After a relatively placid first week of the new National Baseball League season, bats exploded on the second Sunday, especially at Westmorland Park, where Bracknell, the defending champions, hosted the Essex Arrows. Game one saw a grand slam from Matt Maitland in the bottom of the first, but no other balls left the park until game two.
In part two of the double-header, Richard Chesterton, the third batter to the plate in the top of the opening frame for the Essex Arrows, connected for the first home run of the game. The contest’s next two round-trippers were also off Essex bats: Lance Louw and Matt Gilbert went back-to-back with the first two pitches of the third inning. In the bottom of the same inning, Michael Trask collected the first dinger of his career, and the first of the game for Bracknell.
Brendan Cunliffe, who drove in 7 runs in a single inning (by Project Cobb Photography - click on image for link)
Incredibly, the bottom of the fourth saw three more home runs, two of them clubbed by Brendan Cunliffe (pictured to the right). His first was a grand slam and his second a three-run shot, giving him seven RBI in the inning. Behind him in the line-up was Gordon Sheppard, and after the second of Cunliffe’s home runs Sheppard found a gap in the outfield and managed to make it round for an inside-the-park homer – the seventh and final of the game. Cunliffe then came onto pitch, and held Essex scoreless in the top of the fifth to terminate the game early on the mercy rule, with the score standing at 22-6.
There was a third grand slam to report from week two of the National Baseball League, hit by Gary Davison of the Southampton Mustangs against the Croydon Pirates. Records going back to 1995 do not show any other weekends in the top tier with more than one grand slam, so for three of them to be hit last Sunday was truly remarkable.
League leaders and full season statistics, which include a game-by-game breakdown of batting and pitching figures, can be found on the Great Britain Baseball Scorers Association (GBBSA) website.
We’re taking a slight diversion from baseball in America this week and turning our attention to the sport being played closer to home.
Never underestimate the importance of getting that first win of the season. It might just count for 1 in the season standings, but getting a ‘W’ early on takes the pressure off a bit and allows a team to look forward rather than back. As the Croydon Pirates found last year, the longer you go without a win, the harder it is to get one.
Welcome to our weekly round-up of the BaseballGB Fantasy League competition. This is a mixed Head-2-Head league involving BGB writers and readers. 
Thursday evenings have become a big event in recent weeks. Putting a long day at work to one side, I sank into a sofa and readied myself for the much-anticipated spectacle to unfold. The tension among the protagonists was palpable and it produced a highly-charged occasion, made memorable by fiery exchanges and disagreements.
The late columnist Jeffrey Bernard was such a notorious boozer and self-proclaimed advocate of living the ‘Low Life’, that often in place of his column was the notice ‘Jeffrey Bernard is unwell’. I was tempted to pull a similar trick with this column, however more along the lines of ‘Steve Keene is stuck in fishnet stockings’. However, I felt, on reflection that wasn’t really in keeping with BaseballGB house style, and was not really an image that I wanted to conjure up for you, dear reader.