1999 Summary

Year review

This year the Harriers take the league championship outright with one loss to the Devils and by sweeping the Beavers for the season. The Beavers take second place with only two losses. The Devils, last years league winners, take third after splitting with the Harriers and Greensox, but being swept by the Beavers. The Greensox played well in several close fought matches ending up with a 500 season. New comers Korfies and Rmaniacs struggled late in the season to field teams, but several keen softballer’s appear to be rising from the ashes of the two teams. Hopefully, they will stay on to form a new team next season.

League MVP's for the season are the brother and sister Anglo-American phemons, Bruce and Vikki Charles. Both of whom play for the Harriers. Bruce led his team in slugging percentage (867) and RBI’s and was third in batting at 714; while Vikki led the Harrier ladies with a 684 batting average and 385 slugging percentage.



League Chairman's view of the Oxford League:

With Oxford always in a state of 'rebuilding' or 'just hanging on' for the last 3 seasons, things have been scary; but this season showed some real promise and hopefully is the start of greater things for softball in Oxfordshire. Several captain’s and players have remarked that this has been the best and most fun season of softball in at least 4 years, and I agree wholeheartedly. The decision to play all league matches at one site with 3 diamonds initially met grumbles and opposition from some of the long time players in the league who were used to travelling between venues and visiting different pubs each week. However, there is nothing but praise from the players now as the experience has been in every way good. The key advantages with playing at one site on one night are:

1. rain outs affect everyone equally



2. all the players in the league are together which is more social and if a team is short players or even forfeits there are usually enough players around to make up two friendly sides.

This last point is actually the most important as people get used to turning up and know they will have a game of some sort. In addition, playing at one site means we can visit the same pub each week as a league. This season the Fuller’s Pub, the Marsh Harrier, kindly took our patronage.



The Future:

Next year we plan on setting up a softball exhibition stand at the newly pedestrianized Oxford town center and will endeavour to advertise the league and its results in the local newspaper and TV station. We will also hold our usual open days as well.



A note of thanks:

This year the Oxfordshire League was helped along monetarily by a very kind donation of £500 from John Robson's consultancy firm : MRA International of Abingdon. We certainly appreciate this donation which will be used to help cover expenses for the league.


Author: Chris Dore