Strike-out for baseball plans

Andrew Mathieson
DATES pencilled in for Geelong to host matches in a revamped national baseball competition have been rubbed off from this summer’s sporting calendar.
The sport’s state authorities said Victoria’s premier baseball facility at Waurn Ponds was snubbed to avoid “alienating a lot of baseball people”.
Geelong Regional Baseball Centre hosted Victorian Claxton Shield games last year but has been overlooked since the centre’s visiting home team was rebranded Melbourne Aces under the new Australian Baseball League.
Aces general manager Stephen Nash confirmed Geelong was out of the running to host matches even though a ready-made baseball centre was unavailable for the team in Melbourne.
“At this stage we won’t be playing games down at Geelong,” he said.
“We’re hopefully going to make an announcement very shortly of a venue here in Melbourne where we can scheduled all of our home games, so we won’t be playing any ABL games in Geelong this season.”
Mr Nash said Geelong would remain a “back-up” plan in case the team’s Melbourne venue failed to attract support.
“We’re not ruling that we will ever play in Geelong. For this initial season, we want to test the water at a central venue in Melbourne.”
Leading Geelong baseball officials had expressed interest in hosting matches and City Hall officers had been in talks with the ABL to host some of the Aces’ 20 home games from November.
Mr Nash said the Aces were pleased with crowd numbers at last year’s Claxton Shield games.
“Even though Geelong has a good venue, obviously playing down at Geelong would alienate a lot of baseball people,” Mr Nash said.
“The reason we brought games down to Geelong is because the facility is very, very good.
“But from a geographical point of view, it is not where we want to be playing our games.”
Geelong also missed out on fielding its own team in the new league, which has teams in Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth as well as Melbourne.
League chairman Mark Peters told the Independent earlier this year Geelong would be in contention for an expanded eight or 10-team competition within the next three years.