Post season

I can't believe the regular season is over! I know I say that like very single year but it just goes by so fast. I just love it so much, ever single second of it and it zooms by! Huskies were fantastic this season! These players have really matured and grown not just since last season but as the season has gone on. It's been fun to watch!

While waiting for them release the Pac-12 awards, my only thought was if they don't include Hooch Fagaly, Victoria Hayward, and Kaitlin Inglesby there is something wrong! These 3 have anchored this team this season. Thankfully the Pac-12 saw it my way and all 3 were named to the first team All-Pac-12! To my surprise and delight Shawna Wright was named Pac-12 defensive player of the year! Let me clarify something here, I don't mean that as a knock to Shawna in the least! She is a fantastic catcher and I was disappointed when she wasn't drafted. What I meant by being surprised was that honestly the Pac-12 and the rest of the country seem to be completely over looking this team. Shawna deserved that award no doubt, I just didn't figure they would give it to her! Kylee Lahners was named to the 2nd team! Shawna, Kelli Suguro, Kimberlee Souza, and Jennie McNeill were all honorable mentions! I really honestly was not looking forward to them releasing these because honestly I figured they would screw the Huskies over. The Huskies had 1 Pac-12 pitcher of week this season and 0 Pac-12 player of the week! They just feel like most people aren't looking at the Huskies. I think that's good in some respects. Always good to sneak up on people and and not give them a chance to prepare for you. But on the other hand I'll be honest it really bothered me! They lost only 2 series in the entire Pac-12 season and they lost those to Oregon and ASU. They were never swept and finished 3rd. Their record was actually the same as ASU's but ASU got the tie breaker because of head to head. I think what really really irked me was that the only thing noticed from this past weekends games was Jolene Henderson's return to the circle. Completely ignored was how well the Huskies played and the send off they gave their wonderful senior class. They haven't had this many players named to the All-Pac-12 teams since the 2010 team who were ranked number 1 through most of the season! Yet nobody notices! I don't know it just bugs me! No matter what happens in the post season this team has a lot to be proud of! On top of that, they bring back all but one of their starters next year! Although that one starter is a big one(Shawna Wright), they are in position to really make some noise next year(not that anybody will notice)! They are hosting Regionals for the 4th year in a row(20th season in a row they've made the post season, that's success!). Their Regional is a little harder this year than last and should provide when with quite a challenge. They will have Portland State, Hawaii, and Minnesota. Hawaii beat them once already in the beginning of the season and they haven't seen Minnesota. I have really followed them closely but I know they came on strongly to end the season. Hopefully all goes well though! If they win their Regional and Mizzou does they'll be headed out there for the 2nd time in 3 years for Supers. Honestly was not so thrilled when I saw that!

Oklahoma had a fantastic season and are the number 1 seed going into Regionals. They were given a pretty easy field. They swept the Big 12 awards taking Coach, Pitcher(Keilani Ricketts of course), and player(Shelby Pendley) of the year! I think at this point they are the team to beat!

Another team that has a lot to be proud of is St.Edwards! The rolled into Canyon for Regionals last weekend and ran away with it! They are headed to Denton this weekend to take on Texas Women's in a best of 3 series for Supers! Sarah Debrow has been quite the work horse for them and has had one heck of a season! Good luck to them this weekend!

Tennessee and Alabama will host this weekend as well and if both when they will face off in Supers for a spot in OKC! Should be interesting to see how that plays out!

The Islanders never really got it going and the on top of that the injury bug bit and bit hard! I hope next season is much better for them!

Well that's all I've got! Good luck to all the teams playing this weekend! Go Huskies! Boomer Sooner! Go Lady Vols! RTR Go Bama! FTG! Go Islanders!

Finally able to update!

Well I spent most of February without internet and have just not been able to get back in the habit of writing. But I've gotten a couple of request to get back to this so here I am!

