It’s all hands on deck as the Gauteng Province Baseball Council (GPBC) prepares to host the National Baseball Championship (NBC) from April 1-11 at the Cardinals Baseball Club diamonds in Boksburg.
Organised by the South African Baseball Union (SABU), the NBC will begin with the juniors taking to the field on April 1. The seniors will follow six days later.
“We’ll have around eight teams. From April 1, they’ll play round-robin matches for about three days. We will then split them into three sections (A, development and championship sections) to give everybody a chance to compete,” said the GPBC’s Dean McKinnon.
Gauteng came second in all age groups at last year’s games. The U18s lost their final by a single run in a tightly contested game against hosts Western Cape, while the ladies bagged gold in their division.
“We are excited. Last year we travelled to Cape Town with 240 players. This year we have 245. We are hosting and it’s going to be awesome.
“We’ve got a young side. We have a five-year plan in which we are trying to groom them. We learnt a lot from last year’s games. Cape Town is very strong because of their numbers. But we are going to compete. We are ready.”
Gauteng U18 coach, Victor Ngoepe, shared McKinnon’s sentiments, saying the province will not settle for anything other than first place.
“We are going for the win. We have a young side that’s motivated and ready to go for it,” he said.
A legend of the game, Ngoepe first touched a baseball bat as a four-year-old, later signing for the Pittsburg Pirates in the USA where he played professionally for five seasons.
Despite South Africa being at several WBSC world cups, the 25-year-old shortstop called for more investment in baseball.
“Trust the process, he said. “We need corporate sponsorship to help fund the sport so it can grow.
“In the USA, they invest a lot in their sport, whereas here, it’s not easy for us because companies are always worried about return on investment.”
A sport with only a small following in SA, but with a buzz only surpassed by a few sporting codes in the way match days are organised, McKinnon hopes supporters in the region will make the tournament a spectacle.
“I want to open up to the communities to come down and watch the best team sport in the world. This game creates life skills. The community bonds and camaraderie among the players are amazing,” he said.
Vendors needed
The GPBC and Easterns Baseball Association ask anyone interested in selling food on match days to email Boksburgcardinalsbaseball@gmail.com.
“We are trying to get vendors to come in so that they can generate an income. We are going to take orders from all participating teams and give them to the vendors to help them because times are tough,” McKinnon said.
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