Grant Shimmin OLYMPICS
For most South Africans, even the avid sports fans, the only time they ever see a baseball game is in a sports bar or – if they’re part of the growing satellite TV generation – when they happen to stumble on to ESPN when surfing through the other sports channels.
Perhaps a newfound disaffection with cricket, in the wake of Hansiegate, will drive a few more fans towards “America’s pastime”.
So is baseball destined to remain forever a “Cinderella” sport in South Africa, played mainly by those whose fathers were involved, with a couple of strongholds around the country, most notably in the Western Cape and Gauteng?
One man who believes otherwise is Raymond Tew, coach of the national team since 1993 and the man entrusted with the task of taking the team to the Olympics later this year.
“It’s something we believed would never happen,” says Tew, whose own experience as an international player began on a European tour in 1969.
Tew explains that the Pitch-Hit-Run development programme, sponsored by Major League Baseball and about to kick off its third year in South Africa, has taken off in hundreds of junior schools throughout the country. “With the Olympics coming up and the making of baseball heroes that will take place, I think it is really going to take off.”
A look at the selection criteria – based on which the men’s hockey side were excluded – shows baseball’s requirement was to be able to finish at least sixth in a competition containing just eight teams.
So can they do that? Their coach believes they can. In fact, he’s confident they can go even further, possibly reaching the top four, which would mean winning four of seven first-round encounters in eight days. “That’s a tough ask, but I’m confident we can beat Italy and Holland, and we can do reasonably well against [South] Korea and Australia,” says Tew.
Hitherto strictly limited to amateur players, the Olympic competition has been expanded to include a professional element this year. Each major league side in the United States has a complement of 40 players, of which only 25 can be on the roster at one time. Those 25 are ineligible, so we’re not about to see Mark McGwire or Ken Griffey Jnr blasting away for the US, but the others, playing in lower leagues, will come into the equation.
South Africa will benefit as its leading pitcher, Tim Harrell, playing in the upper A league for the Los Angeles Dodgers, is now available along with Paul Bell, a minor league player for the Milwaukee Brewers, who is a short stop and one of the national team’s leading hitters. Others, like Nicholas Dempsey, Ian Holness and Jason Cook, have professional experience in the States, while still other team members have been involved in US college baseball.
The use of pros has also necessitated an increase in squad sizes from 20 to 24, due to the restrictions placed on pitchers by their clubs. As Tew explains, in the US starting pitchers work on a four-day rotation and national teams are not allowed to use them any more often, so each squad contains a minimum of 11 pitchers.
“To get Tim Harrell released from the Dodgers, we had to sign an undertaking not to overuse him,” says Tew. “If he started one day and I wanted him to start again two days later, he’d have to refuse, otherwise he could get fired.”