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Baseball at home Aussies

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smasha

smasha

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Went to the game last night.
First time.
Loved it until the rain came down.
Perfect view of the action from any viewpoint.

Saw a few homers,some nice fielding and pitching.

Only 50 mins in peak traffic from Bundoora.

Recommend.
 
I assume you're referring to the Team Australia v Hanwha Eagles game at Melbourne Ballpark in Altona? I took the children to go see the same game. Just a pity it was washed out, as I was looking forward to seeing one of my son's club coaches pitch (he said to a friend of ours post-game that he was probably going to pitch on Friday night).

It was a good game to watch for when it was played. The Australian starter managed to load the bases against the Eagles in one of the innings with no outs, and then struck out the next three batters in a row to get out of the jam. He then was one pitch away (by my calculations) from an immaculate inning in the next frame.

Since my son was playing yesterday morning first thing, we couldn't go on Saturday night (get home too late) and my son's game finished too close to first pitch for yesterday's game to get to game 3.

My son got a high-five from one of the Eagles players during the rain delay and his friend got a signed game ball from the Eagles starting pitcher (the side-armer). I was hoping that Hyun-Jin Ryu would pitch for the Eagles at some stage on Friday night, given he's one of Korea's best ever players, but he didn't unfortunately (not sure if he even made out to Australia).

The Aces play KT Wiz this Friday night. I'll get free tickets to go this game to make up for the washout, but I doubt I'll be able to make it.
 
I heard a rumour last night from a friend that the ABL has folded, and you have to question the viability of the competition when it's now down to only five sides (Perth, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide and Sydney). Not having a team in the second biggest city in Australia would be a huge hole.

It's true that the Aces did have the biggest crowd over the past couple of seasons, and their ballpark is supposedly the best in the competition (I haven't attended games outside of Melbourne, so I can't judge for sure), especially as the Victorian Government has invested taxpayer money into it. It's just hard to get to unless you live in the western side of Melbourne.

I think the ABL has not done the best job in promoting the game. The Aces streamed their home games on Youtube, but fans of other teams were forced to download the Baseball+ app to watch their teams' home games, and from what I've heard, the app was buggy with plenty of freezes during streams. Not a good look.

I also believe that all the clubs (including the Aces) run at a loss. Perhaps the Aces owners were sick of underwriting the league without the changes they wanted being made to it, so they've just gone and pushed the button on dropping the nuke on the league.

There was also a report that one of the owners of Sydney Blue Sox left the ownership group, though that seemed to be more a personal decision than related to anything league-related.

I also don't understand it from the perspective of the Aces. They banged on about how they're going to be playing KBO teams in lieu of playing in the ABL, but they've signed up to a developmental competition featuring second and third teams from the KBO and Japan that takes place over a few days in Korea where the prize money for winning is about $20,000 for the club (wouldn't even cover the travel and accommodation costs for the Aces).

If I were under contract to the Aces, I'd be looking at my options for getting out of that contract. Playing a series of glorified exhibition games against KBO teams in their Spring Training next year would not enthuse me, when I'm trying to parlay my performance in Australia to a contract with a team in Japan for example (Jarryd Dale won the ABL batting title and signed with the Orix Buffaloes in Japan. Further, I really doubt that any MLB or NPB teams (including the Buffaloes) would be keen on sending prospects and promising players out to Melbourne to play baseball in the overseas winter if they're not playing competitive baseball.

It also potentially has ramifications for Team Australia. The WBC is scheduled for March 2026, so it would be right after the end of the ABL season. If I'm on the roster bubble for Team Australia as a Melbourne Aces player, I'd be desperate to get to a team that can offer me competitive baseball so I can impress the selectors and coaches. Even for other national players on other rosters, this hurts them. Assuming that the ABL continues and they have to run a five-team league, there's a reduction in the number of games being played in the 2025-2026 league, so less opportunity to make a case to be selected for Team Australia.

The Aces seem confident that they can make this work, but to me, it seems the ramifications are all negative.

I have to say, I've been to a few ABL games at Melbourne Ballpark over the last little while and I enjoyed it immensely. But I'm not likely to want to go to watch them play exhibition games against random Korean sides. I'll just stick to watching local club baseball to get my fix of live baseball action.
 

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Think you've summed it up really well there.

No doubt the ABL has some serious issues but as you say, the solution of leaving it to only play glorified friendly matches is absolutely mind boggling. I just don't understand how that is the better option in any way.
 
Interesting to hear the rumours of the ABL folding. Wouldn't be overly surprising, can't imagine they're generating anywhere near enough coin to make it viable and you can only run at a loss for so long.

The sheer geographical size of our country will forever make it difficult for the more minor sports (in our landscape) to have a national competition.
 
Bit more goss that has come out since the Aces made its announcement.

As an aside, the chairman of the Aces is Brett Ralph, who was recently outed as the Storm director who has donated to the "interest group" Advance that has opposed the Welcome to Country at sports games after the Storm cancelled the Welcome to Country event that was meant to have preceded the ANZAC Round game last week.

