Federation Name: Australian Baseball Federation (ABF)
Federation President: Geoff Pearce
Elite League: No Professional League
Team Manager:John Deeble
Federation Web Link:http://www.baseball.com.au
Australia 2009 IBAF Baseball World Cup Roster
Round Three Team Capsule:
#2 AUSTRALIA (1-2)
How it got here: #2 seed in Pool G. . .faces Cuba (2-1, #3 Pool F) in Grosseto on Tuesday. . .finished the second round at 5-2. . .enters final round with a 1-2 record (record against other three teams from Pool G to advance). . .was second in Round 1 Pool A in Prague at 2-1.
Rounds 1-2 star hitter/pitcher (cumulative statistics): Joel Naughton (.478 AVG, 1 HR, 7 RBIs)/Adam Blackley (1-0, 0.00 ERA, 12 Ks)
Current world rank: 11
Best World Cup result (year(s)): 6th place (2007)
Most recent World Cup (result): 2007 (6th place)
How it advanced to World Cup: Qualified through 2007 Oceania Championships
Most recent international competition (result): 2009 World Baseball Classic (12th place)
2009 IBAF Baseball World Cup Player Statistics
History:
Australia
The Australian Baseball Team is the national team of Australia. It has participated in the Summer Olympic Games in 1996, 2000 and 2004, but failed to qualify for 2008. The team sent to the 2007 Baseball Cup included Australian players with Major League Baseball experience.
The team is controlled by the Australian Baseball Federation, which is represented in the Baseball Confederation of Oceania. The team has competed in the Asian Baseball Championship in previous year
Olympic Games
Australia was the third nation, after the United States and Sweden to participate in baseball at the Summer Olympics, making their first appearance at the 1956 Games in Melbourne, and again as part of its demonstration at the 1988 Games in Seoul.
Since baseball was first included as a medal sport at the 1992 Games in Barcelona, Australia has participated in three of the five tournaments. The best result achieved was in the 2004 Games in Athens, where Australia lost the gold medal match to Cuba to receive silver.
1956 Melbourne Games
In 1956, two demonstration sports were allowed: a sport from the host nation and a foreign sport. Australian Rules football was chosen as the host nation sport, and baseball as the foreign sport. Rather than the tournaments that would be played at future Games, while still a demonstration sport only a single match was played against a team representing the United States on 1 December 1956, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Though many of the 114,000 people who attended were believed to be attending in anticipation of the athletics events to be held that afternoon, until an exhibition game played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 2008 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox, it had the largest attendance for a baseball game ever.
1988 Seoul Games
1988 was the last time that baseball was included as an Olympic sport without medal status, and was the second time that Australia participated at the Olympic level. Though not originally included in the eight team tournament, Australia joined Canada, Chinese Taipei, Japan, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, South Korea and the United States after Cuba chose not to enter the Games. Australia was pooled with Canada, South Korea and the United States, but failed to qualify for the finals.
Olympic Games overall placement
1992: -
1996: 7th
2000: 7th
2004: Silver Medal
2008: -
