Saturday, February 04, 2012

Baseball in Melbourne

With its competition including the likes of Aussie rules football, rugby and cricket, growing the sport of baseball in Australia is a tough task. However, there’s no better way to compete than by winning, and the Melbourne Aces are doing their best to gain popularity and keep up with Victoria’s sporting powerhouses by doing just that.

The Australian Baseball League has been back in action for only two seasons now, but Aces General Manager Windsor Knox believes that his team is on the right track.

“We’re in our infancy,” Knox said. “It’s like David and Goliath with baseball here. There are eight footy teams, a couple rugby teams, a couple cricket teams and a couple soccer teams. We’re gaining some slow acceptance here. The numbers are climbing but we’re still very, very small compared to the rest of them here.”

Baseball is starting to break in as a contender for fans and local support in Melbourne, and will hopefully continue to gain momentum. The Aces GM knows that the product his organisation provides at the Melbourne Showgrounds is what has allowed them prolonged success, like to continue in the future.

“With the things that we’ve done, and a lot of the teams in the ABL have done, we get families that walk up to us at the end of the game and say, ‘What a great experience’,” Knox said. “It’s not only fun watching the game and the between-inning activities but when you can bring your family of four out for 40 bucks and give value for that with what we do in entertainment it’s great. And that’s what we try to do over the other sports. They don’t have this kind of entertainment package.”

Melbourne will have a chance to leave an impression on at least one more set of fans this season, as Victoria will host the second round of ABL playoffs. The Aces took the second spot in the league standings through the regular season, earning them the opportunity to compete against the first-place Perth Heat in the first round of the post-season. After a series loss, Melbourne now welcomes Sydney to determine who will head to the championship.

“It will be tremendous,” Knox said of hosting another round of baseball in Melbourne. “To host a post-season series is going to help the sport, not only just for the fans but I think for the sponsorship, media attention and all-around membership. So it’s going to be extremely critical for us to try and get that exposure over the next couple of weeks.”

What should be most encouraging for fans of sport in Victoria is that the Aces have made it this far into the season using a majority of home-grown talent. Hopefully the local success stories can assist in the development of baseball in the area and will see young fans turn into ABL players as the league grows.

“We don’t have the same number of imports, or the MLB affiliate players, that Adelaide and Perth and probably to some degree Sydney have,” Knox said. “Most of our guys are Victorian, Australian-born talent. Guys like Paul Weichard, Justin Huber, just to name a couple of the guys, Darryl George, Josh Davies, those guys are all home grown talent. We’ve really relied upon a lot of local guys to help us get to where we are today.”

With post-season time left to play, the Melbourne Aces have a chance to develop the name of baseball in Victoria even further. Knox believes that the success of the organisation will have an impact on fans, and also that they are helped by the calibre of supporters in Victoria.

“It’s a growing and emerging sport,” Knox said of baseball in Melbourne. “And the passion that people have for sport here, not only for baseball, is probably the best of anywhere in Australia.”

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