On Deck

It's Saturday, so it must be softball.....

There are practice sessions almost every week in the run up to the European tournment in Italy this summer. Here's Betsy (taken from quite a distance) warming up in preparation for batting - thats called being 'on deck' apparently.

They slash the bat around so ferociously when they are waiting to go up to the plate, I get worried they are going to hit someone. Or get hit.

One of the newer girls hit the ball downwards when she was batting, it bounced, and came straight up and hit her in the face. She wasn't wearing a gumshield or a helmet with a guard. Betsy says you learn that if you accidentally hit the ball down, you 'get out of the way - and quick if you wanna keep your teeth!' The girl was lucky in that it 'only' hit her in the nose and didn't do anything other than really, really hurt, poor little thing.

Betsy is wearing her new Great Britain sweatshirt. The team kit arrived last week - very exciting!