The Australian Baseball League kicked off their 2020/21 season last week...kind of. Only two of the eight scheduled games were able to be played. The Canberra Cavalry was unable to travel to Perth due to Western Australia's requirement that people from New South Wales quarantine for 14 days due to a COVID outbreak on Sydney's North Shore. Similarly the Melbourne Aces left Sydney after playing only two of their four games with the Blue Sox to get back to Victoria before the state closed their border with New South Wales. I'm not sure at the moment what the league's plans are going forward - at the moment it looks like the only games scheduled for next weekend are games between the Aces and Cavalry in Canberra.
In past seasons there have been a number of NPB teams that have sent players to Australia but for obvious reasons that is not happening this year. I did recently learn though that there's at least one Japanese player who signed with an ABL team this winter. Former Fighters pitcher Masaru Nakamura has joined the Brisbane Bandits (who don't have a scheduled game until January).
Nakamura had been the Fighters first round pick in the 2009 Draft but had been released by them after the 2019 season. He had attended the 12 team tryout last year but he didn't caught on with anyone and announced his retirement. He had traveled to Brisbane earlier this year (not sure if it was January or March) to study English and so was already in country when all the COVID-19 travel restrictions went into effect. He had played with the Surfers Paradise Club baseball team during the Australian winter and signed with Brisbane back in September.
Here's a card of Nakamura from the 2013 BBM Young Fighters set (#YF06):
2 comments:
Would be cool to see an Australian baseball game. Do you know how many Japanese players are in Australia?
As I said, in past seasons NPB teams have sent players over but I don't think anyone is sending anyone this year. I'm not sure if there are any other players like Nakamura - Japanese players not currently on an NPB team - on anyone's roster this year. There's usually one or two guys like that though.
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