The London Tournament: Beers, Banter and Blottoed Baseballers
The London Tournament, hosted by the Croydon Pirates at Roundshaw Playing Fields, is the UK’s annual answer to MLB’s All-Star Break, taking place this year on Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th July. Most of the BBF league fixtures are scheduled so that this weekend remains free for teams to enjoy friendly competition with clubs they wouldn’t normally play against and catch up with the guys and girls they have competed against in the years gone by, who’ve since moved to different pastures.
The Tournament has hosted some terrific teams before, including international representation from Europe as well as a spring board for the GB Juniors and GB Cadet squads to get some high-level action prior to their own international summers of globetrotting. And every so often the Universities All Star team makes an appearance, allowing players who’ve represented their Universities during the academic year in the British Universities Baseball Association (BUBA) competitions to come together against the clubs with whom they play their summer baseball.
There are two competitions, and the entrants to each are decided on Saturday; the initial fixtures send the group winners through to compete for the main championship and the non-qualifiers fighting for the Frank Brady trophy on Sunday.
The Home Run Derby on Saturday night often gets interrupted by the incoming darkness and the impending beer run, as all supplies have been consumed by Saturday afternoon, while the car park over the back of right field is an insurance nightmare when the big Latino lefties take their place in the batters’ box.
What makes the Tournament such an entertaining event is the opportunity for players to participate semi-competitively whilst also enjoying the atmosphere of a sporting tour or holiday. Winnebagos, twelve-man tents and camp fires spring up everywhere, alongside the token drunkard passed out in full uniform somewhere in Croydon, using their mitt as a pillow, often further away from the designated camping area than they’d envisaged they were when they decided to have a sit down at 5am on Sunday morning!
They come round when the PA system blares their team’s schedule and, dribbling like a rabid dingo, they take their place at the hot corner before being told by the opposition that they’re supposed to be batting.
With the hair of the dog driving them forward, or at least acting as an impromptu breakfast, they ache and groan through the 9am fixture and seek shelter beneath the trees hoping to get some meaningful sleep. But in their haze they’ve placed themselves in a great position to pick up souvenirs; foul balls come ten a penny towards the unfortunate souls who just want forty winks before coming back healthy and ready to abuse the fact that metal bats are allowed in tournament play. Every hit goes twenty per cent further and the onlookers are wowed by the pings and dings that punctuate the hung-over ‘inside’ pitches that would leave a bruise if the batter was conscious enough to have felt the impact.
After all that the final of the main tournament will likely be contested by the two teams that are placed highest in the National Baseball League – in 2010 it was the Richmond Flames and Bracknell Blazers who fought for the title, and would do so again two months later for the NBL crown as well – who have enjoyed the tournament for the purity of baseball rather than the Bull Durham-esque antics that the other fourteen or so clubs have engaged with. And it’ll probably be a super final, close like it should be, conducted in a good competitive spirit and officiated by some of the best umpires in the country. But it’ll be cheered on by those who know that baseball in the UK isn’t always about the winning and losing; it’s about having one helluva time, and more recently ensuring that the photos that do make it to Facebook don’t get you sacked from your day job!