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By WAYNE MARTIN – The Nelson Mail

SHOOTING HIGH: New Zealand Black Sox pitcher Marty Grant is hoping to claim his fourth title at the world softball championships in Canada.

It’s nice to feel wanted.

That’s part of the reason why seasoned Nelson softballer Marty Grant will be on the plane with his Black Sox team-mates in two weeks bound for the world championships in Saskatoon, Canada.

The 42-year-old world champion pitcher is heading to his fifth world series and bidding to become one of an elite group of Black Sox to have claimed four world crowns.

Former captain and catcher Mark Sorenson is the only Black Sox player to date to have achieved the honour, although joining Grant in Saskatoon are coach Eddie Kohlhase and players Jarrad Martin and Thomas Makea all have three wins to their name.

It’s significant for Grant on another count too after he officially retired from international softball in 2006. Or so he thought.

Instead, the continuing lure of playing on the world’s biggest stage and a timely approach from the Black Sox coaching staff have encouraged Grant to make one more bid for title No4. But this time, he stresses, will definitely be his last as a player.

It was by no means a straightforward decision to commit himself to another campaign.

It has meant months of hard work, usually on his own, and some occasional self doubt as he’s tried to muster the enthusiasm and energy to keep himself on course.

There have also been some significant personal challenges, with his wife Abbie now recovering from successful breast cancer surgery, as softball has sometimes been forced into the background.

Injury stopped him from playing in New Zealand’s 2004 triumph in Christchurch, although he remained an important part of the squad, and Canada would now be an appropriate way for Grant to sign off on a remarkable international career that began back in 1992.

“After 2004, the prospect of trying to play at the top level for another five years was one of the things that challenged me,” he said.

“At that time, I didn’t really know whether I had it in me to be competitive year in and year out. In the last two years since I’ve come out of retirement, I’ve sort of been a little more selective in my play and still being able to coach and be involved with the family has given me the opportunity to turn up at the airport in two weeks’ time and head off to these world champs.

“I guess it was more about managing my career a little.”

Grant is now the senior hand among a Black Sox pitching roster that includes rising star Jeremy Manley, former Samoan international Heine Shannon and youngster Thomas Enoka. He’ll be the oldest pitcher to represent New Zealand at a world series, beating Kevin Herlihy’s bid as a 40 year old in 1984.

“I’m reasonably surprised about how well the body’s holding up and my role’s changed a bit, I guess, in the team,” he said.

“At one time I was the starter and the man they gave the ball to, but now my role’s changed where, if we get in any trouble, I’m more of a relief role.”

He’s excited about the prospects of a team he describes as experienced, athletic and extremely fit.

He’s also enthusiastic about the team’s strike power.

“We can hit. The hitting lineup of this team is as good as it was in 2004 and I think we averaged eight or nine runs a game at that tournament. Anyone who’s facing that lineup is going to have to be on guard.

“We’ve also got great defence and we’ve got solid pitching. And we’ve got belief, so I think that it’s a very strong team. It’s my belief and I think Eddie would agree with this, too that there’s an opportunity for this team to go on and win many more in the next decade if that’s what they want to do.”

The Black Sox head to Canada on June 28 and complete a 14-game buildup in Toronto before the opening pitch is hurled in Saskatoon on July 17.

Winning is important for Grant, and a big part of that process is being mentally prepared.

Memories of his first failed world series bid in Manila 17 years ago are branded indelibly into his psyche.

“We’ve been honest in our analysis of ourselves as a team and with regards to sport, you’ve got to have that edge and the edge is having that mental preparation and that desire and not looking too far forward and making sure that we do the little things right.”

Editor’s note:

I first saw Marty Grant pitch twenty years ago, at the 1989 ISC World Tournament in Kimberly, Wisconsin. He was a youngster of 22 then, just arriving in the U.S. and the phenom pitching for the local Green Bay club, All Car Wisconsin, if memory serves me. The fans turned out in droves to see the young kid from New Zealand pitch. Twenty years later, in 2008, there was Marty again, dazzling the hitters on the main diamond at Sunset Park, Kimberly, Wisconsin, at the ISC World Tournament. He was pitching in that one for the So Cal Bombers, enroute to a sixth place finish overall. Marty earned second team All World honors in that one, showing that at the age of 42, he can still perform at the highest level of the game.

-Jim Flanagan