Anyway, from what I've heard, Ralph had been in negotiations with the ABL about buying the whole league, and the ABL has refused his offer. By pulling out the Aces, he's taking away the biggest prop financially of the ABL (the Aces lead the league in average attendance, revenue, etc.). Presumably, by exiting the ABL, he's hoping that he can force the ABL to take his offer.

As one can imagine, the ABL is in full-on crisis mode trying to deal with the fall-out from this announcement.
 
Bit of news since the last post in this thread. The Canberra Cavalry joined the Aces in withdrawing from the ABL for 2025. Big blow that the reigning champion would not return to defend their crown. Then the owners of Perth Heat decided to pull stumps, but the ABL persuaded/forced them to hand back their licence and the Perth Heat will continue to participate in a four-team competition, on the basis that they are now operated by Baseball Australia. The Sydney Blue Sox are currently being operated by Baseball NSW while they try to find new operators.

The ABL last week announced how it intends to operate the league in 2025-2026. The league will start on 13 November 2025, with the regular season running through until 18 January 2026. The championship series will be held over the Australia Day long weekend. There will be a three-game series played over Boxing Day weekend. Games will generally be played between Thursday and Saturday. The top two teams make the ABL championship series.

ABL teams will be permitted 23-man game day rosters, with up to 35 players signed. Maximum of 11 non-Australian imports, and a minimum of 12 Australians on game day rosters. There will be a maximum of two independent (non-affiliated players) and a maximum of 10 development (u-25 Australian players). There will also be a salary cap in place.

Australian Baseball League confirms season structure for 2025-26 | theABL.com.au

The Australian Baseball League is the only professional baseball league in Australia, relaunched in 2010. 호주 프로야구
theabl.com.au theabl.com.au
 
ShaneSingleton99

Rather than clog up the MLB thread, I thought I'd post a little bit here about the U-16 team. They were named in March after the Australian Youth Championships in January. The original intention was that they would go to the US to play in a tournament over there, but that ended up being changed to going to Japan. One squad will compete in the 15U Perfect Game Pacific Baseball Championships in Sapporo, while the other squad plays exhibition games against top Japanese youth teams in Tokyo.

This is the squad that will participate in the Perfect Game tournament.

Team-List-July-21-Team-1-1024x1024.jpg


Teams from Japan, the USA, Korea, Taiwan, China, Indonesia and the Philippines will also participate in this tournament. The pool games are to be played at Chitose Baseball Stadium, with the finals at the Sapporo Dome.

Players that were too old to play in the 15U championship now head to Tokyo to play the exhibition games.

Team-List-July-21-Team-2-1024x1024.jpg
 
All the Victorian players named in the two squads have come through the Baseball Victoria BV Performance Pathway, which I understand is very competitive. In order to get into the pathway, you need to be outstanding in U-12 baseball (top club and little league performers and/or top 25% testing results at tryouts). If you keep it up until U-14s (i.e., top performer at club and little league competition, etc) then you're in the U-14s pathway. And so on through to senior/overage baseball.

The purpose of the BV Performance Pathway is to produce players capable of playing in college baseball or professional baseball (such as the ABL). So, the idea is that they find the best of the best of junior/youth baseball players in Victoria.

But as the results in the Little League World Series each year demonstrate, Australian youth baseball is a long way behind the curve when it comes to other countries. Most clubs would train their juniors maybe once or twice a week. Then you'd add on training for charter/tournament baseball, so most youths would be getting up to five hours a week of training, plus games on weekends.

The BV Performance Pathway probably gives the youths a lot of intense training when compared to their peers in Australia, but it probably still pales in comparison to how much baseball you see youths play at the same age levels in Japan, the US and in countries like the Dominican Republic.

Unsurprising that the Venezuelans destroyed Australia in the intermediate Little League World Series yesterday.
 
Huge day for the Wanneroo Giants, who are Australia's representative in the senior Little League World Series. They play under a double elimination format (meaning that if they lost two games, they would be eliminated from the competition), and were staring down the barrel of being eliminated from the competition.

The Giants won their first game on 27 July, defeating Mexico 5-4. However, they lost their next game to the Czechs 6-2. In order to stay in the competition, they needed to beat Guam, and they did so, 10-5 on 30 July. Yesterday, they played a double-header, beating Latin-America 8-0 in the final elimination game before defeating Europe-Africa 1-0 in the international semi-final. Australia will square off with the Caribbean team from Puerto Rico in a semi-final for a shot at the World Series.

I believe the game will be broadcast tonight on Disney+ from 9pm AEST.



 
Also excellent news for Team Australia in the U-12 World Cup, after they thrashed Czechia 11-2 yesterday afternoon, thanks to 15 total hits. They scored five runs in each of the fifth and the sixth innings to blow the Czechs off the diamond after the Czechs took a 2-1 lead into the fifth inning.

