{"id":20511,"date":"2013-03-11T09:34:16","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T16:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=20511"},"modified":"2013-03-11T09:34:32","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T16:34:32","slug":"bartorillo-bats-aside-irate-former-team-mates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=20511","title":{"rendered":"Bartorillo bats aside irate former team-mates"},"content":{"rendered":"

By TONY SMITH<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Click<\/a>
Click logo for original news story and photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>Tyron Bartorillo says winning a gold medal with the Black Sox is sweeter than taking the title with his native Australia after being targeted during the tournament by his former team-mates.<\/p>\n

The Queensland-born Canterbury third baseman became only the second player in International Softball Federation history to win a world championship with different nations at consecutive tournaments. Pitcher Owen Walford was the first – with his native New Zealand in 1976 and for the United States in 1980.<\/p>\n

Bartorillo, who has lived in Christchurch since 2005, is married to a Kiwi and has a New Zealand-born son.<\/p>\n

He said yesterday he was “a New Zealander now”.<\/p>\n

Nothing could take the gloss off his gold medal but he admitted he was stung by some of his former Australian team-mates’ reaction.<\/p>\n

“They didn’t take it too lightly,” he said.<\/p>\n

“When we beat them [5-4 in a tiebreaker in the first playoff round], they didn’t really want to shake my hand. A couple of them told me to \u2018f\u2026 off’, a couple didn’t shake my hand at all.<\/p>\n

“It was a bit gutting, really. But New Zealand’s my hometown now, and we’re the champions.”<\/p>\n

A scuffle broke out during the New Zealand-Australia game after Kiwi catcher Patrick Shannon was hit by a pitch.<\/p>\n

Captain Rhys Casley came out of his dugout and the Australians poured out of their dugout.<\/p>\n

“They pretty much all came straight at me,” said Bartorillo, who was in the on-deck circle, holding his bat.<\/p>\n

He heard “some guys say \u2018go for Tyron’ “.<\/p>\n

“Everyone [in the Black Sox] backed me up and got in before anything could happen.”<\/p>\n

Bartorillo waved the bat, “just trying to protect myself and scare them away” and said he did not intend to use it.<\/p>\n

“When I saw the photos, it looked a lot worse than it was.”<\/p>\n

The second Papanui club player to win the title (after Travis Wilson in 1996) said the Australians’ reaction made him glad he had switched his allegiance.<\/p>\n

“It was . . . the right decision.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By TONY SMITH Tyron Bartorillo says winning a gold medal with the Black Sox is sweeter than taking the title with his native Australia after being targeted during the tournament by his former team-mates. The Queensland-born Canterbury third baseman became only the second player in International Softball Federation history to win a world championship with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,35,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-isf","8":"category-oceania","9":"category-players","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20511"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20513,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20511\/revisions\/20513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}