The Huskies have been a little up and down. Last season they just blew through their non-conference schedule and then crashed during Pac-12. This season was different. They started the season kind of rough and then seemed to get things together and had long stretch of wins, and then again hit a rough spot right before the start of Pac-12. They started Pac-12 with Arizona and really had a nice series. They won 2 of 3. The pitching was good and the hitting was good. This weekend they played Oregon. Oregon is good no doubt but I really felt the first game the Huskies were just not ready to go. They looked really lost out their and struggled to make adjustments on both sides of the ball. I didn't get to see the 2nd game(it was on the Pac-12 network which I am learning to really hate lol). The third game yesterday they really played well and really battled. I was really impressed with their ability to forget the other 2 games and just do what they do best. They will take on UCLA in double header on Tuesday and a single game on Wednesday and then turn around and play Oregon State at home next weekend. That's like 9 games in a week! Crazy Pac-12 schedules this year! So I decided I'll list some good things about the Huskies and then some things that need work.

I see a lot of good things in this team. Top 4 are Victoria Hayward, Hooch Fagaly, Missy Taukeiaho, and Kimberlee Souza! All 4 of have had a wonderful season both in the field and with their bats! Next would be Kaitlin Inglesby, Jennie McNeill, Bryanna Walker, and Shawna Wright! Kaitlin and Bryanna have both pitched very well! Jennie McNeill has taken over that SS spot nicely! She is a heck of a SS! Shawna has always been a great catcher and leader and this season so far her bat seems to have really warmed up! The defense for the Huskies has been incredible so far! Kelli Suguro has done a great job at 2nd as well and has had some key hits! The base running for this team is great. Lots of speed on this team!

The biggest thing that needs work is their ability to hit good pitchers and make a adjustments against good pitchers. In the first 2 games of the Oregon series they had 5 hits an 3 runs(2 of which were unearned due to an error). They did make adjustments in the 3rd game and it was really good to see. I hope in the next few weeks they can continue to improve and build confidence. Pitching has been a little less than stellar the last couple of weeks as well. But our pitchers are good and I look for them to only improve.

Overall it's been a nice season for the Huskies! I hope they are able to take atleast 1 from UCLA and I'm hoping for 2 against Oregon State! Go Huskies!!

On to an unrelated topic. I've been following both the women't and men's final 4 competition. I was really sad to see Baylor's women's team lose today. My heart breaks for Brittney Griner! What an amazing career and what a devastating way to end it! She said on her Twitter page earlier that she was a disappointment and that just broke my heart and made me cry! Nothing could be further from the truth! She has done so much for women't basketball and women's sports! One games couldn't never take that away or change it! I would also like to say my thoughts and prayers are with Kevin Ware who badly broke his leg during the Louisville/Duke game! Both teams for Louisville played some great basketball tonight! Congrats to them on moving on!

Well that's all I have for now! Hopefully I'll be back with better updates on all of my softball teams in a few days! Go Huskies! Boomer Sooner! RTR Go Bama! Go Lady Vols(got to add this one, loving the Lady Vols this year!), FTG, and Go Islanders!!

Running behind!

I have been meaning for weeks to do a preseason softball blog but I've been so busy it just never happened. I started college again in January and I have dove head first into it! I'm glad to be back and really enjoying it! It's a lot of work but it's worth it! Well I'm going to do a blog over the first weekend of softball and hopefully get back to my opinions of what this season will look like!

The Huskies played in Hawaii last weekend and I think I can say with quite a bit of certainty it wasn't exactly the weekend they hoped for. They went 4-2 dropping games to UAB and Hawaii. However I was very happy and proud to see them bounce back on Saturday and win the tournament championship! Hooch Fagaly had a fantastic weekend and was named MVP of the tournament! Bryana Walker was certainly the best pitcher of the weekend. She was lights out! I was extremely impressed with Missy Taukeiaho and Jennie McNeill! They both did wonderful in their first weekend in college softball. Overall I thought it was a good weekend. I think a lot of lessons were learned and I think in the end those to loses will only help them to be better!

OU had an amazing weekend! They won all their games and most of them in run rule fashion. Kelani Ricketts  had not one but two no hitters on the weekend! The offense was already really good and they added more power with Shelby Pendley! Awesome weekend for them and they are sitting at the top of the polls because of it!

