From the February issue of Forum
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Last year´s AmSoc Adult Softball Championships were held on two Saturdays, Oct. 24 and Dec. 5, in Ibuina where the Brazilian national baseball team trains and plays its home games. Both dates included eight teams playing about 3-4 games each in an abbreviated round-robin schedule starting around 9:30 a.m. and going until around 4 p.m., including a BBQ each time that started at noon.
The winning team poses before a 2009 game.
The Oct. 24 mini-round robin games provided the seeding for Dec. 5., whereby two groups of four teams were organized to play each other first, followed by the first and second place finishers of each group to play in the semi-finals: i.e., the winner of Group A played the second place team in Group B, etc.
In the end, after each team had played three games lasting more than four hours on two different Saturdays, the defending champs Cougars proved too strong for the Diamond Runners, led by the consummate athlete (and promoter) John Norwood, and his feisty group of players mainly from the U.S. Consulate. The Cougars completed a stellar 2009 season of 10-1, only losing to a tough Hamada team in April in the finals of the First Annual Charity Softball Classic. The MVP of the Championship was Howard Anderson.
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