Baseball World Cup 2009 : The Deeble Diaries

[BQ Moderator]

With thanks to Deebs, KC and Frita from Baseball Radio National.

Australia begins its World Cup campaign on 9 September 2009, with its first game against the Czech Republic, in Prague (Thursday 2.00 a.m. AEST).
www.baseball.com.au/?page=56950&format=

Aussie Manager Jon Deeble reports on the team daily:
You can ask Deebs questions or make comments here at the Baseball Radio National Link.
baseballradio.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=worldcup&thread=931&page=1

He will try and answer when he gets time.

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the plane trip to Prague is one i want to forget quickly, 33 hours to get there with not a spare sit on the plane, its hard ti imagine Phil dale and Graeme Lloyd sitting in economy with their legs back behind their heads, it was a very tiring trip, the boys were beat by the time we got the the hotel, we had most of the players coming in from the states, they were beat also, most went straight to bed at 4pm but were up at 4.00am not knowing what to do with them selves.

not a good start to the trip when you walk thru the hotel doors and you see it has a casino in there, good thing i stay out of them only on days ending in Y. Chris snelling was the start of the night there, he took them to the cleaners , we were only in there a short time as most of the guys were ready for bed.

we had our first practice today and it went great, after a team meeting to talk about our goals for the tournament and our culture of going out to be world champions, this has been new to alto of guys as it is a new and very young team, we are in the rebuilding stages, we had some bad luck last Friday losing Huber to the big leagues, it was bitter sweet as for anyone who works as hard as he does it was well deserved, our kids in Australia need to look at the work Hube's does both in season but more importantly the time he spends in the off season in the gym and out on the field, i was so happy to speak to him and learn he had been sent up, we lost Travis and mossy also during the week, which really it hard as our 2 front line guys. In saying that though we have some great young arms and we are really excited with what we have to work with, our workout today went really well with lots of comments about how athletic our team is now, good arms great bodies and we really swung the bats well. all our guys bullpened with Liam Hendricks looking great throwing the ball , this kid has good stuff, other to impress were David Welsh drew naylor brad tippett and matty williams, we went over our bunt def as well as our 1st and 3rd plays we had a infield outfield cut off and relays and finished off with pop fly priorities, we then took bp we would have hot close to 40 balls out with Hughes graham both the kennally brothers, beresford and sneelling looking real good, we finished the session with pitchers PFP, all in all it was a great day, weather was perfect. we have another practice session tomorrow, we need to be careful as these kids are really tired from a long pro season so we need to be careful with their workload.

we have a function with the mayor tomorrow night followed by a technical meeting the next morning which are usually great fun, a group of clowns pretending they know what is going on.

at this point Liam Hendricks will pitch the 1st game V Czech we may have drew naylor piggy back him 2 innings each then have 5 guys throw 1 inning to get their feet wet. this is going to be a tough tournament but i think these kids will do well, i was impressed with Tim kennally in left field today he showed a real strong arm and the catchers also threw the ball well to second.

early night tonight to try to sleep off this jet lag, i closed my eyes walking past the casino and straight up to do this blog.

Prague is a really nice city we haven't been downtown yet but the buildings are something to see.

thats all for now, no complaining about my spelling or i will get Johnno onto you, i don't go back and proof read as i don't have time and and don't know how to work the spell check on this site.

i will refer all complaints to big johnno and i am sure he will have my back

deebs

[BQ Moderator]

not much to report today, same as yesterday sleep in practice the boys swung the bats well again, nick kimpton looked real good as did most of the other guys, we are off the the mayors office tonight for a reception and tomorrow it all begins.

we have no injuries worries at this point Dushan Ruzic and adam blackley arrived last night for Holland Ruzic threw a real good bullpen plenty of velocity and from the side arm angle should worry alot of hitters here, adam looked good also.

we need to be able to take our practices into the game as thats were it all counts

deebs

[BQ Moderator]

good start to the world cup with a convincing win V Czech republic 17-4, i am really happy with this young team we have ,they are very athletic and play good defence, stefan welch was the star of the game with a towering home run to rcf, a triple and 2 doubles, he had 4 hard hits for the night, this kid has really come on after his great year in the florida state league in high A ball. I think this kid may be the best hitter we have seen and the best swing since David nilsson, he has really filled out and got stronger, the ball makes a different noise off his bat, at 6'5 he plays great 1st base and i am predicting him to be our next star, he is only 19 so he has a way to go but boy he was impressive.

