Great chance to build on Black Sox status

March 13, 2013

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CHAMPS AGAIN: The jubilant Black Sox get into party mode after New Zealand beat Venezuela 4-1 in the grand final at the world softball championship in Auckland yesterday. It marked this country’s record sixth win in the world series, including five of the past eight.

 

ORIGINAL STORY by Tony Smith

OPINION:    Retiring catcher Paddy Shannon summed up the challenge facing softball now when he said the Black Sox were "famous for an hour-and-a-half a night". 

    "People like winning teams and the Black Sox are lucky to have a winning tradition." 

    Live coverage of the New Zealand softball team's record sixth world championship success clearly struck a chord with television viewers. Just as it did in 2004 when they triumphed in Christchurch. 

    A senior Sky TV executive told softball officials that the gripping 5-4 10-inning tiebreaker win by the Black Sox over world champions Australia last Friday was some of the best sporting action the channel had screened. 

    Black Sox coach Eddie Kohlhase hailed it as "one of the better games I've been involved with" in 30 years of international softball. 

    Softball buffs were bombarded with messages from friends with diverse sporting passions saying they were glued to the TV during the softball and some had skipped the Super 15 rugby because they were so absorbed. 

    It was the same refrain in 2004 when the Christchurch world championships were screened on free-to-air TV. 

    Friday's trans-Tasman tussle - and the 26-hit slugfest between the Black Sox and Canada last Monday - were international sport at its best. 

    Those games proved softball, a pitcher-dominated sport, can be a gripping spectacle. 

    Tiebreakers are as compulsive viewing as a penalty shoot-out in football. Cricket, for all the contrivances of the shorter forms of the sport, struggles to match it for tension and drama,. 

    Yet the Black Sox were barely on the box between those two world championships - hence Paddy Shannon's comment. 

    That's not necessarily the television network's fault. 

    The Black Sox haven't played an international series in New Zealand for at least five years. 

    Softball New Zealand cannot allow that to happen again. 

    They must capitalise on the code's 15 minutes of fame. It's time for a regular Bledisloe Cup-style series between the Black Sox and Australia, two of the best softball teams in the world. 

    It should be staged alternately here and there, if not annually, then at least every even-numbered year, between world championships. 

    Black Sox management were loath to let that happen between 2009 and 2013. Kohlhase revealed on Sunday that the Black Sox management elected to "steer clear of them". "We'd seen them a lot from 2005 to 2009 and I think they gained more than we did, so we deliberately decided to stay away." 

    But he agreed it may be time for the sport's governing bodies to look at a regular transtasman competition. 

    Longtime Australian coach Bob Harrow was also keen on the concept but said cost could be factor. 

    If the Australians won't play ball with New Zealand, then invite Japan, the North Americans or the emerging South American powers Argentina and Venezuela. 

    Softball NZ has shied away from staging domestic internationals because of the expense. But the capacity crowds at Auckland's Rosedale Park on finals weekend proved there's a market for top softball. 

    The tournament was smoothly run by a capable coterie of North Harbour officials led by Fay Freeman with International Softball Federation vice-president Bob Leveloff advising. 

    There were some glitches - spectators in the stands along the first and third baselines complained they couldn't easily see the batter's box. 

    This was the first of four world championships (three men's and one women's) not interrupted by rain - and is believed to be the first to run at a profit. A major international series shouldn't be a financial flop judging by the Auckland audiences. 

- © Fairfax NZ News