Champs chased by 'Cats'

By Bill Borfitz.

In week one of the Premier Division of the Leinster League, defending champions BatPak travelled to newly promoted Castleknock Bearcats to begin their quest for a third consecutive league title. On a cold evening on the Northside of Dublin, the favourites did not have things all their own way!

With the ‘Pak Captain still warm weather training in Oz, Jon Barry wore the Captain’s armband for the night.

The game started with stand-in Umpire Stevie Rumble behind the plate. The ‘Pak started brightly, scoring five in the first inning, with Castleknock plating one in response. The next two innings were scoreless, and at the end of four innings, ‘Pak were holding a slim 5 - 3 lead.

Things started to heat up in the fifth inning, with the ‘Pak adding on another four runs. BatPak’s second base player, Hayley Hennessy, took a stinging line drive straight off the bat of Carlos Fabien, ‘Pak’s big hitting Dominican Republic import. With her foot still firmly planted on third base, Umpire Rumble ruled the ball foul, as the ball struck her in foul territory. That’s got to hurt! To everybody’s amazement, she waved the incident off and continued to play. To their credit, the Bearcats responded with five runs of their own, and BatPak held a 9 - 8 lead going into the sixth inning.

BatPak added on another run in the top of the sixth, and held the Bearcats scoreless through some tight defence.

Experience counts for a lot in this sport, and the very expierenced BatPak doubled their scoreline in the top of the seventh inning, with a blistering ten run offensive assault, punctuated by a huge homerun from the Robert Underdunk Terwilliger lookalike, Carlos Fabien, which amazed some of the young onlookers. BatPak held the Bearcats to two runs in the bottom of the seventh, to secure a 20 -10 victory.

In a post-match interview, stand-in BatPak Captain Jon Barry said, “That was tough, fun, but tough. They’re (Castleknock) a good team, and the rest of this division are in for a shock. They’ll take some wins off some unsuspecting teams, and they’re good enough to compete in this division. Good luck to them for the rest of the season”.

And as for the MVP, several players from both sides put their hands up for consideration, with a couple of .750’s on the Castleknock side, and a couple of .800’s on the ‘Pak side, or could it be for the honesty of both the ‘Pak third base and their pitcher, for admitting to the Umpire that they’d missed a tag on third, and the Umpire allowed the Bearcats runner to remain on third?

Bearcats decided however that BatPak's first base Elaine Kiely and catcher Sideshow Carlos were worthy of the female and male MVP awards. A special note to Hayley Hennessy for a batting average of .666, despite brushing off a nasty shot from one of her team-mates as though nothing had happened. An un-named player was heard suggesting that "we would be burying Didier Drogba had that happened to him!" In Hayley’s own words, “I’m fine, there’s plenty of padding there!”

Until next time,

Bill.