Softball: Canadians accuse Black Sox of cheating in world champs

11.45am

Runners-up Canada have accused the Black Sox of cheating in the final of the men's world softball championship last Sunday.

The Kiwis won the final game 9-5 for their third consecutive world title, but the Canadians claim the Kiwis cheated by stealing their signals.

The Canadians had upset the Black Sox 5-4 earlier in the Christchurch tournament, but Canadian players are now saying the New Zealanders received unfair assistance from a video camera behind the fence during the gold-medal game.

There was no immediate comment available from the New Zealand Softball camp today.

Canadian pitchers Gerald Muizelaar and Nick Underhill were hit hard by New Zealand in the final -- Muizelaar giving up three runs inside two innings during the gold-medal game -- and their team-mates told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation today they knew why.

The CBC Sports Online website reports the Canadian players have pointed to a video camera behind the fence during Sunday's contest.

"During the final, our team complained to tournament officials and they ordered the camera to be shut off," said Canadian centre-fielder Ryan Wolfe. "But by then, the score was already 6-3. All I know is they scored less runs with the camera off than they did with it on."

Player Jody Eidt of Ontario, said the Canadian team leader walked out to centre field during the final and found a woman with a laptop computer and video camera relaying the catcher's signals to the coach, and then to the batter.

"Considering they hit their first three home runs off of change-ups, it doesn't seem like too strange a theory to say that they were stealing signals for the first half of the game," Eidt told CBC.

"Who would have thought it would come to that?"

Wolfe said the Canadians had suspicions before the game and "everything we suspected seemed to play out".

"Before the game, a player on the USA team tipped us off and told us New Zealand was stealing their signals earlier in the playoffs. But the Kiwis are a good-hitting team, it would be difficult to prove."

Softball New Zealand chief executive Haydn Smith completely denied the Canadian's claims, telling NZPA they were "ridiculous".

"There's no official complaint to Softball New Zealand," he said.

Mr Smith, of Wellington, said all top international sports teams recorded games to review and analyse, but it was usually not done (looked at) in "real time", but sometime after the match.

"We videotaped every single game, but we absolutely, categorically refute this suggestion.

"Players who come second are looking for excuses all the time," he said.

Immediately after the final, Canadian head coach Mark Smith said: "We had a great tournament and given that it is our off-season when some of these teams are in-season, our results were positive.

"We wanted gold, but at least we are going home with a medal."

The world championship is held every four years and because men's softball is not an Olympic event, it is considered the pinnacle of the sport.

Wolfe said studying tape of games was not unusual in softball.

He did not think an appeal or hearing would fix the situation, and said arriving home with only the silver medal left him and his team-mates with a sour taste in his mouth.

"It definitely does - it's one thing to lose but to think the other team would do something like that to win, it makes it worse," he said. "We talked a lot about that after the game -- what's the value of a championship if you have to cheat to win?"

- NZPA