Bama has a nice weekend as well and won all of their games. I've got to be honest here I didn't really get to follow their games as close as I would have liked but I know they did well and I am excited to see how the season goes for them!

St. Edwards started their season the weekend before last and won all but 1 game! They look like they will be very strong this season! This last weekend they played two teams twice each. They won their games on the first day and lost both of their games the second day. It was two really tough teams and they really battled! I'm excited to see what they do this season!

I wish I had the time to start my own place for people to talk softball. I have a couple of places that I go to talk softball but I feel like the odd man out in all of them. I feel like I spend my time defending myself and the players and teams that are close to my heart and it's just gets to be more work than fun. I left one site for several months because the drama was too much. I've started going back some but don't most much. I just wish I had a group of people who liked the same teams and player I do. But I don't and I guess I'll just have to make do.

Well that is all I have for now! Go Huskies! Boomer Sooner! RTR Go Bama! FTG!

Long time no write!

   It has been a long time since I wrote lol! Not a ton of softball going on right now, so not much to write about. But I'll talke about a few things and then I'm going to tell you about about 10 all time favorite softball players. I though I'd done this before but in going through my blogs I didn't find anything like this and if I did and I missed I'm sure so of them have changed lol. If not I'm sorry to waste your time lol.

The NPF Back to School Tour was great! The NPF wasn't quite as successful as years past droping 3 games(Michigan, ULL, and Oklahoma for the 2nd year in a row). But it was still fun to watch! I was thrilled by how many schools had livestreaming and I saw alot of good softball by not just the NPF but the college teams as well! I'm itching for the next college and NPF seasons already!!

The Japanese legaue wraped up their season last weekend with their version of the championship series I guess lol. Again rain came in to play but better planning meant that they got everything in! Danielle Lawrie, Megan Willis, and their Shokki teammates had a wonderful season, especially the 2nd half of the season! I wasn't sure at the beginning of the 2nd half of the season that they would even make the playoffs but they had a fantastic 2nd half of the season and just snuck by Honda for the 4th spot! They played Denso to start the weekend. They hadn't beat Denso all season and I knew they wanted that win. I wanted that win. Denso is the team that Jordan Taylor and Megan Wiggins play for, so you can put 2 and 2 together as to why I wanted them to beat Denso so bad other than wanting them to have a chance at the championship lol. Danielle was fantastic! She didn't give up a hit until the 5th or 6th inning and ended the game with only 2 hits! She pitched her heart out and looked incredible! Shokki finally got their win against Denso, winning 1-0! The moved on to play Toyota the next day! The next day it was raining but they started the game anyway. It was wet, muddy, and cool. Finally the field got to be in too bad a shape and the rain wasn't letting up so they called the games for the day after 3.5 innings. I was thinking they'd pick it up in the bottom of the 4th the next day but apparently the rules are different in the Japan leauge and they had to start all over the next day. Danielle pitched well but Toyota was too much and they lost. But they still placed 3rd and in that league that is pretty dang good! Toyota and Renesas played 10 innings before Toyota finally got the win and won their 3rd championship in a row! Monica Abbott was named MVP and she totally earned it! In 48 hours time she pitched 28 innings and that is after 9 months of almost non-stop softball! Ueno was impressive herself as always! In my opinion, those 2 are probably the top pitchers in the world with Cat Osterman right behind them. Always exciting to watch them duke it out and I got to watch them duke it out twice in 48 hours times! I enjoyed it :)! I also enjoyed watching 2 younger up and comming greats duke it out in Danielle Lawrie and Jordan Taylor! All around agreat weekend of softball!

Now I'm going to move on to my top 10 all time favorite softball players! I thought about doing pitchers and there will be alot of pitchers because I like pitchers lol. But I decided to include everyone. Maybe one day I'll do like top 5 pitchers, catchers, infielders, and outfielders! That would be fun but not today lol. So here we go!