Australia was unfortunately eliminated from the medal contention, so this was a game in the placement round. However, given the way the WBSC calculates country rankings, the win is actually super important for all age levels, including up to the senior team.

Australia finishes its campaign in the U-12 World Cup with a game against the winless South Africans tonight from 8.30pm and the game gives Australia the opportunity to have its best ever finish at the U-12 level if they can beat the South Africans.

 

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Trying to not doxx myself, but I've gotten to know Jon and his brother pretty well over the past few months, including watching Jon pitch live for my local club. Since the Aces are no longer competing in the ABL, I'll be following the Bandits when the ABL kicks off in late November.
 
So, by the peculiarity of how the WBSC takes into account performances at all age levels to calculate country rankings, Australia is now back in the top 10 in the world thanks to Team Australia's ninth-placed finish at the U-12 World Cup. That finish awarded Australia 104 points, allowing Australia to leapfrog the Dominican Republic for 10th place. The top 12 countries:

RankCountryPointsPoints 2025Trend
1Japan6980287-
2Chinese Taipei5127226-
3USA4591345-
4South Korea4342251-
5Mexico3938177-
6Venezuela36120-
7Puerto Rico30810-
8Netherlands304059-
9Panama2818128-
10Australia2550104+1
11Dominican Republic2494202-1
12Cuba2461153-

The next update to world rankings will occur after the U-18 World Baseball Cup in early September. Australia is currently holding a selection camp on the Gold Coast to trim a squad of 34 down to 23 to represent Australia at the U-18 World Baseball Cup.
 
The match reports on the aces website have attendances too. https://melbourneaces.com.au/scores/

They all seem to be in the high hundreds to just cracking 2000 at some games

I asked AI to summarise the attendances off the match reports on the clubs own home page:

aces
total 36870
average 1844
lo 881
hi 2276

heat
total 42948
average 2147
lo 1654
hi 2503

Looks like a lot of abl teams have attendances that put the national league in question. it might drive them back to state based comps and a national carnival
 
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Australia kicked off its U-18 World Baseball Cup campaign today with a game against Germany in Japan. Unfortunately, Australia blew a 4-2 lead by allowing the Germans to score the last three runs of the game, going down 5-4 (games are seven innings long at this age bracket, not nine).

This is a far from ideal start for Team Australia, as they play Panama tomorrow, followed by China, then Taiwan on Monday, and the USA on Tuesday. It'll be a very tough game against the USA, and probably against Taiwan, so dropping the game against that noted baseball powerhouse Germany, does not help their chances of progressing to the Super Round.
 
USA defeated Japan 2-0 in the U-18 Baseball World Cup a couple of weeks ago. Australia ended up finishing eighth with four wins and four losses from their eight games (that first up loss to Germany ended up costing Australia a shot at getting into the Super Round), and they finished just behind Cuba thanks to a narrow 2-1 loss in extra innings to Cuba.

The WBSC updated its rankings following the completion of the U-18 Baseball World Cup and unfortunately, even though Australia gained a good amount of ranking points, they slipped one spot with Cuba jumping from 12th in the world to ninth. Australia consequently slipped outside the top 10 (down one spot to 11).

RankCountryPoints2025 PointsTrend
1Japan6646816-
2Taiwan5086724-
3USA4283920-
4Korea4169687-
5Venezuela36120+1
6Mexico3605177-1
7Puerto Rico3417336-
8Panama2899423+1
9Cuba2716408+3
10Netherlands2673148-2
11Australia2591318-1
12Dominican Republic2254202-1

The ranking does have implications for Australia's involvement in future tournaments. The WBSC will expand the Premier12 to feature 16 teams, with the top 12 programs in Men's Baseball at the end of 2025 earning direct qualification to the 2027 Premier12, while teams ranked 13th to 18th (plus two Wild Cards) will contest the Premier12 Qualifiers for the final four spots.

The WBSC current ranking now omits the points from the 2020 Olympic Games (which counted for four years) and the replacement of the points from the 2022 U-18 Baseball World Cup with the 2025 U-18 Baseball World Cup.
 
Australia swept Guam 5-0 in the U-23 Men's Baseball Oceania Championship earlier this month in Blacktown, NSW.

Not altogether unsurprising, as Australia featured two prospects in the Athletics' system, Max Durrington (also playing for Brisbane Bandits in the ABL) and Bjay Cooke (former position player and now a pitcher who used to play for Perth Heat, but didn't play in the ABL last season), as well as Solomon Maguire (an outfielder who used to be in the Pirates' minor league system, but was released by Pittsburgh earlier this year).

Australia won the first game 6-3, the second game 9-2, the third game 18-1, the fourth game 4-2 and the fifth game 10-0.

Accordingly, Australia qualified for the U-23 World Cup to be staged in Nicaragua this month.
 
smasha said:
Going to the Aces game coming up.
Should be fun.
Click to expand...

Is that the series against the Black Sox?

Given my son's baseball commitments, I probably won't be able to watch any Aces games until after Christmas.
 

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