The Glue Factory

Before the Defensive Specialist launches into today’s grand topic, it seems prudent to let the readership know a couple more nuggets about the ABL. Now you can take this one of two ways. 1) Wow, the Defensive Specialist is one plugged in dude or 2) Jesus, we’re really hurting for information if this is what this dude is passing off as inside information. Anyway, it’s a little bit of info that diehard fans will be totally interested in while others may yawn.

So the first bit of information is that all uniforms will be manufactured by Majestic whom many will know are the makers of Major League Baseball uniforms. The reason that information is interesting to the Defensive Specialist is that Majestic makes high quality products that look awesome and their additional clothing, like pullovers and fleeces, are probably the best on the market. At least we know that the teams will be wearing top quality gear.

The Defensive Specialist has received mixed reviews on the uniforms from varying sources with some teams looking big league and others a little on the disgraceful side. The Defensive Specialist is working hard to try to get some mock ups of the uniforms but is having limited luck so if any loyal readers happen to have some, fire them through and they can be posted here. If you’re an employee of the ABL, the Defensive Specialist will keep it anonymous (see the Defensive Specialist is always working for you).

Another cool piece of uniform information is that the team hats will be manufactured by New Era - which also provides hats to big league teams. This is great news because these hats are about 100 times better than anything teams were wearing last year. New Era just makes solid hats. Our teams will look and feel like professional clubs at the very least.

The last news item for today is the name of the Canberra franchise. You may recall the Defensive Specialist tossing out the ‘Capitals’ as a possibility last week while also suggesting that it was a rather boring option. Well, the Defensive Specialist is pleased to say that smarter people than him have spent countless hours conducting feasibility studies in order to come up with a name that really resonates with the baseball population. And that name is? The Canberra…….

Colts

Well at least they can have a fierce stallion as their logo and mascot!

In case you haven’t noticed, the Defensive Specialist isn’t overcome with excitement with the choice but it’s better than nothing… isn’t it?

Anyway, the Defensive Specialist is keen to hear the reader’s thoughts on those minor nuggets of information.

The other thing the Defensive Specialist wanted to discuss is the impact of the ABL on local baseball. Numerous people have asked the Defensive Specialist this question, however, it’s difficult to break it down without seeing a schedule so the Defensive Specialist is going to keep this one short. Any state that features senior baseball on Saturday is likely to feel the pinch because the best players will be drawn out of local baseball and onto the grander stage. Having said that, the Defensive Specialist suspects that the impact will not be as great because non-professionals are less likely to commit to the ABL due to real life work responsibilities. With an increase in games, the possibility of amateurs making themselves available decreases, thus keeping them in the local competition.

One thing that the Defensive Specialist knows is that the ABL will draw more kids into baseball so the impact in the long term is going to be a positive one. If you cast your mind back to the halcyon days of the early nineties when the ABL was pumping, there were unprecedented numbers of children playing teeball and moving onto baseball. If the ABL takes off like it did then, we can expect the junior ranks to swell again as kids have a league to aspire to and no longer have to waste their time dreaming of playing twenty/20.

One interesting point was made to the Defensive Specialist late last week. The league most likely to be impacted by the ABL is actually the NSW competition. The reason? The Canberra Colts. With proximity so close to Sydney and a limited pool of talent to draw from, the Canberra franchise will be gunning for players not quite ready to make the Sydney based ABL team. This means that NSW will be supporting 2 ABL franchises and the exodus of players will mean a bigger dent in the local competition. The Defensive Specialist has heard that practices are to be held in Campbelltown, which is kind of in the middle of Sydney and Canberra so obviously plans are in place to tap into the deep well of NSW’s available talent and use these players to compliment homegrown Canberra players.

The Defensive Specialist will have greater insight on the topic once the schedule is released and he can see how much time teams will spend away from home. In the meantime get busy drawing your best pony as the Canberra franchise is going to need a cool logo to make up for their new name!