Tim Kennally was also great he hit 2 home runs and a line drive off the left field fence, overall we had 17 hits, the defence was awesome harman made some outstanding plays at 2nd base as did james beresford at SS.Our game plan is to play perfect defence and our infielders really lived up to their part of the deal.we had 1 poor throw to to 2nd from the catcher that got into centrefield other wise we were perfect. liam hendricks started the game and threw 3 solid innings of no hit ball, drew naylor followed with a quick 8 pitch inning, tim cox was sharp but with a 10 run lead he was pumping fastballs in and was hit for a home run, dushan rusic followed and pitched behind in the count and gave up 2,josh hill pitched an inning he threw the ball okay he was a little rusty again pitched behind in the count ,paul mildren threw and inning as well as brighty and brendan wise, bright and wise were sharp but the other relievers pitched behind in the count and all had 20 pitch innings we talked after the game about the importance of pitching ahead and getting into pitching counts we really need to improve there if we are going to be a threat, giving up 4 runs was diappointing as it could come down to runs against in any tie which will happen,.

the czech team are pretty decent they have a good ss and 3 other pros, they swing the bats well they just need to play more games against better quality pitching and they will be a good team

night was capped off with a pool recovery session and off to bed, we have a day off tomorrow practice 10am until 12 it will be an easy run just to gwet a good stretch in and some bp..i loved the way our guys run up the base lines we had good hard 90's with nick kimpton beating out a ground bball to the first baseman

again this team is very young but there is some real good talent with the average age of 22 i think we can look forward to some good success down the track as thes kids mature.

we play taiwan after the day off and david welch will pitch, taiwan dont handle left hand pitching all that well and we see David has a perfect fit

nick kimpton rolled an ankle hitting first base in his last a bat he was a little sore after the game and he will be looked at in the morning

i left the gorilla down at the casino he has a new system he was trying on roulette he had plenty of chips stack up as i left i think he has the system to beat the casino, if anyone is interested in it i am sure for a fee he will fil you in on what to do

deebs

[BQ Moderator]

Live games can be followed at the link below and past games replayed.
tinyurl.com/mccd2q

[BQ Moderator]

good win today but not one of the best, after coasting to a 4-0 lead, with David welch doing a great job on the mound. after the 5th inning we got him out as we need to look at the next round if he threw more than 50 pitches we would have only had him for 1 start the next round, now it turns out he can have 2 starts and as a AA pitcher obviously we want him out there. Brad tippett came in and threw pretty well he made 1 bad pitch which resulted in a 3 run home run, behind in the count he had to come back with a fb and the ball cleared the centrefied fence, mattt williams also pitvhed okay but with 2 out and an open base at 1st behind in the count with a lefty on deck and brighty ready in the bullpen, i think they made a bad pitch decision of a fb down the middle, we could have lived with a walk as brighty is real tough on LHH. brighty finished the inning and pitched the 9th for the save he was good, he was a perfect fit for that small field as he has a 3 to 1 ground ball to fly ball ratio in pro ball so we needed someone to keep the ball on the ground.

tim kennally hit another rocket over the left field fenc as well as an amazing throw form right field to throw a runner out, this kid has as good of an arm as anyone in the world. James bereford continues to come up with clutch hits, this time a 2 run home rn to put us in front, he had 3 hits for the day.

we made 2 errors which hurt our game plan of no more than 27 outs and perfect def, luke hughes bumbled a dp ball but we got one and james beresford miss played a rotine gb, but made up for it with his big swing in the 8th, we need to do better out of the pen, as long as the pen can come up with 3 outs we can move them in and out.

