Double celebration for women's baseball

 

 

Aside from regularly fielding three or four teams – three this season - in the Baseball Victoria competition, Doncaster has produced a welter of outstanding individual players who have represented Victoria and Australia at elite level.

 

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of its involvement in women’s baseball, Doncaster Baseball Club has organised a Past and Present Players Day to coincide with a triple-header being played on Saturday 6 February, at Deep Creek.

 

The programme is as follows:

 

 

Currently third in Division Three, the Dragons will take on fourth-placed Bundoora in the early game. With Doncaster holding top placing and Springvale second in both Divisions One and Two, supporters are assured of a great day of baseball and social engagement that is sure to attract a large crowd.

 

But as in those Demtel advertisements from another time, there is more - much more - as Doncaster celebrates the career of a club stalwart and outstanding achiever in the sport.

 

 

Hamilton has been there from the start – since 2003 as Head Coach - and is very well credentialled to reflect upon the development of the Doncaster programme and upon the current state of women’s baseball.

 

Hamilton’s initiation into the sport did not come about through any prior family involvement in the game. In fact it was quite fortuitous for all concerned.

 

“I saw an ad in the local Leader Newspaper advertising a Come and Try Day at Greenhills-Montmorency Baseball Club back in 1996,” Hamilton recalls. “They'd had a team the previous inaugural season, but were looking to increase that to two teams the following summer.”

 

“I was hooked on the sport after my first game,” she said. “I hit an in the park home-run against Newport.” Certainly an auspicious start for the first sacker/outfielder who has earned a stack of accolades in the sport at all levels – including the World Cup Stolen Bases Award and the Baseball Victoria Hitting Award.

 

 

When her side moved from Greenhills to Doncaster, Hamilton had no idea of where it would lead her and the Doncaster club.

 

“We moved for better facilities and it all just snowballed. Now we have the biggest programme in the country,'' Hamilton said.

 

"From day one we wanted to be competitive but the game play, knowledge and desire to improve has been the big stand out. We're not women playing baseball, but baseballers who happen to be women."

In Hamilton’s time at Doncaster, the Dragons have contested six grand finals and have been victorious twice. Runners-up in both Division One and Two last season, Hamilton is keen for her charges to go one better – especially in the tenth year of the women’s programme.

 

A permanent fixture in the national side, Hamilton has played in every Australian team since its inception in 2001 and has been an annual fixture in Victorian teams since 1999. The 36 year-old still has the motivation to achieve at elite level while savouring the highlights and the experiences delivered through her involvement in the sport.

 

“The Australian Women's team has come fourth in the last three World Cups,” Hamilton lamented. “I'm growing tired of coming home with nothing, so this year - if selected - I know that I'll being doing everything I can to contribute to winning our first World Cup medal.”

 

"I've got a good chance to make the World Cup side later this year (United States in August) and I'd love to play in 2012, but then that might be it. I can envisage down the track being part of the coaching staff, but I don't want to look back and think maybe I should've played in one more World Cup or one more nationals campaign,'' she said.

 

In an outstanding career studded with highlights, Hamilton regards winning a gold medal at the 2002 World Series as her greatest thrill at international level.

“Playing baseball in Japan in 2005 for Tokyo Wellness College for four months - where we became the Tokyo Champions – was a wonderful experience. I’ve also been fortunate enough to have played at two Major League stadiums – the Skydome (in Toronto, Canada) and Tropicana Field (Florida, USA).”

 

For all that, though, Hamilton fondly recalls winning the Baseball Victoria Division One title in 2005/06 as “probably my most memorable achievement.”

 

Achievers in any field of sporting endeavour rarely – if ever – do so without experiencing the gamut of highs and lows. Indeed so in Hamilton’s case, where illness and injury have both posed a threat during her stellar career.

 

Diagnosed with a kidney disease (nephrotic syndrome) two years ago did not quite sideline her from the game, but made it difficult to achieve at her customarily high level.

 

“I'd gained fifteen kilograms of fluid to my body, but mostly in my legs,” Hamilton said.
 

“Even simple things like walking became difficult some days, but I never gave up playing or training. I look almost unrecognisable now compared to back then.”

“I had a shoulder reconstruction nine months ago after diving for a flyball in a training mishap prior to the 2008 World Cup. The accident didn't stop me from playing overseas or at the following National Championships in Geelong (where she incidentally received the Victorian Team MVP). Unfortunately - if I ever wanted to throw again – I had to have an operation,” she said.

 

“So as I head into my twelfth Victorian team (for the National Championships on the Gold Coast in April), I potentially could have the best arm, and be the fittest I've been since my first team.”

 

 

As a regular Australian representative, Hamilton has developed a first-hand sense of how Australian women’s baseball players stack up against their counterparts.

 

“We seem to do rather well against the other countries,” she observed, “and our style of game continues to grow with each World Cup campaign.”

 

“We've gone from a team selected from Nationals - which just went away - to a squad of the best thirty players in the country selected and put through intensive training camps, constant fitness testing, then cut to eighteen having international game play before heading into a tournament,” Hamilton said.

 

“The professionalism has grown also through the opportunity of living and playing baseball overseas – such as the time I spent in Japan.”

 

The capacity of women’s baseball to grow and to further prosper in Australia is an issue close to Hamilton’s heart.

“I would love to see more girls and women playing baseball. But when you hear stories of clubs turning away junior girls from playing as their clubs only have boys in the teams, it breaks my heart,” Hamilton says.

 

“Thankfully we have a good junior girls program at Doncaster that is helping to filter through into our senior women's teams. That will continue to strengthen our programme for years to come.”

“It is exciting to see the youth now coming through from all parts of Australia,” Hamilton said. “Back when the first Australian team was selected, it was made up of eighteen Victorians out of twenty. But now - as we head into almost a decade of having had a team - youth is beginning to dominate selections from all states, with the average age being around nineteen years.”

“I can see that in the future our National team will continue to grow in strength as the ABF is beginning to acknowledge that our programme is one of worth.”

 

Increasing participation numbers and developing our capacity to produce more women players at elite level depends so much on the support and the promotion that it receives at grassroots level, which is where Hamilton will again find herself at Deep Creek Reserve on Saturday.

 

“I’ve played in eleven national championships and won nine,” Hamilton said. “But for me, winning a club Grand Final is a step ahead of the other stuff – especially as a Coach.”

 

“You work so hard all year, with the same group striving towards the same goal. There is nothing better than rocking up on Saturday, hanging out with your mates and giving it your all.”

 

In her seventh season as a senior coach described by Dragons Men's Coach Stephen Black as “well respected and very knowledgeable”, Hamilton derives plenty from her leadership role.

 

"A lot of people ask me what it is I enjoy. It's the smallest things - like seeing a player hit a hard ball to the fence and running a triple,'' she said. "It's daggy, but you feel like you've played a small part in their success and I just want to contribute to making my players the best they can be."