....Epic disaster! I can't think of a better way to describe this "Championship Series"(I use the term lightly because as most of you know a champion wasn't crowned)! I've used it a ton this evening because it just fits! It was a disaster from the start and it ended with possibly the stupidest decision the NPF has ever made! I think what made the decision worse was the fact that they didn't stick around to defend it! They didn't even have the guts to tell the fans! They let the teams, ESPN, and other organizations do their dirty work!! But let me back up and explain this whole crap fest of a "Championship Series" to you from where I see it.
So first of all when the information came out about the Championship Series they stated you couldn't use cameras with detachable lenses,despite the fact that they had been used all season! But did they ever explain the decision or anything? Of course not! People were already angry about this but this would be only the first of many head scratching stupid decisions by the NPF!
So first night they are in Chicago they got to go to a White Sox game. The White Sox honor the 2008 Olympians and again the Canadians are left out. There were many excuse given out afterwards, but the most common was "it was the medalist". Well sorry to break it to you but that wasn't how it was stated until they were called out on it. I guess that is just how the NPF does things. I've accepted that and moved on.
So second night they are there is the awards banquet! So the person who does the NPF Facebook page and Twitter page made it sound like they would give lots of updates and keep us informed. They didn't. In fact, all they did was post pictures of the winners about 3 hours later and some of them were so bad you couldn't even tell who it was! We had to wait until the next flipping morning to find out who was on the flipping All-NPF team! They said the next morning that a professional photographer was there and pictures of the banquet would be up shortly. Well apparently their shortly and my shortly differ some what because we still haven't seen those pictures!! My guess is we probably never will and I wonder if they even exist!
Third night was the first night of games! I assumed we would have live stream like we had all season but found out just a couple of hours before the games were set to start we wouldn't! On top of that the first night we didn't even have Pointstreak!! You had follow twitter or Facebook and wait for updates! Of course it sounds like actually being there wasn't all rainbows either because you weren't allowed to keep foul balls or homerun balls either! Apparently they had people standing around who would come collect the ball from you. They took balls from little kids!! There were apparently other absurd rules as well and the people on the crew were apparently nasty as well! The media was not allowed to do any on field interviews and there many other crazy rules that have never been there before! Pride won their game 4-0 and things seemed to be going well in that regard.
Fourth night we had Pointstreak thank God! It wasn't great but it was certainly better than nothing! Pride started out well jumping out to a 6-1 lead in the first couple of innings and then eventually(sorry don't remember what inning and or how it happened too much crap has happened since then) the Racers scored again and it was 6-2. Racers switched pitchers and things settled down. I was feeling really good about things! Danielle Lawrie pitched and pitched well. It wasn't her best game but up until the 6th inning she pitched well. In the 6th inning the bottom fell out. I don't remember what happened but I know combined Danielle and Cat gave up 6 runs in that inning to put the Pride behind 8-6! The defense had 2 errors in that inning as well(3 errors in total over the whole game). They scored another run but couldn't make the come back and we were heading into a game 3 that nobody wanted. That night after the roller coaster that game was, I was thinking things couldn't possibly get worse! I can in all honesty say now, I had no way of knowing how much worse things would get!
Fifth day Pride and Racers were set to square off again at 11. Cat Osterman started and the Racers jumped all over her from the start. She didn't even make it out of the first inning giving up 5 runs and being pulled in favor of Sarah Pauly. Sarah pitched very well and I was very proud of her and lead by Jessica Mendoza with a grand slam and a 3 run HR the Pride came back to win 9-7 to advance to the "final"(again use this term lightly because nothing about this Championship Series was final). They played the Bandits that night and it was a pretty good game. Monica Abbott and Cat Osterman in their typical pitching dual. Cat bounced back extremely well from the morning game but the Pride lost 2-1. The offense just never got going, despite having several baserunners. But the beauty of the Championship Series is it's all best of 3 series! So the Pride still had chance.....or so everyone thought.
