A solid excuse

Above is a group of people gagging for a good excuse for a beer on a Tuesday night - and the best they could come up with was to masquerade as a softball team. And it worked brilliantly! Knock some leather about, get to first base [for the first time since touching down in London? - Ed] a few times and then we could get down to business.

We could walk into a pub, trainers, shorts and t-shirts on (and the sucker that had to carry the kit even had a sweat on!), we looked every bit the modern sporting unit.

But aside from the social aspect - which was great - the Hudson softball yankee's finished the season in a very respectable second place. It was one of the first thngs I did when I got over here and it has been great fun. Naturally, there were high's and low's, the low's typically followed the ball going high when I was in the outfield.

Unlike some of our opposition, having a good time actually factored in our reason or being there. Some of the sledging was priceless - and targeted at ourselves in the main. "Eyes front lads, concentrate now" was common place on warm summer evenings in Regents Park - for obvious reasons...

The moment of the season was, without question, the delicate 'tapping up' (of the literal variety) that Kyle gave an opposition first basewoman on the way round. Class.