PSC Phanaddicts come home with the Bronze! The PSC team finished in 3 rd place in the 2007 Thai King 80th birthday Softball International Tournament held at the Pattana school grounds in Bangkok this Wednesday. The 8 team tournament had teams from Thailand , Japan , Taiwan and our mixed group of ex-pat boys living in Pattaya. With the average age of our Phanaddicts being 49.5, boys may be the wrong term, but regardless the Men from Pattaya did themselves proud. Here is a summary of all our games.

Our first game was against a young and untested Kasetsart University team. Sadly, the Phanaddicts played more like lunatics, letting a seemingly easy victory slide through their fingers. The team shot themselves in the foot several times, by hitting into a double play with the bases loaded and one out in the first, making many infield and outfield errors in the first, second and third inning, and even, embarrassingly striking out twice as a team. K.U. batted first and scored 1 run on a communication error between Gary and John M. in left field. They managed to get in back in the bottom half of the inning with a triple from John M. and an RBI single from Mike Berg. However, after a Diego double and Gary accidental bunt loaded the bases, Donnie struck out and Dirk hit into a double play, 1-1 after one inning. The hitting errors led themselves nicely to fielding errors and K.U went up 3-1 after 2 innings. After a few scoreless innings, the PSC team went down 5 -1, but rallied to come back to 5-4 with an inning to play. They held the K.U team to a scoreless last inning to give themselves yet another chance to finish off the pesky Kasetsart team. After a solid single from Dirk, who was then pinched run by Gary and a two out hit by Tom, the stage was set for our softball guru, and overall team MVP Jimmy to take us to the promised land. Unfortunately his hard hit ball up the middle was snagged expertly by the K.U. pitcher and shockingly our team had lost the game 5-4.

The 2 nd team in our division, never showed up and we were given a 7-0 victory. Our pitcher Alan agreed that it was CF John's 7 run homer that was the difference, and we unanimously voted him player of the game.

After a long, and mentally draining opening ceremony as only the Thais can accomplish (this memorable one was attempted in 3 languages: Thai, Taiwanese and English, YIKES!), we knew we had given ourselves a tough task. We watched the Thai-Taiwan A team (our next competitor), thrash the K.U. team by a score of 13 to 7. We knew we had to beat them, and by many runs if we were to successfully qualify for the semi finals.

We won the toss and elected to bat first. Both us and the Thai-Taiwan A team played solid defense in the scoreless first inning. In the second Gary led off with a sharply hit ball to the SS, who happily for us, made an errant throw to first. This started a 5 run rally, with RBI's going to John M, Jimmy, Alan, Nick and Scotty, 5-0 after two innings. In the third we went scoreless, as the Thai-Taiwan A team's bats started to sizzle. With runners on 1 st and 2 nd , the meat of their order (batters 1,2,3) hit back to back, to back doubles to make the game a tight one at 5-4. Both teams were held scoreless in the 4 th , but Diego's opposite field home run over the fence in Left Center made it 6-4 after 5 innings. The sixth inning was the hi-lite of the game, an inning filled with hot bats, crafty base running, and diving catches. Dirk, Phil and Scotty hit line drive singles to load the bases. RBI singles from Alan, Jimmy and John M. led to 4 runs scored with 2 runners in scoring position. Unfortunately Diego flied out to end the inning, but the damage was done, with PSC going to the bottom half of the inning up 10 to 4 . Huge credit to the Thai Taiwan team as they came fighting back with several well placed hits. They scored 3 and had runners on the corners when their number 10 hitter blooped one to short CF. Diego got a good jump from RCF and redeemed himself for his hitting error, by making a diving catch, and then throwing out the confused base runner stranded between 2 nd and 1 st base. The final inning saw Gary, our youngest and fastest player, show why speed is important. He hit a screamer in the gap in LCF, and legged it out to a leadoff home run to give us a comfortable 5 run lead. Scotty helped seal our victory with a sacrifice fly that brought in Phil to add another insurance run on the board. The final run had broken the Thai-Taiwanese backs, and they went down 1, 2, 3 in the last. Final score, the Phanatticks 12, T-T 7.

The win meant that all 3 teams in our division finished 1 win and 1 loss plus a forfeited win. Because of our 5 run victory and only 1 run loss, we were placed 1 st in our group, with the Thai-Taiwanese A team granted 2 nd place.

We then were given a few hours to wait and see who was our semi final opponents from the other division. So we sat, savored our victory, and collectively cramped up. We quickly learned that we would be playing the young Royal Bangkok Sports Club team, who were also a compilation of mostly North American ex-pats like ourselves. So the stage was set for what looked to be a classic battle of Youth vs. Experience, Athleticism vs. Craftiness, Speed vs. Smarts, Brawn vs. Brains etc. Well, as it turned out, the best thing I can report about the game against the RBSC team was that no one on our team was badly injured physically. The Phanaddicts did suffer mentally, as our old bodies did not respond quick enough, and the RBSC team showed us why youth is a wonderful thing. They batted first and went through the order hitting hard line drive singles and we watched in awe as doubles 1 hopped over fences, and they jumped out to a well deserved 8-0 lead. We had the bases loaded in the bottom half of the inning, but couldn't score, and essentially the game was over then. RBSC continued their hitting display, and we continued to live out the softball nightmare losing 15 to 0 after 4 innings and finally waving the white flag. Not surprisingly, the RBSC went on to beat the previously unbeaten Taiwan-Tainan City team in the finals 8-7 to win the tournament. We played our strongest game in the battle for third with Thai-Taiwan A, with crafty pitching from Perry, and near perfect defense from our SS Mike, and LCF John M. We handily won the rematch 13 to 2, as the Phanaddicts saved their best for last.

Alan Rutsky, our other ace pitcher and team captain received our 3 rd place trophy, and Jimmy Emmert deservedly won our team MVP award, and the Pattaya Sports Club Phanaddicts did themselves proud, and went back to Pattaya a happy bunch indeed.