In July 1990, while Ireland was caught up in the romance of our first World Cup, my family travelled to Florida for my grandfather’s 80th. We missed Ireland’s quarter final clash, but got our first baseball gloves.

Back home, a neighbour, Mickey Walker, spotted us playing catch and asked my Dad (Alan) if he was interested in joining the Marlay Martyrs. My brothers and I started as spectators alongside other players’ kids. Soon the parents started to organise games for us and went a step further when an American preacher, Steve, volunteered to coach. Three Marlay Little League baseball teams began to compete against Oddsox, Coolmine and Greystones. Steve moved on after a year and was replaced by another preacher, Hunter, and eventually by my Dad.

Our first game was out in Skerries with a huge squad of kids getting a few innings each. The senior team which I played on tended to finish second best to an Oddsox team led by Darren O’Connor’s pitching. That is, with the exception of the glorious day we won the Dublin blitz beating each of our rivals on the way!

At end of 1995 some of us were too old to play Little League. Dave Burke, Michelle Quaide and I returned in 1997 though, for the rebirth of the Killer Bs. We won Division 5 in our first year and began to charge back up the league. From the beginning, we watched the As win trophy after trophy and started to see winning as not something to aspire to, but just something we did.

By 2001 we had reached Premier 2 and other clubs started to take notice. There was an all Marlay final in the Flyers Blitz where, led by Dominic Coyle, we gave the As a good scare and we just missed out on another promotion. The latter was rectified in 2002, as the Bs returned to the play off and defeated Los Banditos to reach the top division.

The Premier Years 

In the early years of the new century, we also developed a close affiliation with the burgeoning UCD club and the intervarsities competition, which saw us introduce Muireann Walshe and Alun Owens among others into the summer league.

The next three seasons were tougher though. Relegation followed in 2003 when the loss of key players and inexperience saw us win only one game. Then in ‘04 the Bs finished mid table in Division 1, while the As’ season ended in controversy. After that the club only fielded one team in 2005 in Prem., but failed to gel and an era came to an end. We finished last, got relegated and Drew, Peter and Emma departed.

A Bright Future 

We began to attend more tournaments though, adding MIST, Windsor and indoor competitions to our IOST trips. In 2005 we won MIST, beating Dodder with a team drawn from the struggling Marlay team, some friends and two Americans we met in the car park on Friday night!

Then a new era began in 2006 when we merged with the Braves; Colum and Mel joined; Ciaran returned and I took the captaincy. We defeated the Blazzers in a memorable, wild, wet and windy playoff to return to Prem. and this time survived, finishing 6th in 2007.

Our travels went further in 2007, to the Advertising Softball World Series in Las Vegas. We competed on real diamonds in the Nevada heat against American and Canadian teams; and had a holiday to be remembered.

The Braves struggled in their first year in the club set-up, players came and went and the team was relegated to Division 3. In 2007, we recruited heavily and Mel coached the side to victory in Division 3B. At the time of writing, the team is striving for promotion to Division 2 under the leadership of Andy and Bill.

2008 has also seen the club merge again, with Shutout 7 from Firhouse. We have had a close relationship with the club over the last few years and both parties felt they had something to benefit from working together.

Looking forward, the club has a stable footing again and the future is bright, although there remains a lot of work to do to ensure the 3 teams can progress together in harmony. More expansion is within our reach though and talk has even resurfaced about a Little League team!

- Conor Sayles