In England, softball is called "Rounders" and the rules are slightly different than in America. I'm not exactly sure of all of the details of the differences, but I did noticed that if you even touch the ball, whether it goes out of the batter's box or not, you can run (instead of it being a foul). There are also some different rules about stealing bases. Whatever the difference, softball in the UK rocks in my opinion.
Anyway, I wandered over to Regent's Park to cheer Jim and his team on. I was the team's only fan and I was meant to be there to give them lots of support, but, unfortunately I found myself laughing really hard at their antics and I don't think I was that supportive at all. Once I accidentally cheered for the wrong team, which is an honest mistake.
Jim's team(not sure what their name is. We will call them the Bad News Bears of Briton- BNBB-for the purposes of this blog) was playing the "Dazzlers," who were a group of artists. The Dazzlers were getting ready for the game by drinking mass quantities of beer and smoking some cigarettes. When I arrived, fifteen minutes after the game was to have started, only three people from BNBB were there. They had been warming up for about 45 minutes and thirty minutes later the rest of the team finally straggled in citing tube troubles.
Unfortunately for the BNBB, things were not looking good. Grounders are not their strong point...and neither is hitting...or catching pop-ups. The Dazzlers, though, really dazzled with a series of cricket-style hits that went through several BNBB legs and a few more hits that caused some near collisions on the field amongst the BNBB. Then, a couple of the Dazzlers had a collision, as one of their runners didn't realize she could keep going after third and her teammate didn't realize she had stopped. They proceeded to both run to home at the same time, stumbled over a bat, and then fell crashing into the middle of all the BNBB backpacks. Meanwhile, one of the BNBB players was injured and lying on the ground. Her teammate, threw a midirected foul back towards the field and missed her head by about an inch.
When the Dazzlers took to the field, things started to look up for the BNBB. The third baseman, donning plaid pants, shaggy hair, and a green shiny jacket, smoked a cigarette and drank a beer as he waited for the runners to come through. The two coaches got into some heated arguments and, at one point, one of the Dazzlers hit a foul, which one of the BNBB (a rugby player in real life) moved to catch. The Dazzler subtly pushed the rugby player so that he missed the ball and the rugby player, in turn, TACKLED the Dazzler batter on his way to first. The fan was ROLLING on the sidelines. This was, by far, the best softball game I have ever watched. I think everyone should play softball like they do in England!
Sadly, the BNBB lost, but not as badly as I had predicted! And afterwards, both teams went out for some pints.
The Bad News Bears of Britain out in the field:
The Dazzlers at bat. This was the guy who was soon to be tackled by the BNBB rugby player (stationed behind him):
Jim runs in after the first inning.
At bat:
And getting annoyed by my taking pictures:
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