joel naughton i thoght had 4 great at bats with a couple of hits but had a couple of 10 plus pitch at bats.

to set our rotation up adam blackley will stsrt tomorrow V Mexico but will noly go one inning we will have 8 guys go an inning so we have 5 starters for the next round, this is very tricky, if we had of used welch today and blackley 5 or more tomorrow we only get one start out of them the 2nd round, this way we have our pitchers all ready to go

coaches are off to this beautiful city for dinner, then up early for an early bp tomorrow for the game, our boys got straight home for a recovery session ,kimpton missed the game with a sprained ankle he could be out for a few games ,but otherwise we are healthy, brighty had food poisining for a day but he is fine

the Aussie crowed was back in full force davo and bricey fro SA Blake C and ryan berg for viv with leo V, wayne O and a few other were all up cheering for the Aussie but were a little quieter than yesterday maybe hard night on the turps

we are thru to the 2nd round.

the were alot of complement about the professionalism of our team the way we hustle up the line make aggressive turns at first, the way we dress the unis look great and as i have said before the young fit athletes. our infield out field looks good, i am really looking forward to having these kids stay together for a long time and if we can there will be plenty of wins around

all the guys have urine tests each day to see if they are dehyrated and get basck home to prepare for the next day.

we play tomorrow and fly sunday to italy the bad news is we get off the plane and have to play that day, i know our guys will be ready and hopefully we move onto the final 8

deebs

Game 2 replay Link:
www.cstv.com/gametracker/launch/gt_mbasebl.html?event=834107&school=cs&sport=mbasebl&camefrom=834032&startschool=alr4&

[BQ Moderator]

although todays game was a dead rubber we wanted to go outthere to win, whilst reating a few guys with some injuries naughton and kimpton with ankle sprains and not wanting to crush ou pitching staff, we wanted to win this game, we needed to keep in mind of the fact we play the next round and needed to keep blackley fresh as well as hendricks welch and naylor, 3 of those 4 guys will now get 2 starts in the 2nd round, if we had of kept blackley in the game today he would be able to come up twice which is what we need to get to the next round.

we used all of our pitchers for 1 inning with ruzic mildren and hill for 2 to get thru the 9 innings,blackley threw the ball very well, we made a couple of mistakes again today which cost us, leaving the ball out over the plate which resulted in home runs, the game plan today was to stay in on these guys and not let them get extended which we did with sucess against them at the WBC, however you need to execute the pitch , we let a few ball get back over the plate which hurt, they have a big left hand hitter who has 5 home runs we wanted the ball in on him all game we had success for 3 abs and then left one out over the plate for a home run, to me if we miss we should have taken his knoee caps out, if you miss it has to be in with these guys, we didnt do that

after trailing 7-0 our guys showed tremendas spirit, the young kids came thru with home runs to james linger and a single double and home run to 19 year old matt kennally, we had 2 19 year olds with home runs, snelling added one of his own as well as a pinch hit bomb from Jpel naughton

2 of their home runs were pop ups in this ridiculas field, all of our were legit.

harman made 2 plays that were unbelievable the 1st one was a catch in left centrefield he was playing 2nd today to give hughes a rest who has a sore groin, we had a shift on their big LHH he hit a high fly ball behind the ss beresford he lost the ball as did snelling in cf and berg in LF, harmon ran from deep in the hole at 2nd remember we had a shift on, he ran to left centre field and made an amazing catch.

we also had a great double play jamese beresford laid out to stop a ground ball he flipped it to harman at 2nd he bare handed it as he was moving towards 3rd made an amazing throw to 1st was velocity on the ball that was better than i had ever seen before, he was awesome today.

james beresford continues to play well hitting the ball to all fields, this kid has an amazing will to win which i saw about 6 -7 years ago when he was playing in LIsmore at the under 16 national championships, he carried the Victorian team with his ability and leadership and the want, he is afraid of no one out there and stands up against the best pitching in the world, he had some great at bats out there today in big situations to get us back in the game.

