The Bolton Robots of Doom have returned to the UK from their European Baseball tournament held in Zoetermeer, Netherlands. The three day event was very well hosted by the Zoetermeer Birds baseball and softball club, making all visitors very welcome and this was shown with great hospitality and entertainment. The seventh annual event had the president of the Birds club making an opening event speech with several props, somewhat stereotypical nevertheless entertaining to greet the ROBOTS (bowler hat and umbrella), French team Argancy Bootleggers (beret hat), German team Hagan Chipmunks (World War 2 style helmet which also involved a short goose-step) and several Dutch teams.

A strong rain fall on the morning of the first day saw the games postponed till the afternoon. Once the rain stopped, and with the use of a piece of equipment resembling a large outdoor vacuum cleaner the standing rain water was sucked away. The remaining Friday afternoon, followed by Saturday and Sunday were perfect climates for baseball, sunny and warm with blue skies.

Down to the action, game one verses the French team from Argancy. The Bolton team seemed to let their hair down a little during the rain delay, mix that with the long journey and many of the Bolton players were left feeling lethargic. The Robots started off the batting well against the Argancy Bootleggers pitcher. This was matched by the French batting. The Bootleggers during the game seemed to be more consistent and started to extend a lead with their batting and rapid base running along with their over exuberant bashing of the dugout ceiling. As a result Game one was marked up as a loss to Bolton.

During the interval a few of the players enjoyed a cold Dutch beer as were the opponents for Bolton’s second game. The Nieuwegein Diamonds, who play in their native beer league were certainly attempting to live up to their status as Grolsch recorder-holders carrying a couple of crates into their dugout.

This aside, Baseball in the Netherlands and much of Europe is greatly more developed and well followed than back in the UK. The Diamonds had also travelled with an extensive roster. The Diamonds won.

With the first day’s competition out of the way the evenings festivities commenced. Music and drinks flowed with a spot of karaoke, not to mention a short stint of beat-boxing from Sebby. With the verbal scratching booed off. The young man disappeared into the night, later to be found redecorating the softball bleachers with the evening’s food and mainly drink.

Day two saw the Robots scheduled for the first game of the day again, this time against the hosts and favourites the Zoetermeer Birds. Well fought performances by both sides ended with the favourites taking the glory but were extremely sportsmanship like in doing so.

The second game of the day for the Robots was against German team Hagan Chipmunks, who have attended every tournament held by the Birds. This was a close but tiring game. The Europeans use aluminium bats whereas back in the UK leagues, the BBF enforces the use of wooden bats. By this stage the Robots had started to readjust to the unfamiliar balance and weight of the metal bats. The exhausting agenda, heat and partying had unmistakably started to show, resulting in the Chipmunks clinching the game.

Not that the playing of the games got in the way of dinking, it just slowed it down. Now that the days contests were out of the way the players could get back into a steady drinking pace. A barbeque, a band and a fire got the evenings merriment on the way. A handful of players made the trip to the capital city Amsterdam. On their return they arrived to find everyone joyful from alcohol, with the exception of one player who had drank so much had become insistently paranoid that everyone was literally moments from tw@t!n9 him. Another late broken night’s sleep was had.

The final day of the tournament was set out for final position standings, this saw Bolton take on Argancy once again. The Robots took an early lead against their European neighbours. With the score at 6-4 to Bolton, Argancy ran in one run, with the German umpire adding two to the scoreboard. Had the score been 6-5 due to the time limit this would have meant the Robots recording the victory, however, as at this point the game was now tied, an extra inning was played, which inevitably the Bootleggers managed to bring one more player home to snatch the win 6-7.

The Robots final game was pitted against the Birds. Extremely tired and anticipating the journey home many Bolton players were contemplating not being fielded. In reality the players took a deep breath and ran out to play against the very friendly and generous host team. Predictably this ended with one last defeat for the Bolton team.

The fellow Dutch neighbours put on a very good tournament, made all the teams and participants welcome, coinciding with the softball tournament on whole it had been a great exhibition with an underlying sentiment of a holiday camp. Many players had forged new friendships and look forward to next years tournament.