Baseball in New Zealand

Today, we welcome Dr. Rachael Batty as she informed us on the status of baseball in her home country of New Zealand. After seeing cricket everywhere and having a go at it ourselves, I think everyone was intrigued to hear what she had to share. Of course, most other sports such as cricket or rugby were introduced to the island by their former colonizer Britain, but the American sport of baseball was brought over to New Zealanders by US and Canadian visitors in the late 19^th century. Furthermore, Rachael emphasized that participation in the sport initially began to grow during WWI and WWII as US soldiers were stationed throughout the country. Moving forward, she then discussed their structure for introducing the game to children and the system through which they progress. It was much like the one we have in America, but simply is not as popular. Rachel also listed some of the hindrances for the future growth of the sport in her country which were nothing out of the ordinary, and more interestingly shared that softball is far more popular and receives a little more than 16 times the funding than NZ baseball does. That was a “woah” as an American who thinks of men’s softball as mainly recreational fun for former baseball players. However, Rachel then brought up a strategy for how they are trying to mitigate some of those restrictions to play in New Zealand such as a lack of fields or equipment….

It is called “Baseball 5”, and honestly is not too much like the true sport of baseball. The game is played 5 versus 5 (usually on a concrete surface), lasts 5 innings long, there are no pitchers, no gloves, and no bats used to play. To hit, a player tosses the ball up and slaps it with their hand to put it into the field of play. It reminded me of four square, or a game we would have made up on the playground in middle school where we were provided with limited resources to be active at recess. Interestingly enough, while in grade school a group of friends and I developed a form of kickball we called “cricket”. Similar to cricket, you could kick the ball anywhere in a circular playing field and scoring runs consisted of running to where the pitcher’s mound was and back. This bit of nostalgia allowed me to realize and relate to the goal this new sport was to attain. They sought to introduce a way for New Zealanders to participate in their own form of the sport that did not require much to play in order to boost accessibility, social inclusion, and moreover help them develop fundamental ball skills. It made me really appreciate what organized sports has the power to do at the simplest and lowest levels.  

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