Baseball in Australia
Encyclopedia
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 school
ing system.
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 .
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.
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. 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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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 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 . 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.
, Japan
, Korea
, and various other countries.
As of July 2010, players currently playing in MLB are:
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
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
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, 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
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, especially in the private school
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
ing system.
History
Baseball was believed to have been brought to Australia with American gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
miners in the Victorian gold rush
Victorian gold rush
The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. In 10 years the Australian population nearly tripled.- Overview :During this era Victoria dominated the world's gold output...
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
Ballarat, Victoria
Ballarat is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately west-north-west of the state capital Melbourne situated on the lower plains of the Great Dividing Range and the Yarrowee River catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth...
in .
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
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. 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.
The first interstate baseball games were played in 1890 when Victoria
Victoria Aces
The Victoria Aces are an Australian baseball team who compete in the Claxton Shield Baseball Championship. One of the founding teams of the Claxton Shield in 1934, they competed until 1988. Thereafter the Claxton Shield was awarded to the winner of the Australian Baseball League until 2002...
played South Australia at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground
East Melbourne Cricket Ground
The East Melbourne Cricket Ground was a sports venue located at the corner of Wellington Parade and Jolimont Parade, in East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...
. The visitors won the best of three series 16-14, 27-18 and 22-26 in Melbourne. These two states in 1897 formed the first Australia representative baseball team
Australia national baseball team
The Australian national baseball team represents Australia in international baseball tournaments and competitions. They are ranked as the top team in Oceania, and are the Oceanian Champions, having been awarded the title in 2007 when New Zealand withdrew from the Oceania Baseball Championship. They...
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
Baseball glove
A baseball glove or mitt is a large leather glove that baseball players on the defending team are allowed to wear to assist them in catching and fielding balls hit by a batter, or thrown by a teammate.-History:...
. 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.
The more financial players of the team continued on to tour England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Games were billed as Australia vs England and were played at the Crystal Palace Sports Ground, 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.
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
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
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.
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.
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 ShieldClaxton Shield
The Claxton Shield was the name of the premier baseball competition in Australia held between state-based teams, as well as the name of the trophy awarded to the champion team...
was traditionally played in the Australian winter so Sheffield Shield players could participate.
However, the Australian Baseball League
Australian Baseball League
The Australian Baseball League was a baseball league, established in 1987 and disbanded in 1999.-Formation:Before the formation of the Australian Baseball League, the Claxton Shield, established in , was Australia's premier baseball tournament...
, International Baseball League of Australia
International Baseball League of Australia
The International Baseball League of Australia was a baseball league which existed from 1999 to 2002.The league was created by David Nilsson after he purchased the rights to the Australian Baseball League in 1999 when it was near financial collapse...
and Claxton Shield
Claxton Shield
The Claxton Shield was the name of the premier baseball competition in Australia held between state-based teams, as well as the name of the trophy awarded to the champion team...
in recent years have been played in the Australian summer, this is due to the MLB and other northern hemisphere
Northern Hemisphere
The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of its equator—the word hemisphere literally means “half sphere”. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...
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
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
from until the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when baseball across Australia became mainly winter only. The exception to this was summer night baseball at Norwood Oval
Norwood Oval
Norwood Oval is a suburban oval in the western end of Norwood, an inner eastern suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. Norwood, Payneham & St Peters Council own the Oval but rent it, for a peppercorn rental, to the Norwood Football Club...
in Adelaide, South Australia in the 1950s and at Oriole Stadium
Oriole Park (Sydney)
Oriole Park is the home of the Auburn Baseball Club in New South Wales, Australia. It was extended and had lighting added prior to hosting the 1980 Claxton Shield....
in Sydney from . During the late 1960s the trend swung back towards baseball's traditional season of summer
When the New South Wales Major League
New South Wales Major League
The New South Wales Major League is the highest level of play for the sport of baseball in New South Wales. It is currently composed of clubs predominantly from Sydney, with one club from the Central Coast...
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 StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
, and various other countries.
As of July 2010, players currently playing in MLB are:
- Grant BalfourGrant BalfourGrant Robert Balfour is a relief pitcher who plays for the Oakland Athletics. He has previously played for the Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins and Milwaukee Brewers.-Early life:...
- Oakland AthleticsOakland AthleticsThe Oakland Athletics are a Major League Baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. From to the present, the Athletics have played in the O.co Coliseum.... - Luke HughesLuke HughesLuke Trevor Hughes is an Australian baseball player for Major League Baseball's Minnesota Twins.-Australian career:...
- Minnesota TwinsMinnesota TwinsThe Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the... - Peter MoylanPeter MoylanPeter Michael Moylan is a relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves in Major League Baseball. Moylan features a mid ninety mile per hour fastball and throws sidearm.-Early career:...
- Atlanta BravesAtlanta BravesThe Atlanta Braves are a professional baseball club based in Atlanta, Georgia. The Braves are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League. The Braves have played in Turner Field since 1997.... - Ryan Rowland-SmithRyan Rowland-SmithRyan Benjamin Rowland-Smith , is an Australian Major League Baseball left-handed pitcher. He is also an Australian Baseball League pitcher for the Sydney Blue Sox. Rowland-Smith pitched for Australia in the 2006 World Baseball Classic and in the 2004 Summer Olympics...
- Houston AstrosHouston AstrosThe Houston Astros are a Major League Baseball team located in Houston, Texas. They are a member of the National League Central division. The Astros are expected to join the American League West division in 2013. Since , they have played their home games at Minute Maid Park, known as Enron Field...
(Currently in AAA) - Brad ThomasBrad ThomasBradley Richard Thomas is an Australian professional baseball pitcher that is currently a free agent. He has previously played in MLB for the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers, in Nippon Professional Baseball for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters and in the Korean Baseball Organization for the...
- Detroit TigersDetroit TigersThe Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball team located in Detroit, Michigan. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in as part of the Western League. The Tigers have won four World Series championships and have won the American League pennant... - Richard ThompsonRich Thompson (pitcher, born 1984)Richard Graeme Thompson is a Major League Baseball relief pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim...
- Los Angeles Angels - Josh SpenceJosh SpenceJoshua Patrick William Spence is an Australian professional baseball pitcher for the San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball. He was drafted by the Padres in the ninth round of the 2010 Major League Baseball Draft out of Arizona State University...
- San Diego PadresSan Diego PadresThe San Diego Padres are a Major League Baseball team based in San Diego, California. They play in the National League Western Division. Founded in 1969, the Padres have won the National League Pennant twice, in 1984 and 1998, losing in the World Series both times...
See also
- List of baseball teams in Australia
- Australian Baseball FederationAustralian Baseball FederationThe Australian Baseball Federation is the national governing body of Baseball in Australia. Baseball is played in all the mainland states and territories, but it struggles for popularity due to the popularity of many other sports, including the comparable sport of cricket, in which Australia has...
- Baseball at the Australian University GamesBaseball at the Australian University GamesBaseball at the Australian University Games has been part of the Australian University Games program since the 2005 games. The games are held in the last week of September during mid-Semester break...
- Baseball awards#Australia