Bitten by the baseball bug

Playing for the Gauteng Masters Vets baseball team does not necessarily make someone a master of the sport, but Neil Smith does not have to worry about labels.

Indeed, there are not many people who have more experience or have made a greater impact on baseball in Gauteng, than Smith.

The 66-year old has played baseball for the past 37 years, first at the Wanderers Club and then at Pirates Sports Club in Greenside.

The Parkhurst resident has played as fielder at second base for Gauteng since the provincial team’s inception in 1984. He later started playing for the Gauteng masters vets (45 and over) team, before taking on the dual role of player and manager of the team.

In October, he led the team to a silver trophy at the Inter-Provincial Baseball Tournament in Cape Town.

“There were five masters vets teams in the tournament and we beat all opposition in the round-robin. “Unfortunately, when we played Western Province A team again in the final, we lost,” he said. Smith joked that they lost in the final because the Western Province players could go home and get rest after matches, while the Gauteng players had no choice but to hang around and party in the evenings, so they were tired at the end of the tournament.

It all started for Smith when he was a young boy living on a farm in Rivonia. He was interested in baseball and bought a bat for himself. Unfortunately, there was no one to play with so he had to put his dream on hold until his 30s.

When his chance arose he took it and he does not want to ever stop playing baseball. “Baseball is an adrenaline rush,” he smiled. “You have three chances to hit the ball, and then you must run like crazy between bases. They say once the bug has bitten you cannot stop, well I have been bitten.”

So great was Smith’s passion for the game, that his sons Jason and Matthew started playing for Pirates, and later for Gauteng. Smith’s deceased wife, Jeanne, was also a scorer for Pirates and Gauteng. “Our family would spend every weekend on the field,” Smith recalled.

Pirates has the oldest baseball club in the country. It was started by American miners in the early 1900s.

Details: Pirates Sports Club 011 646 5025.