Familiar faces in softball selection

Press, 26 December 1984, Page 18

Familiar faces in softball selection

Reg Underwood, a fullblooded Indian from the Tsarlip tribe, will be one face from the past in the invitation team of softball stars from four different countries which will meet the New Zealand side in a double-header next month. For the two-test series on January 12 and 13 Underwood will be returning to Lower Hutt which he last visited eight years ago as a member of the Canadian team in the fourth world series.

Canada was represented in the 1976 series by the Victoria Bate club from British Columbia when Underwood blasted an automatic home run over the outfield fence at the “Hutt Rec.” In one game the 175strong band of Canadian supporters came up with a well-rehearsed chant: “Bates on the warpath, ooh ah, ooh ah.”

Another survivor of that series who will be playing at Lower Hutt is the veteran pitcher, Owen Walford, who was then the second string in the New Zealand team to the legendary Kevin Herlihy. Walford subsequently moved to the United States and pitched his adopted country to a gold-medal win in the 1980 series at Tacoma, Washington. At Midland, Michigan, in July this year Walford, by now aged 35, tried to achieve his third successive world title (New Zealand had shared the International Softball Federation trophy in 1976), but United States could finish only third, behind New Zealand and Canada. '■

Luck this time went against Walford who pulled a muscle in his arm while throwing the first pitch of the section-play match against New .Zealand. Wal-

ford, clutching his arm between his spells on the mound, still managed to pitch the whole of that 12 .innings tiebreak match and> some of the preliminary final against New Zealand three days later. Walford used to be known as “The Fog” because batters could not see his lightning-fast pitches. But some of the New Zealand team suggested that the nickname “Light Bulb” was more appropriate after the first New Zealand-United States clash. The double international has now returned to Hawke’s Bay and turned in an impressive performance for his Mudgway Wreckers club team at the rich Cowans tournament in Lower Hutt recently. The Bay team finished second, Walford pitching five games on the final day. Walford will be one of two former New Zealand representative pitchers in the international invitation side. The other is the former Otago and Hutt Valley man, Peter Meredith, who has also been based in the United States in recent seasons.

Japan will be represented in the team by Seiichi Tanaka and Takayuki letake who both made bold impressions at the world series in Michigan this year. letake will be best remembered by the New Zealand team for his headlong dive across the home plate for an inside-the-park home

run which tied the scores at 1-1 in the top of the sixth innings in a section play match. New Zealand eventually won, 3-1. letake, a short-stop and left-handed better, went on to set a new world series record for battling averages, collecting an impressive 14' hits in 24 turns at bat for a .583 average. The number .of runs he scored (14) was also a new record and both the number of hits (14) and number of runs he batted in (13) were the best for the 1984 tournament.

Tanaka, a great bunter and very fast base-runner, was not far behind his Japanese countryman with an average of .500 (10 hits from 20 at bats) at the tournament. His average of .556 at the 1980 series was the previous record in world series play. Unfortunately for Tanaka he struck out twice against New Zealand this year.

Two Taiwanese in the invitation side, Lee ChiChuan, a short-stop, and Chen Chieh-Yen, an outfielder, were members of the side which took fourth place at the 1984 world series.

The rest of the team is made up of three Americans who are at present playing for New Zealand club sides — Rocky Vitale, Chad Corcoran, and Matt Dijak — together with Bruce Beard, Gordy Fadden, and Larry Nolan (also United States). By TIM DUNBAR