Ballgame boom

Bendigo baseballers are hitting home runs on and off the diamond, with a resurgence in player numbers, the return of junior divisions, and big plans for the sport’s future.

By Raelee Tuckerman - Photography by Leon Schoots

In 2019, even before COVID threw us all a curve ball, local baseball was at a crossroad. Like a batter facing a full count with two out and bases loaded, the next play would be pivotal. After five seasons with no underage competition and its senior league reduced to just eight teams across two grades, the Bendigo Baseball Association swung into action. “It was a defining point for us,” recalls president Anthony Amsing. “We had the lowest membership numbers in BBA history and, while it was still really competitive, we were just treading water.” To save their sport, organisers committed to re-establishing junior baseball and, more recently, attracting female players to step up to the plate. The results have been stunning, even though the pandemic lockdowns scuttled their 2020 plans. “That was disappointing with all the work we’d done, but participation in our first year back of juniors in 2021 was phenomenal,” says Anthony. “We relaunched with a full complement of age groups – U/8 tee-ball, U/12, U/14 and U/16 – and the growth continues to exceed our expectations. “In 2014-15, the last realistic junior competition before it folded, we had 79 registered players. In 2021, we had 141 kids and so far this year, we are up to 216. There are also now 14 teams in our senior competition, up from 12 last year. It’s fantastic to see.”

Matches are played on Sundays between four longstanding clubs (Strathfieldsaye Dodgers, Bendigo East, Falcons and Scots) and newcomer Malmsbury. There are three senior grades, with the mixed Division 3 providing a supportive introduction to the sport for women and first-timers, as well as experienced players seeking a more relaxed competition and those moving up from juniors. Anthony, who plays Division 1 for Dodgers, started as a junior “back in the day” and now enjoys watching daughter Pia, 11, follow in his footsteps. He hopes youngsters like her will have greater opportunities to follow their field of dreams now there again is a home-town pathway. Harry Fitzgerald, 17, has done it the hard way. Despite limited local opportunities throughout most of his teenage years, the Falcons third baseman and pitcher has emerged as a rising star. He began playing in Bendigo as a six-year-old then joined Essendon at 11, travelling a well-worn road to Melbourne each weekend for matches. Harry toured Japan in 2017 with an U/12 Australian team; has represented both Victoria and the Melbourne-based Twins Baseball Charter squad at national junior championships; and has won senior and junior premierships, fielding and batting awards and MVP trophies both for Falcons and Essendon. He was named the 2019 Bendigo association’s Rookie of the Year and continues to impress at senior level locally and in Melbourne, where he still has a season of U/18s ahead of him. “My favourite memory is last year’s U/16 State League grand final against Malvern, when we’d been down by five runs in the last innings and I came up to bat with bases loaded,” he says. “I hit a double, then scored myself when I was batted around (by fellow Bendigonian Jordan Doherty) and we won the game. All my family were there watching… and that afternoon we won the senior grand final, too. It was a pretty good day.” Harry hails from a baseball family and says his parents Brian and Jeanine have supported him throughout his career, as has the Falcons club and the wider Bendigo baseball community. He aims to continue playing at a high level for as long as he can, while conceding “making a senior Australian team would be nice”. A perfect example of the BBA’s efforts to encourage women into the sport is Dodgers catcher Jess Loraine, who plays in the mixed Division 3. The 34-year-old teacher had always enjoyed netball and basketball but her interest was piqued when she saw a Facebook post last year looking for females to try baseball. “It’s very team oriented and I love how we banter and develop close relationships with players from other clubs,” she says. “It also gives you a great adrenaline rush – hitting a ball is one of the best therapies out there if you’re having a bad day to put you in a great mindset. And it’s good exercise, not too heavy on the cardio, so it’s appropriate for all different fitness levels.” Jess represented Bendigo last year in a friendly Women’s Baseball Challenge in Ballarat and is now on the local association’s female sub-committee. “We plan to get a twilight competition going over summer to get even more people involved. We held a training program over four weeks last summer for female adults and teenagers with skills and drills that was quite successful, so this year we hope to step that up to a mini-competition. “Baseball is great fun and I really wish I had known about it earlier in my life.” For Anthony and his fellow committee members, there is more on the baseball horizon for Bendigo, including a potential revamp of Albert Roy Reserve in Eaglehawk. It’s been on the drawing board for years, but talks resumed recently with the local council and state and national baseball governing bodies on some exciting possibilities. “We are looking to create a third diamond up to an international standard there, including lighting to enable night games,” he says. “Everyone has been very supportive but we need to show the benefits to the Bendigo community as a whole, from a business and tourism perspective as well as sport. It could lead to other things, mainly based on the Australian Baseball League competition.

The longer term plan would be to have international showcase events held here. “There’s already a longstanding connection between Bendigo and Japan in women’s baseball, with the city previously hosting a Challenger Series at Strathfieldsaye between the Australian Emeralds and a Japanese AllStar team. They played a multi-game series over a week and interacted with local schools and it was fantastic to build a connection with Japan and get that international flavour.” Other long-term plans include expansion of the local competition to eight clubs – perhaps targeting cricketers wanting to maintain fitness and skills in their off-season, as has been the case with Malmsbury – and, ultimately, for Bendigo to enter a team in the Victorian Summer Baseball League. “That’s a big aspiration for our association, though it’s still at least a couple of years off.” Bendigo will host the Victorian U/14 Baseball Championships on July 25-26. To find out more about the local winter league, visit www.bendigobaseball.com.au