after battling our way all the way back to 9-9 we had a real unfortunate play 2 out top 9th runner on 2nd routing ground ball to beresford and it the wrost hop i have ever seen i went straight over his head it nearly took his head off he had no chance to field the ball, that scored the winning run, not a good way to lose but i was very proud of our young kids who came back from being 7 down in the 2 inning.

we can beat the mexicans we will face thenm in the next round.

we had a tough 36 hours ahead, we leave early in the morning for a trip to italy and off the plane at 12.30pm go to hotel and have a 6 pm game.

we have our pitchers lined up so we are looking for 4 wins to take us to the final 8, it is going to be a tough pool and again lop sided, from what we can make out and this may change it looks like, Australia, italy, USA,japan, mexico, canada, dutch antillies and another team.

again havent proof read this so hope it is okay i am on my way with lloydy for a quiet beer or 2 across the road so no time to re read

deebs

[BQ Moderator]

good win tonight 19-6 over the Durch Antellies

it was a long day today getting up at 5.45am bags packed down stairs to find the bus hadnt turned up, after a hour of confusion it arrived we got to the airport,we had alot of sitting around finally we got to our charter plane, we sat on the tarmac for quite a while as the mechanics failed to closed sometihng on the wing we had to go back and get it fix, we were then on our way a 2 hour flight to Pama in Italy, we arrived safe and packed our luggage on the bus for a 45 minute ride to the hotel, this place is in th middle of nowhere, we checked in had a quick snack at the airport got into our uniforms and headed to the field for out 6pm game.

the guys were awesom noone complained they jus got the job down with no fuss, we took bp but canned infield outfield, the field was okay with a 500 seat stand, the lights were good it was more a club field with good restaurant and good stands, we finally go on a big field it looked like it was going to play like altona we hit a few balls out in bp nothing like the 150 balls we lost in 3 days in praque into the woods.

the guys played well tonight scoring in all but 1 inning we ended the night with 21 hits, home runs to luke hughes and stefan welch and plenty of hits, tim kennally 4 naughton for berg 2 beresford played great again with some real good abs and probaly 3 hits, our def was great tonight liam hendricks started the game and we were lucky to get up 10-0 so we could get him out in 3 and have him pitch against Italy in a few days, brad tippett struggled and gave up 6 in 1 12/3 innings his stuff was good but everything was up, drew naylor came in and got 4 quick outs, we ended the 7th with our catcher andrew graham throwing the 7th it is tough on the pitchers the way this is set up this allowed us to keep another one fresh.


after the game they supplied meals however we had some angry boys, cold fried rice with a few french fries a plain roll and 2 slices of meat, not musch there for 30 hungry souls, the boys were all up for buying pizza on the way home not in our nutritional program but when you are hungry you cant be choosey

we ended up getting some lasagne from on of the stalls to fill the boys up.

it has been a long day and the guys stuck to there task well, early night tonight we can e a sleep in tomorrow 3pm but for 2 hour trip to play Canada who wil lbe our hardest opponant to date with a mix of good AAA players as well as plenty of AA guys and a sprinkle of single A guys, adam blackley will pitch as they have 7- ledt hand hitters, this one will put us right in the drivers seat if we can swing the bats the same as tonight we will be in it up to our ears

thats it for today, hopefully good news tomorrow, we have beaton the canadians 5 of the last 6 games so we are right in this

deebs

[BQ Moderator]

Australia 5 beat Canada 3

We had a good sleep in this morning after a long day, most of the boys were up around 11.30am. we had a good lunch to our surprise it was Pasta again. We left for the field at 3.50pm and had a 2 hour haul to the ballpark, we got entertained by a great movie SUPERBAD which had the boys in fits of laughter.