10. Kelly Kretschman! Kelly is an Alabama Alumni where she broke several hitting records and left as one of the best hitters to not only play for the Tide but to ever play the game. She was an alernate for the 2000 Olympic Gold team and was apart of the 2004 gold medal team and the 2008 silver medal team. She was also one of the first national team members and big name players to believe and sign to play in the NPF! She started with the Akron Racers in 2005 and played her 4th season with the Pride and 7th season in the league last season. She is the oldest woman in the league at 33 but to watch her play you'd never know it! She is still one of the best all around hitters in the NPF! She can hit for power but she also has the speed to lay down a bunt and steal bases! She is one of those players that you just never get tired of watching!

9. Crystl Bustos! Anybody who knows anything about softball knows who Crystl Bustos is! In my opinion she is the single best hitter to ever play this game! She has an icredible swing and when she unloads on a ball she can hit it futher than any hitter I have ever seen! I think the ironic thing is she didn't even attend a division 1 school! She went to a community college! How did every division 1 and 2 school miss that? I'll never understand it myself! She is a big muslcuar woman who alot of people think looks scary. But one thing I've figured out over the years of watching her and with talking to her on Twitter and reading her tweet is she has a huge huge huge heart! She is a very sweet sensitive person! She has given and continues to give back so much to this sport! She is not playing right now but I've seen talk of a comeback on her twitter page, so we'll see what happens!

8. Yukiko Ueno! I know most of you are ready to hit me here or call me trader but I can't help it! She is without a doubt one of the best and most dominating pitchers I have ever had a the oppurtunity of watching! She has changed the look of Japanese softball forever! She has an incredible combination of speed and movement to her pitches that leaves hitters either looking dumb or just completely stunned! At worlds this past summer she threw over 30 innings in 2 days, won the gold medal, and turned 30! But what makes her even more special is that she is also one of the best hitters Japan has ever produced! A pitcher that hits is dieing art I'm afraid and I really hate that. Coaches are afraid of injuries and want to protect their pitchers and I get that. But you are really hurting these athletes I think by taking them from being what I refer to as a 3 demensional player to 1 demensional! But Ueno has been lucky that her coaches continue to allow her to hit and do her thing! I often say I don't believe she is fully human because she is just so good and never seems to get tired! So hate me all you want but I love to watch this woman do her thing!

7. Natsha Watley! Natasha Watley is probably the fastest softball player I've ever had the pleasure of watching! There are other extremely fast players( Caitlin Lowe, Kimi Pohlman, Rhea Taylor just to the name a few) but none as fast as Natasha. She went to UCLA and won a National Championship as well as many other awards and personal highlights. She played on the 2004 Gold medal Olympic team and the 2008 silver medal and many more! She has been everywhere and done everything! She is an amazing athlete! She has also started her own foundation to further not only softball but women's sports as a whole!

6. Lisa Fernandez! Lisa Fernandez was one the first pitchers I remember watching and just adoring! She was an incredible pitcher with a ton of energy! She loves softball so much and you could just see it on her face! She like all these other women has a long long long list of awards and achievments! She went to UCLA and is now the pitching coach there. She played on the National Team leading the team to 3 Gold medals in the Olympics! She has given and continues to give so much to softball and women's sports in general! She without a doubt will always be viewed as the one the best pitchers to ever play the game and I am glad I got to witness it!

5. Monica Abbott! As I said when talking about the Japanese league championship she in my opinion is one of, if not the top pitcher in the world right now! She is a dominating pitcher in every sense of the word. She is very tall at 6ft 3in! She is probably the hardest throwing pitcher in the game right now and maybe ever, easily hitting 71+. But she is isn't all speed. Pitchers with just speed don't dominate because it's easier to adjust to speed! She has movement, great movement! She has movement that seems to only get better with age! And last but not least she is like the Energizer Bunny, she keeps going and going and going and going and going lol! You don't want to get in a pitchers dual with her, especially if goes into extras because the longer she pitches the stronger she gets! I've watched her since she played for Tennessee and she was an amazing pitcher back then but over the years she has only gotten better and better and better! I enjoy watching her pitch as long as she isn't pitching against one of teams....saddly it happens more often than not that she is pitchng against my team lol!

