Werribee Giants are revolutionising the way junior baseball competitions are structured.
Cricketers, basketballers, footballers – in fact all sports-mad youngsters from the ages of nine to 15 – are being encouraged to put together a team for a proposed new baseball competition to be played wholly at Presidents Park.
For most junior outdoor sports, a player represents a club, which travels to away venues. But the Giants want local players to form their own teams for a competition at the McGrath Road venue, similar to how basketball competitions are run at stadiums.
The new competition will be played on Sunday mornings, avoiding a possible clash with junior cricket, and games will run for two hours with travel time almost eliminated.
Giants president Ben Bavdek is enthusiastic about the new concept, which is only the first part of the club’s proposed set-up.
“In a way, it’s a new idea of the way local sport is played because most of the time you go down and play and represent that club, he told
Star Weekly.
“People can bring their own team and play in this competition and it gives them a shot to play with their friends. A cricket team may want to play baseball as a second sport or a soccer team that doesn’t play in summer can play.”
The competition will have two age groups, 9-12 and 12-15, and the Giants already have a number of teams interested and are about halfway to the numbers they need.
The Giants will adopt a Little League model, which has been run successfully in the US and at various associations in Australia.
The best 30 players will be selected to represent Werribee and will play in state championships to determine the best team in the state in a round-robin competition.
The champion will go on to represent Victoria at national level and the winner of that will play in the Little League World Series.