So oddly enough I hadn't even looked at a weather report for Chicago for this weekend. That's odd for me because I almost always looked at the weather report for wherever the Pride was going to be playing. I got home from church a little after 12 and got on Facebook and Twitter right away and started seeing several post and tweets about rain in Chicago. So I found a couple of good radars and looked at the report on the Weather Channel's website and it didn't look good. I'm thinking well if they can't play today surely they'll reschedule for tomorrow. So about 30-45 minutes after I got home they decide to delay the game from 2:30 to 3:30 and the not long after that the decision is made to move the game to 6 when the if necessary game was supposed to be played and it was going to be played live on ESPN2. I'm watching the radar thinking this rain is not going to let up, in fact it looks like it's going to get heavier. But they seem determined the game is going to start at 6. So 6 rolls around and I turn it over to ESPN2 and find out Sarah Pauly is pitching I'm pretty excited! But the field was in horrible shape. No doubt about that and I won't argue that fact! The field was just awful. They did the starting lineups and all of that jazz. The Pride was the visiting team and Natasha Watley was the lead off hitter. She had a pretty long at bat and grounded out. After her at bat they got the ladies off the field for a rain delay. I would have never guessed the events that would take place after that. So I'm thinking there is no way this game will be played tonight, they'll post pone and play tomorrow. About an hour after the rain delay starts I start seeing tweets that they've cancelled the game and it won't be made up. So I'm thinking does that mean they'll go ahead and give it to the Bandits or will no one get it or what? Eventually it is announced both through the Pride and Bandits Facebook and Twitter pages and the announcers on ESPN that the game has been cancelled, it won't be made up, and there will be no champion! The NPF never has made an official announcement. They also did not refund the tickets of the people who actually went to the game! They haven't even really explained it to the players and coaches! They made the decision and then took off!! I know the NPF has no control over the rain but they do have control over how these things are scheduled! Scheduling a tournament with no plan for an event like this is stupid! Why not schedule an extra day maybe even 2 in case of rain or other problems? The ladies were willing to change their flights so they could play on Monday but it just wasn't going to happen. Nobody seems to know what the hell happened. But what is known is for the first time in the 9 years that the NPF has been around there will be no NPF champion! What is known is there are alot of sad and heartbroken fans who showed up at the field or turned over their TVs to ESPN2 excited to see softball on TV for once but got to see only 1 at bat! But worse than that is that there are two teams full of heartbroken players and coaches! This is not how a professional sports tournament should have been handled! How many times has the World Series been cancelled and there been no World Series champion? Oh that's right, never! It's just not how this was supposed to go.... Hopefully there will be more information about all of this before my next blog and I'll know more about exactly what happened but at this point the coaches and players don't even really know what happened! In my eyes, they are all champions! I'm heartbroken for all of them! This was just so unfair to everyone involved!
On a more positive note the Pride had a wonderful season and they were the regular season champions again! They had several players named to the All-NPF team including two of my favorites, Ashley Charters and Sarah Pauly! Kristyn Sandberg was named rookie of the year and Caitlin Lowe was player of the year! I hope eventually we can all find away to forget about how this ended and just remember the great season both the Pride and the Bandits had!
On another sad note, this Championship Series also saw the end of 4 wonderful careers for the Diamonds, atleast 1 Racer, and 1 Bandit. After the Diamonds were knocked out of the tournament by the Bandits Caitlin Lever, Rachel Folden, Katie Burkhart, and Jamie Lobprise left their cleats at home plate signifying the end of their beautiful careers! Caitlin retired after last year from the Bandits but couldn't stay and ended up playing a season with the Diamonds. However I think this really might be it for her. She had other things going that kept her from playing a big chunk of the 2nd half of the season. But I wish all 4 of them the best and thank them all for what they did for the NPF and softball! The Racers will be losing Nicole Trimboli who had been with the NPF longer than anybody else! The Bandits will be saying good by to Shannon Dopeking as well! I wish nothing but the best for all these players! Thank you ladies for all you did!
I don't have anything else right now! So I'll just say that I am incredibly proud of the Pride ladies and the job they did this season! It was a wonderful season filled with lots of wonderful feelings! I hope one day they will play close enough to me that I can see them play and hug their necks! I admire and respect them so much!! Good luck and safe travels to all the ladies headed to Japan!
Go Pride! Go Shokki! Go Huskies! Boomer Sooner! RTR Go Bama! FTG!!
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