The Best Laid Plans

The Defensive Specialist had it all planned out this past week:

Step 1: make a series of awesome predictions that would allow numerous people to bet their life savings and retire early.

Step 2: bypass Friday night’s Blue Sox / Aces contest because Chris Oxspring was going for the Sydneysiders and you can almost guess what his line is going to look like.

Step 3: head to Blacktown Olympic Park on Saturday and catch 2 games of solid baseball.

Step 4: bypass game 4 of the Blue Sox / Aces contests in order to take baby daughter to her first Christmas party and secure gorgeous photos of her with Santa.

Lets just say that the plan did not run as smoothly as the Defensive Specialist had hoped. To start with the series predictions were just an embarrassment:

Heat Vs Bandits: The Defensive Specialist called a series sweep to the Heat on their home soil. The Bandits had other ideas, splitting the series 2-2 and keeping the third game tighter than bark on a tree, only to lose on a walk off jack. We’ve talked up Brisbane’s pitching of late but manager Dave Nilsson will be pleased as punch with the offensive output of his boys who thoroughly out-hit the Heat across the series. The Heat would have to be disappointed continually splitting series at home because it makes life tougher having to head out on the road needing to win 3 out of 4 to stay competitive.

Bite Vs Multiculturalists: Ok so this one was a total Defensive Specialist abortion. Your old pal suggested that Adelaide would take 3 games. Well they definitely took it – directly in the rear passage for 3 games! Have we finally seen the awakening of the Multiculturalists who took it directly to the league leaders and left them battered and bruised in the nations capital? Donald Lutz and the lads put on their hitting shoes this weekend outscoring the Bite 20-8 while the pitching staff put the clamps on what has been the most prolific hitting line-up this season. Manager Tony Harris will be staring at himself in the mirror, searching for answers after a sickening weekend in Canberra.

Aces Vs Blue Sox: Ok, this one kind of redeemed things - well not really. The Defensive Specialist called a 2-2 result and we ended up with a 2-0-1, which will have American readers scratching their heads and wondering how the hell a baseball game ended up a drawn contest. With weather playing a factor and drawing out the game time, the Melbourne boys needed to hit the airport in order to get out of town so they game was called in the 9^th all tied up. Both managers have to be wondering where all the offense has gone as the squads combined to plate 9 runs over 3 games.

The Defensive Specialist did manage to execute Step 2 in the plan, successfully not attending game 1 of the series as Oxspring went head to head against Adam Blackley. The Aces actually out-hit the Blue Sox, but in the end this was a pitching dual.

Step 3 went pair shaped fairly significantly. The Defensive Specialist took his seat in the members section as the Aces took infield outfield. Coach Damien Shanahan stole a glance into the stands, noticed the Defensive Specialist and abruptly walked off the field without attempting a catcher’s pop up. Perhaps this angered the Baseball Gods because before the Blue Sox could even take the field, the skies opened and delivered an absolute deluge on the yard that had the infield cut-out looking like a swamp. The first game was called off almost immediately with the second game postponed to 8pm. As the rain kept coming and the field remained soggy, the second game was cancelled and a double header was scheduled for Sunday.

This presented a quandary for the Defensive Specialist who had parenting responsibilities lined up for Sunday. You don’t become Superdad without doing the hard yards so the Defensive Specialist made the tough call to skip seeing any baseball over the weekend and introduced his daughter to Santa for the first time. Seeing her little smile more than made up for missing a 9-inning ball game that ended up in a tie!

Enough of the Defensive Specialist lowering his guard and appearing anything less than hard-ass. So what do we make out of all this? Well firstly the Defensive Specialist may have to stop trying to predict winners because it’s disheartening to screw up so badly every week. The upside however is that perhaps there is greater parity in this league than we first thought. The Multiculturalists and Bandits were written off by most experts before the season commenced as being also rans with Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide expected to battle it out in the top 4. What we’re seeing is all 6 teams flashing the ability to mix it up across a 4 game series, which is great for the league and its fans.

So that’s how the Defensive Specialist will defend his picks – parity across the teams!

Anyway, the Defensive Specialist expects the Aces to improve and is worried for the league if the top of the table Blue Sox ever decide that they’re going to start hitting as their 43 runs scored is the lowest in the league despite a 10-4 record which speaks wonders for the strength of their pitching staff.

Unless some sugar daddy decides they want to pony up the cash to fly the Defensive Specialist around the country, the next live action of 2010 will be on December 30^th as the Blue Sox take on the Heat in Perth. Do not fret however, the Defensive Specialist will continue to fill the internet with baseball knowledge, as only he can.. 

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!