Softball starts today

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33965, 4 October 1975, Page 48

Softball starts today

An interesting men’s senior softball season is assured with one club coach aiming to go through the season unbeaten and another expecting his team to be four points clear by Christmas. Matches get under way today at the Polo Grounds with the clash between last season’s runner-up. United, and the fourth-placed Western Suburbs side likely to be the most interesting. In the other games Papanui and Richmond should easily beat; Somerfield and United-City | respectively. The new Papanui coach 1 (Mr Keith Bingley) says that his team cannot improve on last year — it has won all the major titles in the last two seasons — so he has to look to some other incentive. “The only. incentive 1 can give the boys is an unbeaten season, and of course an improved performance as Canterbury’s representative in the John Lennon tournament in Hamilton,” he said. ! Papanui has lost two ofj its most powerful batters; this season — the tall; American, Walt McComb, is on the way home, and Dave Williams is. to be transferred to Dunedin. But the second baseman, Bruce Chee, and the 21-vear-old Chris McDonald — a 1974 New Zealand representative — are “most adequate replacements."

Other new faces in the team are two youngsters, Shaun McGuire and Frank Beardsmore, who have both come up through the grades. The team’s catcher, Gordon Phillips, will be unavailable for several games in the next two months, but Brian Waine will be an able substitute. “The squad is looking very good and is hitting the ball far better than I’ve seen them,” said Mr Bingley. Mr Mike Nalepa, the United coach, is just as confident that his team will win the competition, and he lexpects it to be four points !up by Christmas as well as i becoming the John Lennon i representative next March; i Major gains are the Hawke’s Bay outfielder an*, speedy base-runner, Duncan Daw, and two Richmond players, Mark McFarlane (senior last year), and Douglas Honey (senior reserve). The Richmond coach (Mr Alf Brown), too, feels that his team could make the John Lennon tournament, and although he admits that lit lacks the depth of talent iof Papanui or United, still j predicts that “we’ll give I them much more than ithey’ve bargained for.” I A similar team to last I year’s will be fielded with the addition of the Arataki Dodgers infielder, Doug Baker, and a senior reserve player, Robin Te Maari. Mr Brown is hopeful that the injured knee of Eddie Kerrigan, the former New

Zealand Rugby league wing, will heal sufficiently for him to turn out later on. Western Suburbs should “go pretty good and be in the top runners,” according to its coach, Mr Owen Stuart. “It is a new-look side with Glen Gordon, a good ball handler from the Cardinals major reserve side, Barry Cairns, a third baseman from Poneke, and Les Butts from Wigram.” He is reluctant to make predictions about the tough game his side faces today but says that although United “looks a good side on paper and Bradbury is always hard to hit, our own Ross Fife is potentially the best pitcher in Canterbury.” Last season’s bottomplaced teams, United-City and Somerfield, will both be expecting superior performances from their young players. The former side’s main acquisition is the United first baseman and former Canterbury; squad member, Roger Hutton, who failed to make the top team this year. The coach (Mr Arnold Hall) says that the team is “looking forward to beating more than Somerfield this year.” Two of last season’s star players, Francis Lawrence and Graham Church, will not be available for the first two or three games. Lawrence has Rugby league commitments and Church lives in Wellington during the winter.