New Zealand pitching great Owen Walford became the first men’s softballer to win world titles with two different nations and boasted one of the greatest nicknames in Kiwi sport. Walford - who died last week,aged 75 - was known as The Fog because batters couldn’t see his pitches hurtling through the strike zone.

The Hawke’s Bay hurler pitched at four world championships in the 1970s and 1980s, two for New Zealand and two with the United States.

He won a gold medal with the Kiwis at the 1976 world series in Lower Hutt and then pitched USA to the 1980 title in Tacoma, Washington. In his prime, Walford ranked among the greatest hurlers in a golden generation of pitching, in a pantheon with Kiwi compatriot Kevin Herlihy and American legend Ty Stofflett. No surprise then that he was inducted into the Softball New Zealand and World Softball Halls of Fame in 1997.

Former national coach Mike Walsh said Walford “was one of our superstar pitchers of the 70s and 80s in an era where we produced so many wonderful athletes”.

“He was a tremendous competitor with a heavy drop ball plus a devastating rise ball, all with pinpoint accuracy. I had the privilege of watching him win his second ASA national title in 1983. He was devastating as he dominated the best hitters in the world.”

Walford hailed from Hawke’s Bay, one of New Zealand softball’s richest talent nurseries, and burst on the national scene around 1970. He was best known at club level for leading the Mudgway Wreckers and for pitching Hawke’s Bay to wins over touring North American teams. He was named on the New Zealand team for a tour of South Africa and the third world championships in Manila in 1972, but was restricted by injuries.

However, he soon gave New Zealand a fearsome pitching spearhead with Herlihy and was a standout at the 1976 world series in Lower Hutt where he won six games from the mound and drove in two runs with the bat in a 2-0 victory over South Africa. But Herlihy still got the ball for the big games, including the epic 20 innings 1-0 loss to the United States. Watching from the dugout as Stofflett snared 32 strikeouts and Herlihy 20, Walford vowed he wanted to emulate the American.

“He was the benchmark, and if you wanted to prove yourself you had to go out and beat the best,’’ Walford told Stuff in 2021. “It took me three seasons to get a shot at him.”

Walford got a gold medal when the tournament was washed out by rain and the title was shared between New Zealand, Canada and the United States.

Then he joined the Kiwi pitching exodus to America, starring for the Saginaw Bolters where he earned a nickname some have dubbed the greatest in softball.

Five-time All American and former USA Pan American Games selection Tuck Bedford recalled on Saturday how he and teammate Bozo Kaul were playing for the Bolters during Walford’s first game on a cool drizzly night in Flint, Michigan in 1977. They heard the rhythmic “wapp, wapp, wapp of Owen’s pitches landing in our catcher’s glove’’, Bedford said.

The new Kiwi recruit was “striking out players like we had never witnessed before”. Either Bedford or Kaul, neither can remember which, hollered: “This f....g Kiwi is fogging it by everybody”. The other hollered back: “That’s it, we’ll call his ass ‘The Fog’.” When the inning ended,the pair returned to the dugout and told Walford he had a new moniker. Bedford said they had just met the Kiwi and weren’t sure how he would react, but Walford’s face broke out in his trademark grin as he said: “You want to call me Fog? I f....g love it, mate”. So the sobriquet stuck.

“I still tell people all the time that it’s got to be the best nickname anyone’s ever given.”

Walford made his mark with the Bolters at the 1978 International Softball Congress (ISC) tournament, making the All World First Team after tossing 97 strikeouts for a 0.12 ERA (earned run average.

Then he made a move to the Midland McArdle team, with Herlihy taking his berth, 20 minutes drive away in Saginaw.

Bedford remembered how “thousands” used to turn up at Michigan ballparks “to watch Fog and Kevin go head to head’’, saying the two Kiwis were “rock stars before we even knew that term”. Walford threw McArdle to the 1979 ASA national championships title on a team captained by future Major League Baseball manager Terry Collins, who later skippered the Houston Astros, Anaheim Angels and New York Mets.

