'Let's do it Canberra' bid hits home run!

Juice Terry said :

Personally I’ve no interest in Baseball, but I’ve nothing against it either, so good on em.

The first two posts on this article are absolutely typical of this site though. They’ve no interest in it themselves to they pour scorn. Idiots.

Yeah, asking a serious question is just pouring scorn on it, isn’t it. Idiot!

Canberra doesn’t have a big enough supporter base, and I fear that event though this plan is probably better than the Bushrangers of the 1990, I still don’t think it’ll survive very long.

I wish them the best of luck though.

The newly formed Australian Baseball League (ABL) has been formed as a partnership between the Australian Baseball Federation and Major League Baseball from the U.S. Each franchise is owned by this partnership so the chance of Canberra experiencing another Bushrangers ‘incident’ are slim to none.

Canberra’s inclusion into the ABL is a massive boost to not only baseball within the region but for the community as a whole.

Firstly the Narrabundah Baseball Park will be given an upgrade. This will mean it will be a better facility for years to come and, if improved to its full potential, can be used for more sports than just baseball.

Secondly and most importantly, the ABL will be a ‘development’ league for players to be given a leg up to overseas competition. This means that talented players of the ages of 16 and up will no longer be forced to move overseas for extended periods of time in order to achieve their dreams.

This will also mean current Australian’s overseas will be able to come back to their home town and play in front of their friends and family.

The current Claxton Shield MVP is a Canberran, he plays out of Perth and currently works three days a week in Canberra then travels to wherever the Perth Heat are playing that weekend. I’ve spoken to him on many occasions and he’s told me what it would mean to him to represent Canberra and play in front of his family, friends and all of the juniors he has coached over the years.

Canberra’s local competition will also be enhanced by our inclusion in the ABL. Off the back of the ‘Let’s do it Canberra’ bid there was an increase of almost 250 players registered for the season that just kicked off, with a vast majority of the newly registered players being seen in the junior (below 16) and Women’s leagues. One can only imagine how much this would increase once the team starts next year.

More players equals more talent which in turn means stronger competition at all levels of the game.

A Canberra team in the ABL will give greater opportunity for children of all ages to become involved in a summer sport, indeed with such a high importance being placed on junior development, Canberra’s inclusion into the league will benefit more than just the players themselves.

dubious75 said :

NickD said :

How much tax/ratepayers money is being wasted on this?

Kate Ellis announced in Jul this year that a grant of $400,000 was given to “support plans for a new national baseball league.”

And the RSPCA gets a quarter of that. Screw you, Kate.

I quite like baseball.

So do I.

Congratulations to the bid team. I’ll definitely head along to a few games. Where will the local ABL games be played – Bruce?

This will be good to have another national team.
The problem last time with the Bushrangers is that they tried to play out of Bruce Stadium which was far too big and they didn’t have enough support.
I think this new team will be playing out of a fixed up Narrabundah ball park which is far more feasible.

Personally I’ve no interest in Baseball, but I’ve nothing against it either, so good on em.

The first two posts on this article are absolutely typical of this site though. They’ve no interest in it themselves to they pour scorn. Idiots.

NickD said :

How much tax/ratepayers money is being wasted on this?

Let’s see…Kate Ellis announced in Jul this year that a grant of $400,000 was given to “support plans for a new national baseball league.” http://www.kateellis.com.au/newsroom/159/. The article claims that this grant was in addition to the $6.3m provided to baseball over the last 4 years. I could do a lot of cool things with $400k but in terms of federal funding its a pittance. I have no idea what the $6.3 million was spent on but I imagine it’s spent sending national teams away to compete in things like the World Baseball Classic, olympic qualifying (which we failed to do) and the like. Did you know Australia won the Silver Medal for baseball at the 2004 Summer Olympics? That may have prompted an injection of funding.

Is it a waste? I don’t think so. It would be a waste if people were building baseball fields “Field of Dreams” style in the middle of paddocks with no guarantee they were going to be used but thankfully the baseball facilities around the ACT are pretty well used by kids and adults throwing leather encased balls, hitting them with wooden bats then running while other player chasing the ball that was hit. Sounds very much like another sport that I’m guessing gets way more funding than baseball but certainly has a much larger following so rightly gets more.

I think it’s a good thing. For the last 10 years the highest level of baseball you could play in Australia has been Claxton Shield which is a state vs state competition which before the last two years ran for about a week. Other than that you got to play against the best players that could be mustered up in your local area. Basically if you had any talent you had to head overseas. A national comp may help some of our talent stay local longer and let us get some entertainment from watching them. It can be a pretty entertaining game when played at higher levels. So when it starts in 2010 think about going and watching a game.

How much tax/ratepayers money is being wasted on this?

Haven’t we been down this track before in the early-mid 1990s with the ACT Bushrangers – only for it all to fall over through lack of support?