The season’s not over until the fat bloke yells ‘That’s the Ball Game’!

Despite a two-week hiatus of filing baseball reports for the website, it doesn’t mean there hasn’t been any baseball. To the contrary; the weather has been better than it was for most of the summer, and it’s the kids and the elite players that are getting the benefit.

Starting with the juniors, two weeks ago saw the regional playoffs for the National Youth Baseball Championships and this weekend the top four from each of the Broncos (under-14) and Ponies (under-17) played out for top spot at Cartmel Valley Baseball Club.

Last year, the London Mets Broncos were surprise absentees – losing in the regional playoff following a perfect game from Forest Glade Redbacks’ Chris Kiefer – but they gained revenge in beating the Forest Glade side to go through to the finals this year. Their Pony side, as defending champions, had little trouble following suit as the Herts All-Stars also fell by the wayside. From the south, the Broncos also sent the defending champions, London Youth Baseball League, to face the Northern teams, while the Cobham Yankees joined the Mets in the Pony section. Unsurprisingly, the two representatives for both the Broncos and the Ponies from the North were Cartmel Valley, who were hosting the tournament, and the Halton Jaguars; the two best junior programmes in the region.

Unfortunately for the northern sides, the southern teams were better this year. Both the defending champion Mets and Yankees fought through to the Pony final, while LYBL sought to repeat against the Mets Bronco.

Unfortunately, Sunday’s weather wasn’t any good. In fact, it was awful. The rain that had stayed away for most of the past two weeks decided to rear its head, just as it had done at the senior National Baseball Championships, and unfortunately the outcome was a rained-out final forcing a postponement to be rearranged at a later date. Watch this space…

Elsewhere in British Baseball, the GB senior team represented the country at the European Baseball Championships in the Netherlands last week.

Twice silver medallists at the Championships, the British are still a rank outsider in European Baseball, behind the traditionally strong teams from Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, where baseball is semi-pro at the top levels, and from Greece and Spain who have shown long-term success in their national programmes.

After an opening loss to France – reminiscent of the GB Juniors’ attempts in this summer’s Junior European Championships – the British side bounced back to beat the Czech Republic. That was a particularly good omen, not just for the tournament but also for the rest of the summer, as the Czechs are in the British group for the World Baseball Classic qualifier in Regensburg later this month.

Unfortunately, though, that was as good as it got. Losses to Germany (expected) and the Netherlands (expected) sandwiched a defeat to Belgium, who were bottom of the group at that point, and the result there meant that the British were relegated from ‘Pool A’, meaning they’ll have to qualify again for the next Championships.

Belgium themselves do have precedent in the Championships, winning in 1967 on home soil when the British came second. That year, neither Italy nor Holland took part.

This year, they did. And with the British finishing bottom of their section, they were forced into a position playoff against Russia, who were winless in their division.

Cue #homegrowntalent. Ben Pearson (Cartmel Valley Lions), Gary Davison (Southampton Mustangs) and Michael Trask (Bracknell Blazers) each started for the GB side, joining former GB Junior Richard Klijn on the diamond and later in the game, Maikel Azcuy of the Harlow Nationals made another tournament appearance. Pearson picked up the win in his GB debut, while defensively Trask made a good contribution, while Davison picked up great experience. Importantly, all three of these guys also play in the GB Under-23s as well, so the future of youth development from here in Britain is looking a lot stronger than it may have done in years gone by.

In beating Russia 6-2, they at least left the tournament with 2 wins and 4 defeats, not a bad effort but not good enough to place any higher than 11th or stave off relegation. Most of the team will make way for a fresher set of arms, bats and legs next week for the World Baseball Classic Qualifiers, where restrictions on nationality are looser. Obviously there are formal rules, but essentially it helps GB more than most countries given the huge levels of British-born grandparents who may have migrated early in their lives to the USA or Canada!

So while the domestic competitive baseball season is over, just as the weather gets good enough to get out in the sun, attention turns firstly to the Qualifier before, inevitably, to the World Series in North America.

GB will face Canada, Germany (the hosts) and the Czech Republic (who we beat last week) in the qualifier, with one of the four going through to the main event next summer. They’ll join the 12 best-placed teams from the 2009 tournament in the Classic, which will be played in the US.

Klijn and Trask have both been picked for the WBCQ roster to represent Team GB in this Olympic year at this now non-Olympic sport, marking an incredible achievement for the top young players who have come through both the BSUK and MLB Europe Academies. Their inclusion means 14 of the European Championship team will be fighting for the Lions and are to be joined by the top minor league stars with British heritage or citizenship.

Regardless of how many of the top stars play in Britain (note – Andy Murray went to Spain at 15 to make sure he would become the best he could be, and look at the huge numbers of non-domestic players in the toughest football leagues across the world) they’ll still be the side to root for rather than allowing the German hospitality and Oktoberfest get the better of us.

*It’s worth noting that Italy won the European Championships (for the 10th time), beating the Netherlands – 20-time winners – into second place. It was the 9th silver medal for the Dutch, and between them and the Italians they’ve won 30 of 32 tournaments. The Spanish, one-time winners way-back when, came third and Germany, who still technically have a worse record than GB (2 silver medals for the Brits, 1 for das Deutschen), finished fourth.