Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, who take turns batting and fielding. A rich legacy and a fascinating history, baseball has a past stuffed with legends, tales and adventures.
Baseball arrived in Australia in the 1850s with the American gold miners and was played on the gold fields of Ballarat. 30 years later the Union Baseball Club was formed by American residents. Aussies joined the Yanks to form the Sydney Baseball Club a year later. In 1913 the Australian Baseball Council was created.
The first interstate baseball championship took place in 1890 when South Australia played Victoria on the East Melbourne Cricket Ground. South Australia won by 2 matches to 1.
Seven years later players from the two teams joined together to become the first overseas tour by an Aussie team. They toured the United States where they won 8 games and lost 14 to the Americans.
Women played baseball too in Australia as early as 1918. There were several women’s associations in the 1920s and 1930s and even an interstate series in 1934. However, women’s baseball disappeared in 1939 when the game was found to be “unsuitable” for women. Softball then replaced baseball for women.
That’s changed today with an Australian Women’s Team playing in the inaugural Women’s World Series in Toronto, Canada in 2001 and 2 years later, a Women’s World Series in Melbourne.
- Australian Baseball League
- Australian Baseball Federation
- ACT – Baseball Association
- NSW – Patriots Baseball League
- NSW – Country Baseball
- NSW – Country Women’s Baseball
- NT – Baseball NT
- QLD – Baseball Queensland
- WA – Baseball
- VIC – Baseball Victoria
- SA – Baseball SA
- Pints Baseball Club
- WA Claxton Shield Club
- WA – Little League
- WA – Women’s Baseball
- WA – Provincial League
- Palmerston & Rural Baseball Club
- Nightcliff Tigers Baseball Club
- WA Baseball Umpires Association
- WA Baseball Scorers & Statisticians Assoc