Baseball in Australia

In Australia, baseball is a game that is played in all states and territories of the country, but it struggles for popularity due to the popularity of many other sports, including the comparable sport of cricket, in which Australia has always been one of the leading nations. School-aged children are generally guided toward a future in cricket, rather than baseball, especially in the private schooling system.

History

Baseball was believed to have been brought to Australia with American gold miners in the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, where miners would play baseball on the gold fields on their rest days. The first reports of organised teams and results appeared in Ballarat, Victoria in 1857.^[1]

In 1867, Victorian cricketers William Gaggin and Louis Goldsmith tried to set up a game of baseball at Yarra Park but were disrupted by fans arriving for a local Australian football match. The first competitive series was played between the Surry Baseball Club and members of the New South Wales Cricket Association over June/July 1878. However, it is argued competitive organised one off matches from as early as 1875 were played before this time.^[2]

The first interstate baseball games were played in 1890 when Victoria played South Australia at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground. The visitors won the best of three series 16-14, 27-18 and 22-26 in Melbourne.^[1] These two states in 1897 formed the first Australia representative baseball team which toured the United States.

The Australian team sponsored by Mr A.J Roberts with £1,500 was selected to tour the United States. They were outclassed by the home teams, winning only eight of its first 26 matches. The Americans were surprised to note the Australian outfielders did not wear mitts. Many of the tourists relied on friends and relatives to get them home as the organisers ran out of credit to send them back home.^[3]

The more financial players of the team continued on to tour England. Games were billed as Australia vs England and were played at the Crystal Palace Sports Ground,^[4] although the tour turned sour when the team manager left London with the gate receipts, leaving many more players in financial limbo. This set the game back several years in Victoria and South Australia; however, it continued to flourish in New South Wales where the sport was established as a winter sport through the New South Wales Winter League in 1898.

The first Australian championships were in 1910 in Hobart, Tasmania between New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania and won by NSW. This was followed by a similar series in Melbourne, Victoria between Victoria, NSW, South Australia and Tasmania in August 1910. NSW also won this series.^[5]

At the end of the 19th century, Americans also tried to set up baseball leagues and competitions in Australia, with some success. A national league was initiated in 1934, and the national team entered World Championship competition in the late 1970s. Prior to winning the silver medal at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Australia had finished 7th in the Olympics twice, which is also the highest position reached in World Championships.

In the late 80's to late 90's the national league took off, with most capital cities having a team. The games were broadcast weekly on ABC television around the country. In 1996 baseball hit its peak attendance rates with 1% of Australians over 15 (133,000) having attended a baseball game that year.^[6]

A national-level competition still exists, as well as lower-level club competitions, but the game attracts comparatively little or no spectator or media interest. Several Australians, however, have attracted the attention of American scouts and have gone on to play in the major leagues in the United States and Japan.

New Professional League

See: Australian Baseball League

Summer vs Winter

Baseball is considered traditionally a summer sport, meaning such that it will start in spring and end in autumn, however, this has changed many times in Australia for different reasons. One of these reasons is because baseball in Australia was originally considered a sport for cricketers in the off-season, but as baseball became more popular as a standalone sport it was played more often in summer. The Claxton Shield was traditionally played in the Australian winter so Sheffield Shield players could participate.

However, the Australian Baseball League, International Baseball League of Australia and Claxton Shield in recent years have been played in the Australian summer, this is due to the MLB and other northern hemisphere baseball leagues being played in the northern summer, therefore many high profile players from Australia were unable to play in the southern winter.

Both summer and winter baseball was played in Melbourne in the 1920s and Sydney from 1913 until the end of World War II, when baseball across Australia became mainly winter only. The exception to this was summer night baseball at Norwood Oval in Adelaide, South Australia in the 1950s and at Oriole Stadium in Sydney from 1969. During the late 1960s the trend swung back towards baseball's traditional season of summer

When the New South Wales Major League decided to play summer only day baseball in 1973, a breakaway Sydney Winter League formed to continue playing in winter, while most NSW country centres continued in the winter. The Victorian Baseball Association in Melbourne switched to summer only in mid 1970. Since 1974 Sydney Baseball is now indeed an all year round sport.

Notable players

There are many Australians playing baseball professionally in the United States, Japan, Korea, and various other countries. As of July 2010,^[7] players currently playing in MLB are:

• Grant Balfour - Oakland Athletics
• Luke Hughes - Minnesota Twins
• Peter Moylan - Atlanta Braves
• Ryan Rowland-Smith - Houston Astros(Currently in AAA)
• Brad Thomas - Detroit Tigers
• Richard Thompson - Los Angeles Angels
• Josh Spence - San Diego Padres

Hall of Fame

See also

• List of baseball teams in Australia
• Australian Baseball Federation
• Baseball at the Australian University Games
• Baseball awards#Australia

References

Bibliography

• Harris, John O. (2009). Queensland Baseball 1905–1990. 

External links

• Timeline
• OzBall at Hunterlink