Lions Open With Sweep, Attention Focused on Olympics
In the 31st edition of the World Baseball Classic, the Nova Anglicana Lions opened their 5th classic with a sweep of unranked Forthhanu at Archbishop Stadium in Londinium. The new series format has drawn attention both positive and negative and has led to some frankly questionable scheduling by some participants. The Saintland national team, which is actually composed of foreign nationals who have naturalized, has elected to play tripleheaders in the interest of saving time, while other teams have gone with a more traditional three games in three days format. The new format allows for more fans to see their beloved national teams duke it out on the world stage, but elongates the group stage, which formerly played only one match at a time against a given opponent.
The Lions' sweep was courtesy of a solid offense averaging more than five runs per game, and two shutouts by the #2 and #3 hurlers in the rotation. After Felix Murphy surrendered two runs in seven innings in the first game (a 6-3 win), Justin Garcia tossed nine scoreless innings, allowing just two hits and one walk while striking out twelve as the Lions won 6-0 behind Jarrod Novak's 4-RBI day. Chris Keyes attempted to equal that feat, and only permitted five baserunners (two hits and three walks) in his eight innings of work, but his 112 pitches after eight innings caused manager Graig Lowman to pull him. The Lions were leading comfortably 4-0 at that point, but without Josh Jennings' three-run triple in the 6th, they would be living on a knife-edge. Nate Freeman, Brad Bryan, and Felix Murphy will oppose knuckleballer Welsh Mover, all-velocity, no control Biff Moran, and staff ace Ragnor Hillrock of Peruvian Highlands in their next series on the road. Peruvian Highlands took two of three from fellow unranked Wolfbenz in their first series. Also of note, The Royal Barangay greeted Republic Singapore to the international baseball scene with a 20-1 shellacking, while defending champs Super-Llamaland got off to a great start, permitting just one run while scoring 26 in an opening sweep of unrankeds Itanpavia. The Lions' co-hosts Imota took two of three from unranked Bissone on the road in their opening series.
Despite the hot WBC action, much of the sporting world's attention seems to be focused on the games of the IX Olympiad. Nova Anglicana has started well, winning a bronze medal in the men's 4x100 freestyle relay, and seeing cyclist Morris Chambers, not thought to be a medal hope, take gold in the men's road race, surpassing his teammate and national champion Kerry Burke, who finished in seventh place. Other medal hopes for Nova Anglicana include Cedric Mabry in the men's 1500m freestyle and Chastity Tobin in the women's 100m breaststroke. The crack team of minor leaguers sent to the Olympics as a demonstration event have not played yet, but they are favorites to go far in the competition.
However, by far the most talked about incident at the IX Olympiad so far has been the feud between The Serbian Empire and our former neighbours Gregoryisgodistan. Apparently, the Serbs threatened to kidnap and liberate some of the slaves in Gregoryisgodistan's delegation, and Gregory responded by adding the Serbs to their ever-growing enemy list. This led to the women's archery team forgoing the bronze medal in an attempt to kill their opponents the Serbs. They failed, but injured a Serbian spectator. Naturally, the Olympic community rebelled against this action and condemned it, with the president of the Olympic Council threatening to strip competitors of their right to compete and the host Kytlerians installing protective walls around the archery and shooting venues to prevent something of this magnitude from happening again. Let us hope that the WBC stays free of such tragedy and rancor.
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