Today’s game was close to one of the best Australian games I have been involved with, our kids were outstanding against a team with some big leaguers as well as a large number of AAA and AA guys, they had 2 1stt round draft picks. Our kids went out there and played their hearts out

We started the game in the 1st inning with a hpb ball and a double by Harman, we had 1st and 3rd no outs but didn’t score, we gave up one in the first after a base hit they had a swinging bunt that landed down the 3rd base line which Adam blackley pick up and threw off balance the ball was in the dirt and got by Stefan Welch at 3rd, they had 2nd and 3rd with no outs but we were able to minimize the damage to 1 run.

Adam Blackley was superb on the mound changing speeds and pitching in, he threw 5 and 1/3 innings of outstanding ball striking out 7. Tim Cox came in and was outstanding also striking out both hitters he faced with a runner on 1st, he pitched the next innings he did really well again but after a runner got to 2nd with 2 out we went to Brendan wise to face a RHH he punched the righty out to get out of the inning, the next inning wisey punched out another 2 with his fastball having serious sink the Canadians’ couldn’t handle

Luke Hughes in the 9th hit a towering solo home run to lcf to give us a 1 run lead in the ninth , Adam bright came in got the 1st hitter out then gave up a solo home run to tie the game, matty Williams came in to face the 3 right hand hitters that were up , he did a great job keeping them at bay, the 10th inning started the new tie breaker rule where you have runners on 1st and 2nd no outs, we bunted Harman who advanced the runners to 2nd and 3rd, Daniel berg got a big hit to drive in a run, the Canadians bought in a lefty to face Stefan Welch, we counteracted the move by pinch hitting with Andy graham hit hit a hard gb to ss which bounce over his head to give us a 3 run lead. Once we found out who was going to hit for them, in the tie breaker you can hit the 1st time anywhere in the order, they elected to go with a rhh so we kept Williams in the game, to our amazement they bunt down by 3 we got the out at first, next hitter hit a sac fly and Williams struck out the last rhh to win the game.

Our kids showed great nerve and played out some tough situations , Williams was great on the mound, it is not easy pitching with 1st and 2nd and none out. Overall our pitching and defense was outstanding. I am so proud of the way these kids handled themselves against one of the top teams in the world. This was a great win for us we need to get 2 more, however 3 would be nice to get to the next round.

It is 1.20 in the morning as we trek back to our hotel which should see us home around 3.30am, we have a 2.50pm bus tomorrow so the guys will need a good sleep in.

It was a great night for Australian Baseball to beat a group of experienced players like that, with the young guys we had out there was outstanding. Tomorrow we play Taipei with David Welch on the mound, to go 3-0 would be a great start and put us in a real good position to move to the final 8.

deebs

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Game Replay Link:
www.cstv.com/gametracker/launch/gt_mbasebl.html?event=837767&school=cs&sport=mbasebl&camefrom=834032&startschool=alr4&

[BQ Moderator]

Taiwan 5 Australia 4

A real tough loss tonight the score doesn’t reflect how well we played, in a park not conducive to our game. we hit 3 ball into the wind to straight away centerfield which was 430 feet all balls were caught up against the wall, we had 14 hard hit balls tonight but only had 2 hits going into the 8th, they had 3 there was one alley RCF were the ball good go out, outside of that it was impossible to hit the ball out, unfortunately they hit 2 balls right into that gap for home runs, we had a 2 out hit with a runner on 2nd we got thrown out at the plate on a magnificent throw but a better pick on a short hop by the catcher to make the tag.

David Welch was outstanding on the mound pitching 7 strong innings and 11 strike outs, there pitcher did a great job also changing speed , with a very generous strike zone it was a tough night to hit, agsin the balls were going nowhere except the right centre alley unfortunately we could hit any there.

There score was tied at the end of the 9th and we had to go into a tie breaker, these rules will send your hair grey I will need to borrow some of phil dales hair dye.

We went 1st Harman laid down a perfect bunt and the pitcher threw the ball over the 1st baseman’s head for a run we had 1st and 2nd no outs, they didn’t walk Snelling with the free base open ans he drill a ball to centre field scoring 2. He tried to advance to 2nd on the throw to the plate and was thrown out. We ended the inning scoring 3 which should give you enough to win.

