Cap tip to readers Eric Legge and Blair Setford, who noted the ISF’s first release of the date for the ISF Sr. Men’s 2013 World Championships, March 1 to March 10, 2013 in New Zealand.
By Tony Smith, Stuff.co.nz
A five-year-old Pita Rona brandished a “Black Sox Rock” sign to welcome dad Brad home after winning the world softball championships in 2000.
A decade on, father and son will be playing together in the same infield when the Black Sox tour North America in June.
Brad Rona – “I’m 35, not 45; make sure you get that right” – says he “always dreamed” of playing alongside son Pita, 16, in a black uniform.
But the thought never crossed Pita’s mind in 2000 when he went to Auckland Airport.
“I was five years old. I had my face painted [in Black Sox colours], I made up a sign saying `Black Sox Rock’. I was on TV for that; it was pretty cool.”
Pita, a Year 12 student at Glenfield College on Auckland’s North Shore, has grown up alongside the Black Sox.
“In 2004 [at the world championships in Christchurch] and 2009 [in Saskatoon, Canada], I was always just by the dugout, pretty much right next to all the boys. In 2009, I thought `I want to be in the dugout with them’ and now I am going to get to. I am just over the moon.”
Father and son agree their joint goal is to play together for the Black Sox at the 2013 world championships in their own backyard – Rosedale Park at Albany. The International Softball Federation this week confirmed the tournament will be held there from March 1 to 10.