4. Megan Willis! I haven't watched Megan Willis as long as I've watched any of the others players. She just wasn't on my radar honestly. But Megan is easily one of the best catchers I've ever seen. She is good at calling games, knowing the pitcher she is catching for, and most of all she is good at throwing out runners! She has a cannon for an arm and I know I wouldn't consider trying to steal on her lol! She has a wonderful firey personality that makes her so much fun to watch! There isn't a catcher that I like to watch more!

3. Cat Osterman! Cat is a completely different pitcher than the others I've talked about. The other pitchers I talked about have a deadly combination of speed and movement. Cat doesn't have the speed. She has never been known and will never be known as a power pitcher. But that's okay because she doesn't need the power. To be very hoest to pitch at the level she does you typically need atleast some speed but if you have the movement of Cat you don't lol! Cat unlike Lisa Fernandez is very poised, quiet, and almost unreadable in the circle. That is part of what I think makes her so dominating. Her emotions rarley get the best of her.  She doesn't ride the wave of the game. She just does what Cat does!

2. Jenn Salling! I think she gets very over looked in the grand scheme of things but she won me over the first time I ever watched her play. The first I saw her play was for the Canadian National team! She dominates the infield! I've talked about  her before but you get to read it again lol. She is fast, she thinks fast, she reacts fast, and she can throw across the diamond like nobody I've seen before(there is a video on Youtube of her throwing out Rhea Taylor all the way from behind 3rd base to 1st during Super Regionals 2 years ago that I could watch over and over and over and in fact have! Look it up, it's a thing of  beauty!). She is what is refered to in softball as a tripe threat. She can slap, bunt, and hit for power! She has speed and isn't afraid to take a risk! She is a leader. She is always cheering, encouraging, and giving advice. She speaks and people listen! She is incredibly selfless! She loves softball, she loves the women she plays with, and she loves her fans! But the thing I love most about Jenn is her story. She fought to get where she is. She did something few other people have done and it paid off big! She started off at Oregon. She red shirted her freshman year. Her redshirt freshman year she tore it up! She set records and made a huge name for herself both in the field and with her bat. In 2008, she redshirted again to play in the Olympics for Canada and during that time decided even with the success she was having in Oregon she wasn't happy and decided to transfer. Because she decided to transfer to Washington which was in the same confrence she had two choices. One she had to miss an entire season and just lose that season or two she had to go get an Associate degree. She chose to do the 2nd. She worked her butt off and got ther Associates degree and was cleared to paly for Washington in April of 2009! She went on to be key in their National Championship as well as a huge part of the team in 2010! But I think the biggest thing Jenn did was in her Senior season. Everyone one and their dog predicited UW to fall off in a big way with the loss of Danielle Lawrie. But with an incredible freshman pitcher that turned out to better than anybody could have guessed she would be and the incredible leadership of Jenn the team made it all the way back to Super Regionals! It's unreal to me that it's been almost 2 years since she played for the Huskies! She is still kind of waiting in the wings for her turn to break out in the NPF but it's coming! I know it is and she'll keep pushing until it does because she never gives up!

1. Last but not least and I'm sure you guys already knew this, Danielle Lawrie! When Coach Tarr took over the troubled UW  program the first player she recruited was Danielle and I think we all fully understand why! Danielle combines speed and killer movement to keep batters always guessing. She has one of the best change ups in the world! Danielle fully understands the game of softball. In college, obviously she dominated in the circle but she also left UW as one of their best hitters. That is what I orginally loved about her. She was all over the field and dominating in all of them lol. She broke all kinds of records as a pitcher, threw several no hitters and perfect games. And then she could turn around and belt a homerun as well lol! She is passionate and competitive! You can tell with ease what she is thinking and feeling! She is leader and people naturally are drawn and listen to her. She is just an all around incredible athlete! She is a 2 time National Player of the Year and she did something nobody had done before and nobody has done since. She won National Player of the Year the same year she won a National Championship! Sadly she hasn't been as lucky as Ueno and most of the teams she plays for now do not let her hit. It seems like such a waste to me but they have their reasons I suppose! Danielle is young and she has many seasons ahead of her! I will be surprised if she isn't the best pitcher in the world by the time she retires. She is certainly pretty close now! A few more years of experience and no doubt in my mind she'll be a force to reckoned with!