They came to bat with runners on 1st and 2nd and bunted for the life of me why would you do that when you need to score three we got the out, then the baseball gods got us, on a routine gb to ss the ball took another nasty hop straight over James Beresford head for 2 runs. We had a runner on 1st and 1 out 2 strikes on the hitter, we left a ball out over the plate and the hitter hit a 2 run home run to the only 20 foot area the ball could go out..after scoring 3 it should have been in the bag but it wasn’t to be, we need to do a better job of pitching away from home runs later in games, you need to have a feel for that late ,there are certain pitches you can throw to avoid that and our bullpen hasn’t done that, we have given up 5-6 home runs out of the pen this tournament.

I can’t complain our guys played really well we won everywhere but the scoreboard but that is baseball, as I told the players after the game, it’s how you react after a loss that determines champions.

We have tomorrow off then Italy the next day, this was a 2 hour trip both ways we have to be out of the hotel in the morning by 10.30 am at this rate we are looking at a 3.30 am bed time, the ironic thing is that we pass the hotel we are at tomorrow so 2 hours home sleep then 2 hours back to where we came from.

Our guys continue ti play really good baseball I cannot complain about their efforts or the way they have conducted themselves. We played a great game tonight but it wasn’t to be, it makes it a little tougher to go the the final 8 a win against Italy in 2 days will get us back on track

deebs

www.cstv.com/gametracker/launch/gt_mbasebl.html?event=837768&school=cs&sport=mbasebl&camefrom=834032&startschool=alr4&

[BQ Moderator]

today started off with yes another bus trip, this time 2 hours to our new hotel, we are now in civilization, there are actually shops even a mc donalds close by. it is really funny every meal we have had here the last 7 days both lunch and dinner has been penne pasta, although it has been very nice it does get a bit old and although we have pretty good nutrition plans in place i noticed a few boys heading to Mc donalds i couldnt blame them i wanted to go too.

we have had a quiet afternoon most of the guys went out shopping we are in Bologno and 5 minutes from downtown and i believe 40 minutes from Florence,

we willl have a nice dinner in town ealry night and have a 3.40pm bus tomorrow for another 1 1/2 hour drive to the ball park, this game is a must win we have Liam Hendricks on the mound.

deebs

[BQ Moderator]

BWC 2009 : 2nd Round : Australia V Italy.

[BQ Moderator]

The Aussie "Mangy Dogs" won 5-0 over Japan early Sunday Morning 20th September. This result now puts the Australian team into the World Cup finals round of 8 Nations.

Australia has a 4-1 record in Round 2 and still has a rain out game to play V USA and a game V Mexico.

[BQ Moderator]

Australia 5 Japan 0

A very professional job tonight from our guys, we executed this game perfectly, our defences was perfect as well as our situational hitting. After Harman doubled to right field snelling unselfishly bunted on his own to move Harman to 3rd and Hughes hit a long line drive to centre field to drive in a run, our team play in this game was 1st class, you need to do the little things in tournament play to be successful.

Adam Blackley was again superb on the mound throwing 6 2/3 shutout innings he gave up 4 soft singles striking out 4 , he was outstanding again tonight. Brendan Wise came in to finish the 7th and complete 8 and 9 for the win, he also did a fantastic job.

Chris Snelling hit a solo home run in the 9th to give us that 1 run buffer you look for late in the game, our hitters did a great job against 3 quality Japanese pitchers.

Joel naughton left the game with a strain hip flexor so he will need a few days to recover, Andy Graham came in to catch and got a big hit for us.

