Katie McAndrew of Wellington will compete at a tournament this month in her ongoing efforts to be one of the players chosen for New Zealand's Junior White Sox team. (Softball New Zealand photo)

A SPORT FOR ALL SEASONS AND CONTINENTS
2011-02-04

Tomorrow will mark one month since Brazil claimed the 2010/2011 Easton Foundation Youth World Cup at the International Softball Federation’s world headquarters complex in Plant City, Florida (USA). This week the temperatures at the facility have been in the 70s (Fahrenheit) and it’s definitely softball season in lots of other spots around the globe.

As reported in the UPDATE newsletter two days ago, a tournament began yesterday in Thailand.

Less than two weeks away “down under” is the Australian Open Men’s Championship (February 15-19 in Redlands, Queensland). And in that same region, Softball New Zealand is publicizing the Bev Chote Classic, a premier club tournament that will take place later this month (February 24-27) in Auckland. A team of New Zealand Junior White Sox hopefuls that will compete there has recently been chosen as part of the ongoing process working toward this year’s (19-and-under fast pitch) ISF Jr. Women’s World Championship (in South Africa in December).

In a third region, the Americas, a 12-team women’s softball tournament is now two weeks away (February 19 & 20) in Brazil. During that same time (February 18-20) a 15-team women’s club tournament will be taking place in Argentina, followed by an event more than twice that size from February 22-27 when 35 fast pitch teams will be competing.

Also in the final stages of preparation are next month’s national men’s championship in Venezuela and, down in Africa, the national under-15 open championship in Nigeria.

Not to be left out, Europe trumped the weather just a couple weeks ago by staging this year’s edition of the Indoor Cup (in the Netherlands), which was a three-day tournament featuring 16 teams from the host country, the Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, and USA.

Depending on where in the world you’re reading this from, it may not look like it, but it’s definitely softball season … somewhere.