There are many more I adore that I wish I could have included! I almost wish I would have done top 20 but this alone took me several hours lol! There are so many amazing softball players out there! That's one of the reasons I love this game so much! These women are talented and hard working and they do everything they do simply because they love the game!

I don't need you to understand

Well the NPF season has been over for a week and I'm still sad that it's over lol! In fact, I spent yesterday evening watching the game that Danielle Lawrie pitched during the Title 9 celebration. It was without a doubt my favorite game of the season! Danielle was completely dominate! I love to watch her pitch when she is in that zone. She was completely in the zone but completely relaxed! She was all smiles and having such a good time! All the Pride girls were! I believe that was the last game this season that Danielle, Jenn, and Ashley all got the start at the same time! I also loved that game because Niki got her first and only RBI of the season! The smile on her face was priceless! The grand slam that Jamee Juarez hit was amazing as well! The whole game was just great! There weren't alot of the big names in this game but the lesser known ladies sure put on a show of their own!

I think these type of games are the ones you want to take all in and remember because all though some of the  core ladies will stay, there will be others who won't. The team changes just a little bit every season and I don't think next season will be any different. This team was special. They were not only incredible group of talented women but there was a great chemistry between them all! It was fun to watch! But anyway bottom line is I'm glad that ESPN3 still has that game on there for me to watch! I've watched it 3 times now and enjoyed it every time!

I know the people around me don't understand my love and passion for softball. I know it annoys them and they hope it's just a passing thing and that eventually it'll go away, same thing with soccer. I don't know that I even fully understand it honestly. I've never been an athletic person. I'm slow, ungraceful, and just not an athlete. I accepted that along time ago. I wanted to be as a kid though! I really really did! But these women are extremely gifted athletes and they should be able to play the sport they love! So sorry to disappoint but this isn't going to just disappear! I love softball and I love the women who play the game and the people who coach it! I don't need your approval or for you to understand!! You can say what you want and you can have an attitude about it all you want but I am who I am and I have a love and passion for what I have a love and passion for! You can either deal with it and accept it or leave and don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you lol!

While I'm on my soap box of things that annoy me, I have one more! I personally think part of the reason women's sports struggle so much in this society is because women are viewed in such a sexual way. Most women don't understand the importance of women's sports I don't think. Most men only watch women's sports because they like to look at them! I'll use softball as an example because I know it best. Don't get me wrong here, I'm just a little bit shorter then Jenn Salling(about an inch I think) and I would love to have her body and look like her! I've noticed that she is gorgeous and sexy(how could you miss it? lol)! But that isn't the main reason I like Jenn. Jenn is an incredible athlete! She is without a doubt one of the best SS in the world! She is an incredible leader and teammate! She is passionate about softball and about her team! Those are the things that Jenn wants you to remember about her and that is what is missing! Sometimes I feel like these athletes are viewed as models putting on a show and not athletes, especially athletes like Jenn, Danielle, Caitlin Lowe as well as Caitlin Lever, Taryne Mowatt, and several others. Until women are viewed as something more than a set of boobs and a butt, women's sports will continue to struggle. I think this also plays into alot of athletes hiding their sexuality and I think that's wrong. I think they should be able to say I am Jane Doe, I am an Olympian, a national champion, I am an All-American, I broke these records, I graduated from college because of the sport I play, I am a daughter, a granddaughter, a sister, a niece, an aunt, a friend, and I am gay and I am proud of every one of those things! I'm not saying they should have to come out but they should feel comfortable doing so. I think there is a future generation of young women who could benefit greatly from seeing women like them come out and live life proud of who they are. It's kind of funny because there are a few who think they are hiding it really well that they are gay and in a relationship with a woman but they aren't. If you follow them for any amount of time the pieces fall together very quickly. Recently Megan Rapinoe came out as gay publically and honestly I thought she'd already come out. Lauren Lappin and Vicky Galindo game out before the 2008 Olympics(Lauren is gay and Vicky is bi). I think when women can be 100% comfortable with who they are, sports will benefit! To me this all just goes hand in hand. Everything is so sexualized in this country, why can't this one thing just be a group of incredibly taletned women playing the sport they adore? Why is men felt the need to complain that the beach volleyball players were covering up too much when they didn't wear their biknis? Why did some idiot from I don't rememer where feel it was okay to judge the female swimmers not on their incredible abilities but on their "lack of boobs"? Here is a new flash for you all you men, not all women live to please you! Not all women care if you think we look beautiful! Those women who step on the field, the court, the sand, or into the water aren't thinking about how sexually appealing they look to you! They are thinking about the battle they are about to enter! So before you think about how they look, please take a minute to also marvel at their abilites! Take a minute to appreciate the hardwork these women have put in since they were kids to reach the place they are and know that is what they are most proud of! Don't get me wrong guys, not saying you can't or shouldn't look! Just saying don't lose sight of what is important and what those women are doing out there!