This win gives us a 4-1 record in the 2nd round, if USA beat Mexico tonight we move onto the final 8 if not we still need to beat Mexico tomorrow, we have David Welch ready in case they beat USA, if the Lose to USA tomorrow’s game will be a dead rubber, however we want to win this game. On Monday we still have to make up the USA game now this one is really important as your win loss record against the teams in your division going to the next round counts, so if we beat USA we would start the next round 2-1 with wins over Canada and USA the loss against Taiwan has really hurt as It could have given us a 3-0 start in the next round, it is confusing but being 1-2 in the next round would mean you have to win all 4 to go to the gold medal game. If Mexico lose to USA tonight we will go After USA the next day with our best staff and try to knock them over, maybe we catch them asleep.

On the bus home now for a quiet dinner, check out of hotel at 11.30am tomorrow for a 3 hour bus trip, I don’t know where we are going to we will get to the hotel for 1 ½ hours then off to the field for our game V Mexico

We had a big surprise for lunch today and dinner last night Pasta, the food has been pretty good but a change would be nice, the coaching staff will meet tonight over dinner to discuss our next moves.

Whatever happens from here these kids have done a wonderful job and we all should be very proud of these young kids.

There has been a lot of well wishers talking About my job, the truth is though it is a total team effort, we don’t have the success without the players effort but also our support staff tony harris phil dale and Graeme Lloyd, PK who is back home and Paul Elliot all big pieces of our puzzle, there are a lot of unsung heroes, phil Jauncey who isn’t with us, he still plays a big part and I am in contact with him frequently, he has been missed here he is a good sounding block, also we have David Nagy who without him I couldn’t operate, he is the glue to our coaching staff, he picks up after me like I am a baby, brett Pickett does a wonderful job, our medical staff hardy and Alica have kept these guys on the field they are on call 24/7. We have our medical coordinator at home brucey Rawson he is having surgery, also gary mc coy who does our strength and conditioning ,he is in the states we could afford to get him over with this trip being a very expensive exercise.

So as I said it is a total team effort everyone has a job to do and they do it perfectly.yhey are the real workers who dont get any of the credit.

deebs

[BQ Moderator]

Australia 6 Mexico 5

Another big win by the boys, we came back form a 3-0 deficit, with a long 2 run home run to haramn, against a very tough Mexican pitcher who could really change speeds and had pin point control, our guys struggled with him early but wore him down as the game went on, we used 8 pitchers not by design but we had to mix and match lefty V lefty and RHH v RHP, williams gave up a 2 run home run on the 9th to bring them within 1 but brendan wise then tim cox got the final 2 outs for the win, terrible umpiring tonight, we had a bad call go against us at 1st base which cost us a run, we had a mexican at first a double play ball was hit to the 2nd baseman and the runner ran straight into the ball to stop the double play of course the umpire said it was delibrite he then said it was hit hard enought for it to be a double play i told him if it wasnt hit hard enough why couldnt he get out of the way and by the way the ball hit the runner went about 10 feet away and we still threw the slow runner out at 1st, the balls and strikes were terrible we had a taiwanese chief umpire, he needs to go home and take a break

snelling came up big with a run scoring double as did tim kennally james beresford for the 2nd night in a row beat out a infield sinlge only to be called out andy graham got 2 hits, on the mound mildren threw well as did josh hill wise and cox, they other guys battled but havent been out there for quite a few days so hopefully it knock some cobwebs out.

tomorrow will be the toughest day at all , we have an 11.00am bus back to where we came fronm today, (nice scheduling) 3 hours we play USA so we need to go straight to the field, finish the game then go straight to Rome 4 hours.

we had a meal at a restaurant after the game which was supplied and to our suprise we had Pasta

we are in the beautiful little town, i am not sure where but just in the dip of the mountion is this beautiful baseball stadium, it is a little country town, the field holds around 100 people the sufface is awesome, it weas by far the nicest field we have played on.

we will be going right after the Americans tomorrow with our number 1 starter we need to beat them to have a shot at gold, if we were to lose they would start the next round 3-0 and the reast of our division would start 1-2 so we see this as our grandfinal. we came here to be gold medalist so we are going for it, it could bite us in the ass but we could come 8th trying to get to 1st, i think it is a chance worth taking, if USA were to staRt 3-0 the rest of our division would have no hope of going to the gold medal game, it is a risk but no guts no glory, it would knock our best pitcher out for 5 days nad with blackley 3 more days away from starting again, this is going to be a tough one, but i wouldnt put anything past these kids.