Watched by 9500 fans at Midland’s Currie Stadium - one of Walford’s favourite places to pitch - McArdle won the final 3-1 with Bob Ryan handing over for Walford to the win over Stofflett’s York Barbell team from Pennsylvania despite his American rival taking 19 strikeouts. Both men made the All Star First Team.

“I came to McArdle with a vision to beat Ty Stofflet,’’ Walford told the Midland News at a team reunion in 2016. “He was the best in the world, and I wanted to beat him.”

The ASA tournament victory also gave Walford the opportunity to become a double international with McArdle earning the right to represent the United States at the 1980 world championships. The Fog descended on Tacoma in career-best form, pitching six shutout wins and taking 47 strikeouts in 39 innings.

He beat his New Zealand compatriots - Herlihy and all - twice at the tournament, coming into the first game in the sixth inning to hold his countrymen hitless over the final five frames of a 10-innings duel for a 3-0 win. Then he started in a 2-0 follow-up victory.

New Zealand finished fourth and watched Walford pitch USA to a 3-0 win over Canada in the final and then get named tournament MVP. In doing so, he became the first softballer to get back-to-back world championship gold medals. Little wonder McArdle and USA pitcher Nels Conkwright told the Midland News in 2016 that Walford had “ice in his veins’’. Walford continued to be one of the best pitchers on the North American club scene in the early 1980s with the Franklin Cardinal from West Haven, Connecticut.

They held him in such high regard that they refused to enter the 1982 ASA nationals when organisers declared Walford unavailable due to residential rules. Walford and the Cardinals returned to the national stage in 1983 where Franklin won the final, 4-3 and their 6 foot 2 Kiwi pitcher again made the All American First Team with Stofflett after a 5-win 1-loss record and 44 strikeouts in 40 innings.

He represented USA again at the 1984 world championships again beating the Kiwis 3-2 in the only game Walsh’s young New Zealand side lost on their way to the gold medal.

He returned to New Zealand in 1984 and remained extremely competitive on the domestic scene until 1994 before mothballing his fast ball and taking up golf. Walford and his wife Dorothy also coached Hastings’ Whakatu Lions women’s team featuring Dorothy’s sister, Te Aroha (Lovey) Waitoa and Rhonda Hira, both future NZ White Sox internationals They won the national interclub title in Nelson in 1985.

Walford’s younger brother, Paul, was also a Black Sox world champion in 1996 and had a long career as a hitter on the American scene.

So how good was Owen Walford in his prime? Herlihy was in no doubt about his greatness when he rated his fellow pitchers in a chapter in his 1997 autobiography Striking Out.

“Owen Walford was the most under-rated pitcher on many teams, not so much by his peers but by selectors,’’ Herlihy wrote. “Too often, they elected to have me pitch when Owen would have done the job. He was a fierce competitor and was full of well-justified self confidence.”

Herlihy saw Walford at the 1979 ASA nationals and reckoned it was “the finest pitching I saw from him’’.

“He has great speed - he was nicknamed The Fog in pitching because they couldn’t see him - and he had superb movement up and down, and a very good change-up.”

Walford retired to Hawke’s Bay, and was often seen at Evergreens tournaments where he enjoyed convivial catch-ups with his former playing contemporaries. When he journeyed to America in 2016 for the first time in 32 years, word got around that The Fog was back three of his United States clubs, Midland McArdle, the Saginaw Bolters and the Franklin Cardinals quickly staged reunions to reminisce with the popular pitcher.

Bedford will always remember Walford for more than just the titles and strikeouts, but for his qualities as a teammate and friend.

He told a special anecdote “which even now brings a tear to my eye’’ about a game between Walford’s Cardinals and Bedford’s Midland side. Midland’s catcher Art Tolfree tipped Walford off that Bedford had just lost his brother Ron to cancer. Walford, “who had met Ronnie’’, immediately began to “pitch at half-speed’’ to give his old friend a hit.

Mike Walsh also reckoned Walford was “a super mate to everyone off the diamond, really fun company. “He will always be remembered as Mr Fog for his power pitching.”