Players flock to ballpark

A LOCAL club is set to field thirteen sides in this year’s Bendigo Baseball Association season in what is a massive jump in participation numbers.

Strathfieldsaye Dodgers Baseball Club president and junior coach Anthony Amsing said the growth of the club has been quite remarkable.

“It’s kind of exploded,” he said. “We’ve been around since 1964 so the club has gone through stages of massive growth and then some reduction which is to be expected.

“It got to the point in 2019 when, we ironically won our first division one flag in 15 years or so, that we had no junior team and in fact, there was no junior competition at all.

“Fast forward through COVID-19 stoppages and league relaunches and we have gone from having just two senior teams in 2019 to 13 teams in total this season.

“We’ve got six senior teams and seven junior teams in the local competition. So yeah, it’s gone from strength to strength in the last couple of years.”

Amsing said the club has adopted an all-inclusive approach which has really helped with the growth.

“We’ve made it an absolute priority to accommodate, junior and senior players in whatever capacity they’re able to play,” he said.

“This year, for example, we have three teams in the third division. That competition is predominantly based on participation. There’s still a desire to win but we encourage anyone to give it a try.

“We’ve got women and girls playing for us, older people and younger kids so there is a widespread of people playing for us.”

The growth of the club and the sport in the region is great said Amsing, especially with the head start other sports and leagues have in Australia.

“The battle’s always against the mainstream sports that are obviously well-funded,” he said.

“Your soccer, basketball and football have great exposure, but the numbers for baseball are promising.”