deebs

[BQ Moderator]

USA 4 Australia 3

Another great game from our guys, after an 11.00am start today, we got stuck at the hotel, the bus driver lost his wallet, he was up at the police station making a statement whilst we were running late for our game, he got back to the bus after 45 minutes to find his wallet on his seat, we packed the bus and on we went for our 3 ½ hour bus trip, we were held up in a traffic jam, after 90 minutes we stopped for lunch this time no pasta Foccacias were the order of the day 36 of them on the side of the road. We got to the ballpark with 1 hour to go not a great preparation for the most important game of this tournament.

David Welch on the mound for us was outstanding keeping the USA hitters off stride and pounding them in with his fastball, we copped our first bad break in the 3 with hushes on first and Stefan Welch up he was hit in the wrist by the pitch and the umpire sent him to 1st base and hughes 2nd with no outs, USA complained about the call and the 3 stooges changed their call and sent Welch back to bat, we protested the call with the umpire and showed him the welt and the baseball seams in Stefan forearm but to no avail, I told the umpire if the Cubans or USA ever complain over a call you guys fall like a pack of cards, hughes was to scored that inning and Welch would have also given we got 2 hits after that.

USA came back and tied it USa hit a double play ball to 2nd base Harman turned 2 and james Beresford throw to 1st, the USA base runner barrel rolled Beresford the was no slide he barreled him and threw him in the air 3 feet off the line, this started a brawl with both dugouts emptying, our guys took it up to the USA guys.

We got the lead back again then gave it up on 2 errors. Welch came out of the game he was outstanding tim cox held them at bay, with the scores tied 2 out in the 9th and 1ball 2 strikes on the hitter, the hitter hit a solo home run on a curve ball to win the game. We had our chances to win but failed 4 times to get the runner in from 3rd with less than 2 outs and failed to get a bunt down in the 9th with a runner on 2nd and no outs, our last hitter with 2 outs in the bergy hit a rocket but it went straight to the 2nd baseman to end the 9th.

Our guys were awesome again tonight against a power house USA team who no one had got close to, we definitely had a chances to win bur didn’t execute when it counted. This was a tough battle, their managed commented to me after the game that you guys are a great team and really battle it out, you guys are a tough team. There team had a bunch of 1st round draft picks most guys are AAA all star guys, with the 3rd baseman alone signing for 5.2 million dollars


Our pitchers Welch and coxy were outstanding tonight it was the best I had seen them both.

We are back on the bus for a 4 hour bus trip, the gorilla made the call of the trip with gelaties for all at our first stop, we will arrive in Rome around 2 or 3 am and try to get some rest.

I will tell you our guys are beaten yp pretty badly, naughton with his hip flexor snelling knee and quad is playing on one leg but refuses to come out, groin injuries to both hughes and Harman, we have a few pitchers a little sore also, these guys refuse to give in and will not hear of coming off the field, the bus trips haven’t helped as the kids have had no time to recover stretch get treatment etc.

We are behind the 8 ball now going into this round 1-2 so we will need to win 3 or 4 to have an impact at the end, USA will start 3-0, I have never seen a tournament run like this it makes no sense why the next round doesn’t start from zero amazes me. Anyway we cant do anything about it, we can only control what we can control and that it to execute, we didn’t do that tonight and we have some regrets. I am still very proud of these guys the way they fought tonight, none is perfect and the game tonight was like a pressure cooker so these things can happen.

We play Cuba tomorrow and Ruzic will be pitching we have a plan to pitch them in tomorrow stay in on their hands and don’t let them get extended if Ruzic can execute these pitches we have a huge chance you cant let these guys get extended we have had a lot of success the last 5 years pitching in so we think we are in with a great chance.

deebs