New semi-pro league to boost RP softball

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine softball has been one of the most successful team sports when it comes to previous international regional, continental, and even world level competitions with the Blu Boys and Blu Girls making their mark in these prestigious events.

During softball glory years in the late 80’s and early 70’s, the Blu Boys placed fourth in the 1968 World Men’s Softball Championship in the United States, the same year they won the Asian Championship and four years later, took fifth place when the Philippines hosted the world championship in Marikina. The Blu Girls did even better placing third in 1970 at the women’s world softball championship and in 1974, was also in the top 4 in the same tournament.

Both the Blu Boys and the Blu Girls have also been lording it over their opponents in past South East Asian Games, the last double victory coming in Thailand two years ago as this year’s SEA Games will not have softball among its events. At the Asian level, the Blu Boys have also been consistently doing podium finishes usually behind powerhouse Japan.

And so the emergence of Softball Pilipinas, the country’s first semi-professional softball league and the first too in the whole of South East Asia, which opens with five teams today at the Rosario Sports Complex in Pasig, signals a renewed bid by the Amateur Softball of the Philippines (Asaphil) to move Philippine softball to the next level.

“With the non-inclusion of softball in this year’s SEA Games in Laos, our players have been deprived of the opportunity to play and win gold medals for the country, and following the decision to disband the national training teams, again our national players will not be receiving regular allowances for the meantime, that is why the birth of Softball Pilipinas comes at the right time,” said sportsman-businessman Asaphil president Jean Henri Lhuillier whose company Cebuana Lhuillier is presenting the event together with LBC as a major sponsor.