New Zealand’s Getting A Team In The Aussie Baseball League, Chur
It’s always seemed a little off that Aotearoa hasn’t had more of a history with baseball. We’ve been outstanding at softball and cricket but baseball has never quite caught on, with only a handful of professional players in our history. So it’s great bloody news this week then that the kiwi team in the Australian Baseball League has been confirmed after heaps of speculation and even more hard work from the good folks involved.
Make no mistake here, baseball is one of the biggest sleeping sports in New Zealand. It’s been brilliant to watch the developments that Aotearoa has made in basketball over the last decade, with the Breakers winning championships, Steven Adams doing incredible things and more kiwis making a mark on college basketball than ever before. Both male and female players, by the way. There’s money in that sport all over the world and you can make a genuine career out of it if you’re good enough.
Baseball has the same potential. Probably not as much, since it’s a sport with more competition for players in this part of the world, but why can’t we have players in the Major League? Every now and then there’s a story about some prospect that’s signed a minor league deal so you know the seeds are being sown somewhere. Kyle Glogoski was the latest, the Auckland-born pitcher signing with the Philadelphia Phillies earlier in the year. Infielder Scott Campbell spent several years in the Toronto Blue Jays system, advancing as far as AAA ball, same as Travis Wilson before him who spent seven years in the Atlanta Braves system. John Holdzkom pitched 9.0 innings for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 2014 season, a year after representing New Zealand, the country of his father’s birth, in the qualifying rounds for the World Baseball Classic.
John Holdzkom in 2015: “Obviously, I’m American but if you look back at the U.S. soccer team back in the 1920s, it was all people from Europe who had (immigrated here). That’s what New Zealand has to do with baseball right now, until they get it going. I’m happy to help build the sport. I’m not going to pretend to be Mr. Kiwi, but at the same time I want to help the sport there if I can.”
Holdzkom (who’s currently a free agent) is pretty typical of the work Baseball NZ have been doing trying to attract players with NZ links to get involved in the programme in this country. The Diamondblacks have benefitted from that. LA Dodgers third base coach Chris Woodward, who played 659 games in the Majors, coached the side in their failed attempt to qualify for the last WBC. Like Holdzkom said it’s all about getting talent and knowledge involved so that this country can build some baseball foundations.
Now with a team to be included in the ABL there’s suddenly a home base for all this, pun most definitely intended. That’s how this sport is going to unlock this hidden potential, it’s always down to people power. Having a local team to support will engage a dormant fanbase and inspire the young ones with the notion that baseball is a viable option for them. Getting a kiwi into MLB would do the same – look at what Steven Adams is doing for basketball in Aotearoa. Baseball NZ’s CEO Ryan Flynn, who has done so much of this legwork, knows exactly what’s going on.
Ryan Flynn, in January: “Kyle's success shows our kids growing up in New Zealand that they, too, can go a long way in this beautiful game…and once we have our own team in the ABL, players such as Kyle will have greater access to a professional level of play and development system domestically - a great stepping stone to highest levels in the world, especially in the United States and Asia.”
The ABL has really stepped it up in the last couple years after being reincarnated in 2010. The most recent season saw the Brisbane Bandits take home the championship, beating Canberra Heat in the finals. Both those teams will soon be very familiar to the new NZ franchise (which will apparently play at North Harbour Stadium in Auckland) as they’ll compete in the same conference, along with the Sydney Blue Sox.
Two more teams, Winterball Korea being the other, will bring the competition to eight teams. This’ll be the first time the competition’s split into conferences. 160 total games over ten weeks, 40 games for each team. Exciting stuff.
What’s more is that the timing of the Aussie season has helped establish it as an MLS winter league where American prospects can chill out in their usual offseason. Usually they go to Latin America or the Caribbean, the former obviously more suited for Spanish speakers, but if the ABL continues to grow and expand then that’s a legitimate option. Same as NBA prospects having a season in the Aussie NBL. Terrance Ferguson played in Adelaide as opposed to going to an American college and was drafted in the first round last year.
Gotta remember that these franchises are all frantically looking for any way to stay competitive in such a brutal environment and international players remain one of the great inefficiencies to exploit. Again, we’re seeing the NBA welcome record numbers of foreign players these days. They’re the standard bearers. But the MLB is without doubt expanding its scouting ranges while even the stupidly patriotic NFL is offering more opportunities for international players. See, this takeover goes both ways.
All of which means you’d better be ready for the baseball revolution in Aotearoa because it’s coming, whether you know it or not.
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