{"id":13741,"date":"2012-06-07T06:01:54","date_gmt":"2012-06-07T05:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=13741"},"modified":"2012-07-13T12:43:05","modified_gmt":"2012-07-13T11:43:05","slug":"british-baseball-beat-firewalks-and-olympic-flames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=13741","title":{"rendered":"British Baseball Beat: Firewalks and Olympic Flames"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The only place to start this week’s round-up is at Finsbury Park, where 44 players, staff members and parents walked across 600\u00c2\u00b0C hot coals to raise money for the upcoming summer competitions contested by Great Britain teams of various age groups.<\/p>\n

The \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfirewalk\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 was complemented by a host of other festivities, including a home run derby \u00e2\u20ac\u201c won by the Essex Arrows\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Giovanni Escalona \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and games involving the GB Cadets, GB Juniors and the GB Under-23s teams.<\/p>\n

Full details, including a ten-minute video of the firewalk fundraisers can be found on the BBF website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Limited league action last weekend<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was a reduced schedule of games in the British Baseball leagues last weekend, with a limited number of fixtures initially on the list and the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGreat British weather\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 intervening as well (I think we can blame Her Majesty for the latter).<\/p>\n

In the National Baseball League, the Southampton Mustangs were able to play their double-header against the Croydon Pirates on Saturday\u00c2\u00a0and the result was a double-header sweep for Southampton by scores of 13-1 and 10-7. The two victories meant that we had yet another change at the top of the standings, with the Mustangs pulling level with the Harlow Nationals on a 10-3 record, leading the 9-3 Herts Falcons by half a game.<\/p>\n

The Mustangs have now won seven of their last eight games and they host the Essex Arrows this Sunday trying to add two more wins to their total. If they can achieve that then they will at least hold onto a share of the lead in the table for one further week, if not gaining a small advantage, as their two closest rivals are meeting in a double-header billed by Herts Baseball Club as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153biggest game of the season so far\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Falcons will welcome the reigning champions the Harlow Nationals to Grovehill Ballpark in Hemel Hempstead for what should be a classic double-header, starting at midday.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the Pirates host the Lakenheath Diamondbacks and the Bracknell Blazers host the London Mets.<\/p>\n

In the other leagues, the Guildford Mavericks II improved to 8-0 in the AA-South with two comprehensive victories<\/a> over the Croydon Pirates III team, while the London Metros technically added two wins to their tally in AAA-South due to forfeits by the now seemingly defunct Windsor and Bracknell Bears team.<\/p>\n

Baseball not left out of the 2012 Games completely<\/strong><\/p>\n

Off the field, there was a great honour for Liverpool Trojans legend and British Baseball Hall-of-Famer<\/a> Norman Wells as he carried the Olympic flame<\/a> through Ormskirk on Friday morning. BaseballSoftballUK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Jason Greenberg will also represent the whole of British baseball when he carries the torch<\/a> through Merton, South London, on Monday 23 July.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s schedule<\/strong><\/p>\n

On top of the NBL clashes mentioned above, there should be some good contests in British baseball this weekend.<\/p>\n

The current weather forecast \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for the south, at least \u00e2\u20ac\u201c doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look particularly encouraging, but hopefully baseball diamonds around the country can take centre stage after the Diamond Jubilee weekend just gone.<\/p>\n

In Triple-A, the Liverpool Trojans put their long unbeaten run on the line against the Bolton Robots of Doom. Bolton are without a win so far this season, so the odds strongly favour the Trojans heading into the double-header. However, baseball doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always work out the way you would expect.\u00c2\u00a0 The South Pool A leaders the Richmond Knights (11-3) host the 6-6 Cambridge Royals at Flood Field, while the Pool B leading Essex Redbacks (11-3) travel to Finsbury Park to take on the London Metros (5-6)<\/p>\n

In Double-A, the Southampton Mustangs II are the latest team trying to ruin the Guildford Mavericks\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (8-0) perfect start to the season and if they can manage it then the Poole Piranhas (7-1) will try to take advantage with some positive results against the Latin Tigers. The South Pool B leading Sidewinders take on the Essex RedBacks II. In the North, the league-leading Sheffield Bladerunners are due to travel to Hull for a double-header against the Scorpions. In the Midlands, the Leicester Blue Sox and MK Bucks meet at the former\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Western Park with both hoping to cut into the Nottingham Rebels\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 lead at the top of the table.<\/p>\n

In Single-A, the 5-0 Essex Archers host the Herts Eagles, Hove Tuesday should be out at Pavillion Field in Brighton welcoming the Braintree Rays, the Essex Redbacks III take on the Old Timers and the Richmond Dukes and Tonbridge will battle to see which can gain their first victory of the 2012 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fundraising and flying the flame for baseball<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,192],"tags":[556],"class_list":["post-13741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-baseball-2","category-british-baseball-beat","tag-british-baseball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13741"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14123,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13741\/revisions\/14123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}