Burnside breaks into the big softball league

Press, 10 March 1982, Page 24

Burnside breaks into the big softball league

By

TIM DUNBAR

Noel Leeming Burnside’s list of admirers has grown to

undreamed proportions after its outstanding feats in both big events of men’s club softball.

Burnside easily surpassed the previous efforts of any Christchurch men’s club team by making the final of both the Qantel Cup and. the Pan Am Trophy within the space of six days.

“That was the greatest thrill of my life,” said the Burnside coach, Mr Arnold Hall, when the team returned to Christchurch this

week after its campaign in Lower Hutt arid Wellington. The team lost both finals. Auckland United beat Burnside, 6-2, in the final of the Qantel at Fraser Park and then Auckland Ramblers triumphed 3-1 in the Pan Am final at Hataitai Park on Saturday. Nevertheless, the success of the team has sent shock waves through the softball fraternity which was confidently picking a “local” Pan Am final between Miramar (Wellington) and Cardinals (Hutt Valley).

“We’re now the talk of the North Island. Burnside was the gutsiest side there, there are no two ways about it,” said Mr Hall.

Burnside, only sixth-equal in its first excursion to the Pan Am the year before, received the congratulations of such big-wigs in softball as the New Zealand coach, Mike Walsh, the New Zealand captain, Dennis Cheyne, and the president of the New Zealand Softball Association, Alf Whelan. The team crossed Cook Strait with a loyal band of seven supporters, all of whom paid their own way. By the time it got to the final, that solid little bunch had swelled to a throng with North Islanders, together with softballers from Otago and Southland all cheering for Burnside. “We had a helluva lot of supporters,” said Mr Hall.

The perky little coach is ready to admit that Burnside does not have what he termed “the star-studded lineups” of Miramar and Cardinals, jam-packed with, internationals. “But we have the team spirit. Everyone remarked about the fact that we were triers who don’t lie down.” To make the Pan Am final required Burnside’s winning six games on end (after losing 3-1 to Miramar on the first day) against some of the best sides in New Zealand softball.

And that fighting spirit will never be better displayed than in the sensa-

tional win against Ramblers last Friday, when Burnside came from 0-5 down after two innings for a last-gasp 65 win.

“It yzould have made your hair fall out” said Mr Hall. "It made my heart stop.” “Never in all my years have I seen a team come back from five runs down like that in big softball.”

Burnside had the immense satisfaction of beating the eventual trophy winner and outbatting the team by a decisive 10 safe hits to five.

Three runs were pulled back in the third innings, but the team still trailed 3-5 going into the last frame.

It was still 3-5 with Burnside two down and Jimmy Hall on second base. John Daly should have been struck out, but the catcher dropped the Steve Jackson pitch and Daly beat the throw to first. At the same time, Hall stole audaciously from second base to home and then Wayne Poore hit on. Mr Hall finished the story of the incredible comeback: “Up comes the designated hitter, Roger Hutton, with a mighty hit to the fence between left and centre field. That scores Daly and Poore. End of game!”

After all that even the Ramblers supporters stood up and applauded and the team’s hero, a hardened policeman, was overcome by emotion. “The rest of the team was out on the diamond while Roger, like the Spanish tennis player, was still in the dug-out with his head between his legs.” “That was the game that set the tournament alight. It was a pity they didn’t televise that one,” said Mr Hall. Ramblers went on to qualify for the final the next day by upsetting Miramar, 10, while Burnside easily eclipsed Mudgeway Wreckers (Hawke’s Bay), 4-0. Burnside started spectacularly against Mudgeway when Jimmy Hall put Mark Goldsmith’s second pitch over the centrefield fence for an automatic home run. “I

believe it’s been done only two or three times at Hataitai Park. The fence there is 20 ft further back than any other ball park in New Zealand,”. said the young shortstop’s father and coach. In preparation. for that game Burnside was lucky to be able to call on the services of the Canterbury coach, Tom Hurinui (now transferred to the North Island), like Goldsmith, a left-handed pitcher. “He pitched in practice to us and was a great morale-booster. I think he put more balls past us than Goldsmith.”

The final was a relative anti-climax after the thriller between the two teams 24 hours earlier and Ramblers were never headed after scoring two runs in the first innings.

Burnside’s very talented pitcher, Robert Tangaroa, was “not on the job,” obviously tired after the game against Mudgeway a short time before. “Chub walked the first batter, hit the second one, and they scored two runs.” The Christchurch team looked likely to grab a run back when, in the bottom of the first innings, Graeme Anderson slammed a threebagger, but he was subsequently caught in the “hot box” between third and home. Ramblers scored again in the sixth to put the last nail in Burnside’s coffin and that team’s attempt “to stage a repeat effort” failed in the last. Poore hit safely to centre-field and was batted in by Murray Lanini, but the team’s renewed hopes were quashed after a double play took out Hutton and Lanini. “Afterwards the Ramblers guys shouted for them. They said they were worried the whole time because of the rally the day before.” The Qantel final the previous week-end was very much a case of what might have been. Burnside qualified for the final by beating Hutt City. United, 2-0, thanks to a twdrun automatic homer by Alan Hall who hooked the former New Zealand hurler, John Dawson, over the fence. Another pitcher, Jimmy Fowler, came in for a caning in the final when some grand batting took Burnside to a 21 lead over Auckland United.