{"id":27966,"date":"2015-07-16T11:30:57","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T18:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=27966"},"modified":"2015-07-16T11:30:57","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T18:30:57","slug":"canada-u-s-seeing-more-parity-in-softball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=27966","title":{"rendered":"Canada, U.S. seeing more parity in softball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/gta\/panamgames\/2015\/07\/15\/canada-us-seeing-more-parity-in-softball.html\" target=\"_blank\">From the Toronto Star<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Latin countries improving to the point where Pan Am Games are no longer a tournament dominated by two countries.<\/strong><br \/>\n<em><br \/>\n By Mark Zwolinski Sports reporter<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Canada\u2019s history with Pan Am Games men\u2019s softball has been nothing but golden \u2014 they won seven straight, after all \u2014 and that focus was alive and well after Wednesday night\u2019s 6-2 win over the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n<p>Canada improved to 4-0 in the six-team tournament, which returned to the Games after absences in 2007 and 2011. It\u2019s no surprise they are heavily favoured, having won the world championships earlier this month in Saskatoon.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Canada\u2019s softballers are much like Canadians: they take nothing for granted and praise their competition, especially the Latin countries, for improving their programs to the point where this is no longer a tournament dominated by the home country and the Americans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cArgentina, Mexico, Venezuela, they\u2019ve gotten stronger in their pitching,\u201d said Steve Mullaley, Canada\u2019s cleanup hitting first baseman. He\u2019s considered one of the best hitters in the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re getting more and more experience, they\u2019re sending their pitchers to spend the summer in the U.S. to play in the ISC (International Softball Congress). You have Juan Potolicchio from Argentina, and Ramon Jones from Venezuela, and they\u2019re now considered two of the best in the world.  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/gta\/panamgames\/2015\/07\/15\/canada-us-seeing-more-parity-in-softball.html\" target=\"_blank\">Click here to continue reading at the Toronto Star.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Toronto Star Latin countries improving to the point where Pan Am Games are no longer a tournament dominated by two countries. By Mark Zwolinski Sports reporter Canada\u2019s history with Pan Am Games men\u2019s softball has been nothing but golden \u2014 they won seven straight, after all \u2014 and that focus was alive and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[5,9,38,61],"tags":[126,323,322],"class_list":{"0":"post-27966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-canada","7":"category-international","8":"category-latinamerica","9":"category-usa-softball","10":"tag-panams2015","11":"tag-panamsoftball","12":"tag-tor2015","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27966","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=27966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27967,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27966\/revisions\/27967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}