2010 Firecracker Shootout softball tournament Day 1.0
Published: July 2, 2010
It wasn't a forfeit after all.
In redoing the 2010 Firecracker Shootout Interservice Softball Tournament schedule after Thursday's frightful thunderstorm, Foster Athletics officials, who host the event, wiped the American Legion victory by forfeit over Yokota off the books and made that game the tournament's opener, as had been scheduled Thursday.
Yokota arrived Thursday with only eight players; nine are needed to begin a game. They had a full squad on hand as Legion beat the Warriors 11-0.
No way, Legion coach John O'Brien said, would he and his players have been satisfied with a forfeit. "We want to play them on the field," he said.
Rain was nowhere to be found, in fact, as Friday's play began. The cluster of thunderstorms that rattled the island Thursday? Well to the southwest.
Around the fields, it was good to see Shannon Scott, Kadena High School Class of 2009, playing for Okinawa Typhoons, one of the local favorites to seize the tournament title. She was a cornerstone a year ago for the Panthers, a rock at third base as Kadena won the DODEA Japan girls softball tournament in fastpitch; now, she's getting used to playing slowpitch and handling a new position, catcher.
"It's a lot different," Scott said.
One of her ex-teammates, Melanie Moore, could be seen chatting it up with one of her rivals in May's first Far East Tournament. Kailee Redulla, the rubber-armed right-hander who pitched virtually every inning for Robert D. Edgren in the spring, is also attempting slowpitch as a member of the Misawa Air Base Jets.
Why didn't Moore try to play? "I don't like slowpitch," she said. Fair enough.
Did you know that seven-eighths of all batters who walk in slowpitch softball end up scoring? That was the finding of one Dann Rogers, an infielder for South Korea's Daegu/Area IV team. "I had no idea until I Googled it," Rogers said.
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