I'm itching for some softball LOL! The Japanese league is going again! Shokki got 2 wins this weekend and Danielle pitched 10 great innings! I can't believe they've been back in Japan almost a week already!

Well that is all I have for now! Go Pride! Go Shokki! Go Huskies! Boomer Sooner! RTR Go Bama! FTG!

More thoughts after time to think

I've had a few more days to think and process and the NPF and Cheri Kempf have released statements so I am back more calm and in a different mind set than I was on Sunday/Monday(I started the last blog on Sunday and finished it on Monday). I didn't really give alot of opinions in my last, although I'm sure you could figure out I wasn't very happy. Something funny has happened over the last couple of days though, I've lost the anger. I've always been the type of person who it takes alot to make them mad and once I blow up it's over. This seems to be the case here. I blew my top and the anger is gone.

Another funny thing happened and I'm not really sure why this is but I've found myself really sad for Cheri Kempf! I've had several conversations with her and she has always been very kind! She is very passionate about softball and about the NPF. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone more passionate about making this league work than she is! Through this whole thing I never really felt angry with her or any one person. It was just the whole flipping situation. But the last couple of days I've found myself wishing I could just give her a hug and tell her thank you. I don't envy the spot she is in or the decisions she had to make Sunday. She is a good woman and I beg the fans to take a deep breath and give her sometime to fix this! We can't let her get away! She gets it! She gets the whole thing top to bottom and that is what the NPF needs! She has done so much for the NPF and for softball and the NPF needs someone who has been there! She knows this sport as a player, as a coach and instructor, as a business woman(if you don't know about her business look it up!) and as a fan. Mistakes were made this weekend and I know some of those mistakes were things she did and let happen but I also know this woman LOVES the NPF and the ladies who play for the NPF and I know she was probably devastated by what happened. I have confidence in her and I hope other people do too!

Not everything that went on did I disagree with. I fully agreed they couldn't play on that field the way it was. It was in awful shape and I was disgusted from the moment I saw the field that they were going to play on that field! The risk of injuries was too great and it just wasn't worth it. Also after the game was cancelled I also agreed that they shouldn't just give the Bandits the Championship. That wouldn't be in anyway fair to the Pride girls! It was no doubt a rough Championship series for them but they made it into the finals and earned the chance to play in that best of 3! If they had done that int he WCWS OU would have won instead of Bama. We have no idea what would have happened in that second game and we can't say that the Pride couldn't or wouldn't have come back to take it all. As much as it sucks, the only thing they could do was leave it empty.

We can't let what happened this last weekend destroy the NPF! We have to continue to support the NPF because these women have worked too hard to lose it all! So keep watching and supporting!

That's all I have for now! I don't know that there will be much more softball news to discuss over the next little bit but if I find out any I'll be lol! You can always swing over and check out my other blog! I hope to start posting on it more now that the NPF season is over!  Go Pride!! Go Shokki! Go Huskies! Boomer Sooner! RTR Go Bama! FTG!

Two words for you....

....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!!