Baseball Victoria, Author at Baseball Victoria

With just under a month until the 2018 National Youth Championships, our Victorian teams continue to prepare themselves and they’re getting plenty of help from the Melbourne Aces.

It’s quite a site to behold on Wednesday nights at the Ballpark when our Melbourne Aces and State Teams programs come together for their weekly session.

At any one time you’ll be able to see up to 80 players on the field, all training together. Young up and coming infielders take ground balls and practice their double plays turns with Jarryd Dale and Darryl George while outfielders take flyballs with 10-year Major League veteran Delmon Young and catchers work alongside Japanese all-star Tomoya Mori and Team Australia’s Allan de San Miguel.

Head out the back to the new bullpen area at Melbourne Ballpark and you’ll see ex-Major Leaguers Mark Hamburger, Virgil Vasquez and Matt Marksberry talk pitching and throwing their bullpens alongside our U16s and U18s and Korean Big Leaguer Hei-Chun Lee showing the kids how he holds his pitches.

When Jon Deeble arrived at the Melbourne Aces last season he spoke a lot about culture and has repeatedly said, “we’re not necessarily trying to win a championship, we’re trying to build a dynasty” and its hard to disagree with those sentiments when you’re there to watch a Wednesday night training session in person.

Having the state teams work in with the Aces is not a new concept and something Baseball Victoria’s High-Performance Manager Damien Shanahan has been quite passionate about for a number of years but the integration of the two programs this year has truly gone to a new level.

Speak to any of the players, particularly the local guys, and they can do nothing but rave about the sessions and something they hope just becomes a part of the expectations of being and Aces player.

The amount of time spent, planning and preparing sessions of this size and getting the buy-in from players and coaches to get the program to this level is something that’s probably been understated in the past. And while the experience of training alongside and being coached by some of the best in the game is absolutely priceless for aspiring players, Shanahan has already hinted at some of his plans to further expand the program to include more players and more coaches.

The 2018 National Youth Championships take place in Sydney from 5 – 14 January while the Aces will return to Melbourne for their next home series against the Sydney Blue Sox from 15 -17 December.

The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), has revealed that Nicaragua and Panama will host the 2018 U23 and U15 World Cups respectively.

Australia are aiming to defend their silver medal at the 2016 U23 World Cup after a historic run which included victories over Korea, Chinese Taipei and Panama.

Australia's 2016 U15 World Cup featured victories over Korea and New Zealand, with narrow losses against baseball powerhouses Cuba and Mexico.

"WBSC is excited to award these two Baseball World Cups to Nicaragua and Panama, where baseball, like with many Latin America countries, is considered the national sport," said WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari.

Stay tuned to www.baseball.com.au for U23 and U15 World Cup qualification information.

The Women's All-Star Game had a last minute venue change, but that didn't stop some of the best baseballers in the country putting on a show at the Springvale Lions Baseball Club yesterday.

The Under 25s (U25s) took on the Over 25s (O25s) in a great contest, with the U25s prevailing 12-7.

Amy Collins gave the O25s a great start on the mound, tossing three scoreless innings to begin the ballgame.

The O25s also managed to take an early lead, but the fourth inning proved the gamechanger, with the U25s scoring seven runs to go ahead.

The O25s showed their experience throughout the ballgame, but to their credit, the U25s remain composed and ended up winning comfortably.

Unfortunately due to the unforgiving weather this weekend, our competition management has deemed it necessary to cancel all junior games tomorrow (Sunday 2 December) morning. With numerous clubs needing to make this decision today and the forecast not looking likely to improve we feel this is the appropriate decision at this time.

At present, we are only cancelling the scheduled junior games.

Senior games will remain as scheduled and the decision on those games will be the responsibility of club secretaries and/or their chosen representatives, as per By-Law 24.

If you are unsure or have further questions, please get in touch with your respective club contact people.

While we're hoping for the best, we can't control the weather and with the forecasts looking ominous we wanted to provide the community with an update on the process for cancelling games if it should come to that.

Competition By-Laws state that:

i) In advance, the Baseball Victoria Competition Manager may consider a full or partial cancellation (i.e. Competition Manager may choose to cancel some or all divisions) in advance and where applicable will seek necessary guidance from the Victorian Director of Umpiring, Bureau of Meteorology and/or selected medical and legal practitioners. Should this occur, all clubs will be notified via email and/or text message to Club Secretaries and via the competition website.

ii) On Game Day, if the Competition Manager has not made a decision in advance or advised for players to attend for play, decisions regarding play shall be in the hands of the home Club Secretary (or his/her nominee - as per Rule of Baseball 3.10 (a).

We are reluctant to make blanket decisions that impact the entire state as the competing clubs of Baseball Victoria competitions are wide-spread geographically and so in accordance with the above mentioned rules, a decision on today’s (Friday 1 December) games (Juniors) has not yet been made by Baseball Victoria and will be left up to Club Secretaries until Game time.

In accordance with the above By Law if any club secretary decides on the day that your ground is unplayable please notify your opposition as early as possible as they will need time to advise their team members.

We hope that if the predicted weather does arrive, that all of the baseball community take the necessary precautions to keep themselves and families safe. We'll endeavour to keep everyone as up to date as possible and cross our fingers that baseball is not impacted too severely this weekend.

Following reports in Taiwanese media last week of Australia's interest in putting a team into the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), Baseball Australia CEO Cam Vale can today confirm the accuracy of these reports.

"We are exploring the options of entering a team into the prestigious CPBL - through the major league and/or the minor league," Vale said.

"Discussions are in a very preliminary stage with the CPBL and a number of other key stakeholders."

"The CPBL is seeking to expand and we are looking at creating a professional club team to compete in Asia, so it aligns for both parties to discuss"

"Both the CPBL and Taiwan are important parts of international baseball in our region, and like my meetings with NPB and KBO, we are keen to build stronger partnerships that are of mutual benefit to these Leagues and countries."