Australia’s Queensland State Tournament will commence on Saturday 18 September and conclude on Monday 20 September and will be played in Lismore. New Zealand will send its twenty (20) best Under-14 baseball players to compete in this prestigious Australian metal bat tournament, and it is the first time Queensland has allowed an 'outside' or foreign team to play in their state championship.

The selected team will stay in Lismore for the tournament and a minimum of five (5) games, and then will travel to a second location on the Gold Coast (1.5 hours away) and will play a series of games (minimum of five {5} as well) against two of the top Under-14 teams in Australia.

Twelve (12) of the players were originally chosen by former coaches, and BNZ has decided to retain this group and reward them for the selection by continuing to keep this group together.

Additionally, another six (6) alternates were selected to work out with the team. Baseball New Zealand has made the decision to add to this list of alternates over the next several weeks (as was originally intended) and then allow the coaches to select their final 20 players out of the list of up to 30 alternates to allow for maximum exposure and to truly gather together the top national team possible over the next month.

This week, trials will run simultaneously with team training sessions on Sunday, 1 August; Tuesday, 3 August; 5 August; 7 August; 8 August.

Exact training details are as follows for the next week(additional training dates for the next seven (7) weeks will follow shortly):

• Sunday 1 August         One Tree Hill College Indoor Gymnasium #2 - carpark entrance via approx 31, Rockfield Road (off Great South Road), Penrose, Auckland.     14:30 - 18:00 hrs       TRIALS/TRAINING
• Tuesday 3 August      Panmure Y- Indoor Stadium - situated across the road on Lagoon Drive, Panmure, Auckland (opposite to where Lagoon & Leisure Pools are located).     16:00 - 18:00 hrs TRIALS/TRAINING
• Thursday 5 August    Panmure Y- Indoor Stadium - situated across the road on Lagoon Drive, Panmure, Auckland (opposite to where Lagoon & Leisure Pools are located).    16:00 - 17:30 hrs TRIALS/TRAINING
• Saturday 7 August    Lloyd Elsmore Field #1 - carpark entrance off Cascades Road, Pakuranga, Auckland.           13:00 - 16:30 hrs TRIALS/TRAINING
• Sunday 8 August        Lloyd Elsmore Field #1 - carpark entrance off Cascades Road, Pakuranga, Auckland.           13:00 - 16:30 hrs TRIALS/TRAINING

Coaches will require that all interested players will need to make at least one of these sessions before the coaches put the final list together of the maximum 30-player national development squad/team. The final travel team of 20 will be chosen between 29 August-6 September.

More information about this team, fundraising efforts and additional details will follow in the coming week.

Thank you for your support!

Regards,

Ryan Flynn

Executive Officer

Baseball New Zealand

mob:021 665 339

In the September/October school holidays, Performance Baseball run by Scott and Aaron Campbell will be hosting a Spring Training Camp. Also attending is Howie Clark, with over 30 years of baseball experience including parts of 6 years in the Major Leagues. The goal is to prepare players for the upcoming season in a professional programme that will allow them to learn new skills and develop their current abilities.This is an amazing oppourtunity to be around the best coaching New Zealand has ever seen.

All the information about the camp is available at:

For more information contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with any of your questions.

Whilst many are taking a well earned break from baseball to pursue winter sporting interests, some are still training hard. Next week the NZ U17 Team departs for its tour of Seattle and Washington State where it will compete in 2 Tournaments as well as other organised games.

They will also enjoy 4th July celebrations and attend a Mariners game.

A week later the Auckland Little League team departs for Jakarta for the Asia-Pacific Little League Qualifying Tournament.

We would like to wish both these teams the best of luck in their endeavours.

The ABA will be working hard over the next 2 months going through the logistics of possibly changing the Grades back to IBAF from Little League Rules for the older age groups. This could see us playing U11, U13 under Little league rules and the U16 and U18 and Premiers (and Divisional) under IBAF. This has come about from a request by Baseball NZ due to it's competing in upcoming IBAF competitions. Baseball NZ have an U14 team travelling to Brisbane in September and New Zealand are hosting the BCO 'AA' qualifying Tournament from the 23rd - 30th January 2011. Baseball NZ is planning to send the NZ 'AA' team to Brisbane in December prior to the BCO Tournament (funds permitting).

We will again be looking to start the Junior season at the beginning of November and will be working with the clubs to help set their registration dates and muster days.

It is hoped that the Premiers will kick off with the Ed Mason Classic on Labour weekend, as in past years.

On the Club scene, North Shore will this season be a stand alone club, keeping the number of Youth clubs at four, as it appears West City may not have a youth grade. The youth clubs will be Bayside-Westhaven, Howick-Pakuranga, Central City and North Shore.

There is also the possibility of some softball clubs entering teams in the competition along with some college teams participating in the regular Saturday ABA competition.

As always we are actively recruiting Umpires and Coaches and Scorers for all clubs and all grades, if you think you are in a position to help in any way please contact any of the committee or a club near you.

We will be running, training days before the start of the season, for Coaches, Umpires and Scorers.

Rgds

Your ABA Committee

Click the link below to view the Presidents Report from the ABA AGM held in June 2010.

Presidents Report