shallow to be taken by Joel/Libs.
Lessons Learned: my batting has been atrocious since the Tecumshes match. An obsession with RF perhaps? How many foul hits have I done in the last few weeks? I need to take my batting back to basics and start from scratch.

St Urbain's Horsemen 11 - 7 Loan Wolves

Blinded by the light

Last week's match was a bright and sunny occasion. No, literally. The sun defined how this game went. We were on that dreaded Primrose Hill pitch again, and the clear, hot evening meant that the setting sun was right in our faces all night.
the Horsemen played their home advantage wisely, setting an unorthodox outfield to intercept runaway downhill hits, and a couple of Wolf slips in the field let them build a small lead in the first inning. We tightened our grip in the field, but we kept finding ourselves undone at bat by the ball falling unseen out of a blinding red sun. Anythign you could hit, you couldn't see. anything you could see, you couldn't hit. We made runs somehow, including Kevin riding his luck around the bases on a series of overthrows, but couldn't quite score enough to get ahead.
Still, it was no doubt a character-building experience, and we're all looking forward to the rematch at Finsbury.

[Sorry I didn't post this earlier - was away from a computer till today][

St Urbain's Horseman 11 Loan Wolves 7 - Lessons Learned

Whilst we're waiting for Andy's match report......

Lows: the female shortstop dinked a hit high, to the side, which maybe I should have dived for, just in case any amateur photographers were around. If I'd missed it, and I probably would've done, it would have been a home run hit.

Highs: bit embarrassed about the home run, I assumed I was only getting 2nd from a dead ball. But they threw it and the gloves were off so to speak. Couple of reasonable outfield catches.

Lessons learned: we'll beat these guys at Finsbury easily, if we'd fielded as we could have all game, it'd have been hard for them to have scored all game. It's not sour grapes either, but something has to be done on that pitch when the sun's up - can't they switch it round and have a makeshift diamond?

Silver for the Black and Gold

Yesterday was the annual Superball softball tournament. Split into two parallel tourneys, for A and B competition (the top end) and C and D comp (teams like us). Early start at Richmond Old Deer Park, as the lower-grade competition starts early and is mostly over by the time the hgher division teams start. I got up early, packed my bag, dashed into Sainsbury's to buy whatever random snack food was on special offer on my way to the station and set off. Getting as far as Streatham Hill before train delays put an extra half an hour on the journey.
I got there just in time for the first game, aganst a combined Meteors team. We had a great start, and won it 11 - 4. It was fun and set us up for the day. All the teams we played were stronger than us, on paper at least. Some of them were defnitely out of our league. In both senses. But we did OK, punching at least at our own weight. The group stage is followed by a semi-final - for the Cup or the Plate, depending on if you finished in the top or bottom of the draw. We faced off against the Squares for the Plate semi, and worked together for a deserved victory. We were in our first ever final in a tournament. Vs the Mets again, as it happened. The Homers (who wear black and orange to our orange and black) were in the Cup final. Paul from the Homers said: "let's make it an orange and black clean sweep!". Which basically put the mockers on the thing, as we both lost. But still, we were in a final. Admittedly we had a couple of ringers from the Mob, playing in some games. But still, at least 80% of the team in every game was Wolf. And we were filling in the fund-raising quiz that our ex-Wolf friend Ben had put together throughout the day, which was a bit of fun. More so when we were told that we'd got 100% right and won first prize of a new softball bat. We may be D comp on the field, but we're A comp when it comes to trivia.
It was a fun day with lovely sunny weather, a beautiful setting, lots of laughs. I think we tired by the end of the day - we haven't had to reserve our strength for a final before, though. Sadly, Matt took another visit to Purple Heart Corner, needing stitches in his hand after getting hit in his ungloved hand going for an outfield catch. He made it back from A&E to cheer us on in the final, though.
Some of the team stayed around to watch the A comp final, but I made my way over to my friends' place for a meal and a DVD. A very civilised and much appreciated end to a day which made a good break after last week at work.

Team picture

After last night's game:

Loan Wolves vs Intellect; Highs, Lows, Lessons Learned

Lows: awful, awful batting. The worst I can remember. Didn't hit past the infield once, surprised I never got out more than once, though I think I got others out.

Highs: first catch of the game. It was pretty simple though. Also, anticipating a deflection from Joel to pick up an infield hit, then throw it hard to Vic. Thumping their runner going to 2nd on the head for a tag was neat too.

Lessons Learned: The positional changes worked; the infield just need to calm it down. Usually there's plenty of time to make the throw with the forced runner.

Loan Wolves 15 - 10 Intellect

At lunchtime today, one of my colleagues was going out to the shops and asked if I wanted anything from Marks and Spencer. I remembered that they do some rather nice up-market wine gums, and asked for a packet. Figured that the team would appreciate them this evening.
The Loan Wolves' relationship with wine gums goes back to our first ever league win. They've been our favourite sugar-fix pick-me-up and morale booster ever since. M&S ones are especially good as they have that extra colour, the grape flavoured white ones.
Anyway, on to the game.
Intellect, a new side, turned out to have some big hitters, and their fielding was of a very high standard for an inexperienced team. Their pitcher did them credit too. But we were able to use the three years' experience we've picked up to take the win, scoring consistently and making the outs when we needed them. We had the confidence that came from having a good pitcher - Kate did a great job.
After not the best start to a week at work, I really enjoyed being on the field in the sun and batting. And eating wine gums.

Base Jumpers versus Loan Wolves May 12 2009

Low Point: My batting - not choosing the right one to hit

High Point: Some strikeouts and throws to first

What I have learned: Try not to lose heart. Make sure I go for the pitch that is right for me

Highs/Lows/Lessons Learned - Loan Wolves vs Base Jumpers

Low: coming up to bat once, hits straight off the top of the bat. I get to 1 but Olivia's out at 2.

High: simple outfield catch, a 'cat and mouse' game with 2nd base that apparently got our runner to 1 - I don't remember the second part of this.

Lessons Learned: we need to shrug this one off, put it down as a bad day at the office. But there's plenty to improve - batting, in particular. Maybe we're not doing something right with the order, I don't know.

Base Jumpers 21 - Loan Wolves 4

Some days are better than others

We were away to the Base Jumpers, a new but not inexperienced team, at Primrose Hill. It's a pitch we've done badly on before, slanting away downhill and with the setting sun in the batters' eyes. Sunglasses don't help - they just make everything that isn't the sun look darker.
And it was a dark evening for the Wolves. We didn't manage to read the pitcher's deliveries, and time and time again we didn't manage to parlay base hits into runs. Fair play to a Jumpers fielding side which made five double plays over the course of the game, but I think we all felt we'd not done our best work last night.
There were still some positives - sterling commitment by Julian, pitching in adversity, some good hits to keep morale up and keep us in the game. And there was a nice moment when a little dog wandered up and Kevin threw a ball for it to fetch.
It's easy to blame the "unlucky" pitch, but I must admit when I saw carrion crows pecking around the outfield after the match it summed the whole thing up for me.

More Wolves good news...

Mike and I got engaged whilst we were on holiday in Spain!! Expect a very bouncy Vic at the next match.

xx