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Perth Heat Preview

Auckland’s first opponents this year are last year’s runners up for the Claxton Shield. Perth has won four of the nine titles in the current version of the ABL, and finished as a runner up in two others. They are powerhouse, despite Brisbane’s recent run of success. Western Australia, the state that Perth represents has claimed 15 titles overall. Perth has a deep and successful baseball history and are one of the flagship franchises of the ABL.

For those with a limited knowledge, of Australian geography, (admit it, that is most of us) with just over two million people, Perth is the largest city on Australia’s west coast. The climate during the summer is hot and dry. The second largest city of Western Australia, Mandurah is about 45 miles South of Perth, and the vast majority of Western Australia’s population resides in this area of the state. Bunbury, the third largest city in Western Australia is located just over 100 miles south from Perth with a population of only 74,000. Towns from north of Perth are all small, the largest Geraldton has around 30,000 people. Perth is a large but extremely isolated city. The nearest ABL team is Adelaide at about 1,322 miles away, or just a little farther than the distance between Seattle and Tucson. Travel to Perth, is inconvenient and once teams get there the weather is hot and very dry, giving Perth a substantial home field advantage.

Now after doing some learning, on to the baseball. Perth has an agreement with the Tampa Bay Rays to provide some of the imports for the team, this was extremely valuable in 2017 when Jake Fraley came over and destroyed the league, with 13 bombs, a .415 on base percentage and 39 steals in 44 attempts in 40 games. This year the Rays are providing six players for the Heat, infielder Kaleo Johnson, catcher Roberto Alvarez, outfielders Niko Hulsizer and Jordan Qsar along with pitchers Blake Bivens, and Audry Lugo. Based on a look at the roster and comparing it to a tweet sent out by the Heat, Carlos Garcia, a pitcher also is coming over from the Rays, the tweet did not include Kaleo Johnson, however he is on the active roster so there could be seven Rays players, or not, such is life of tracking ABL transactions.

The interesting prospects from the Rays are mainly Hulsizer and Blake Bivens. Hulsizer has shown power 21 dingers in 96 games over three different levels, which will play well in Perth, he tore up the Midwest league with a .395 OBP but his performance declined after promotion to high A. He was traded by the Dodgers for Adam Kolarek at the deadline. Of the Ray’s prospects, he is the one with the most upside.

It is amazing that Blake Bivens is even on the roster and going to be pitching after the extremely devastating events in late August, when his wife, child and mother in law were brutally murdered. Just for him to come over to Australia and still pitch seems like a minor miracle and his story is worth following.

Perth Heat have some homegrown products that have been steady contributors and members of the Australian nation team. The Kennelly brothers Tim, Sam and reserve catcher Matt have been a part of the Heat since the return of the ABL, Sam joined the team in 2012 as a 16 year old and while he hasn’t been a star he is still only 23.

Tim who is coming off a successful team Australia run at the Premier 12 is one of the reigning ABL Helms award winners, essentially the league’s MVP. Last year in earning his second Helms award, he shared the honor with Adelaide pitcher Markus Solbach. Kennelly made it as far as Lehigh Valley as a Phillies prospect in 2012 but has returned to Australia and had a very successful Australian Baseball career. Last year he slashed .338/.419/.531 with 6 dingers over 38 games. It was his second year in a row hitting .338 and he is one of the perennial stars of the ABL.

Further home-grown stars are Robbie Glendinning and young catcher Alex Hall. Hall a 20 year old who played this summer in the Brewers system at Rookie level, has played on the Perth team since he was 17, last year he slashed .317/.393/.545 with Perth. Glendinning a 24 year old, is a Pirates prospect in his third season with Perth, in combined high A and AA he hit .298/.368/.488 this year and last season had a spectacular 28 games with Perth, hitting .364/.467/.545, he also played on the Australian team at the Premier 12 this season.

Other names to note, include former big leaguers Pete Kozma and Warwick Saupold (listed as reserve currently), an import from South Africa and former Mariners prospect Dylan Unsworth, and pitcher Conor Lourey last year’s best starter.

All these games will be played at Auckland’s new home, North Harbour Stadium, and appear to be broadcast in the US on ABL’s You Tube channel. The games will be seven innings as all games in Auckland this year due to local television agreement. First game 10pm Pacific Time on Wednesday night.

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Times and Schedules for Australian Baseball League

So you have decided to watch the Australian Baseball League?

 If all stays the same as before the ABL streams a number of games via their You Tube channel, and further if all the stays the same they leave the games up as archived, So the easiest way to watch is wake up the next day and watch on archive, because really who is going to spoil the results for you?

But if you are so inclined to want to watch live, well that gets complicated. From November to February one of my most common searches is “what time is it in (insert Australia City)” because that’s about the best way to know. However here I am going to try to make this make as much sense as possible.

The Australian Baseball League plays Thursday through Sunday. For those of us in the states that’s Wednesday through Saturday nights. Sometimes these teams play doubleheaders, mostly on Saturday and Sundays, that means Friday and Saturday evenings or nights here in the states.

There are 8 teams in the ABL and they play in essentially 4 different time zones. Yes 4 different time ones. Auckland plays in the New Zealand Time Zone which is a 21 hour difference from the Pacific Coast. This is the most convenient time zone for viewing live for those of us on Pacific Time. Basically this is easy because to figure out the time here you just add three hours. If the schedule says 1pm in Auckland, that means 4pm here.

Sydney, Melbourne, Geelong-Korea, and Canberra are all on Eastern Australia Daylight Time, which is 19 hours ahead of the Pacific Time Zone. The bulk of games are played in this time zone. The shortcut to figuring out times here is to add 5 hours.

Adelaide is in Australian Central Daylight time, which is 18 hours and 30 minutes ahead of the Pacific time Zone. Yes you read that correct, Adelaide is one half an hour off of the rest of the Eastern Australia. I have not researched why they felt the need to have a half hour time zone, but they do. The shortcut is to add 5 and a half hours, however, the trick is to remember that half hour.

Brisbane is in the same Australian Eastern Time zone, except they don’t do Daylight Saving Time, so they are only 18 hours ahead of the Pacific Time. So Brisbane despite being the east most Australian city in the league is a half hour behind Adelaide. Obviously add 6 hours here.

Finally, Perth is located on the Western Coast of Australia and 16 hours ahead of the Pacific time Zone. While Perth is basically only two time zones away from the east coast teams in Australia there is the familiar three hour difference between west and east coast baseball because Perth is also on standard time. The shortcut here is to add eight hours, but you got the hang of this by now.

Night games start around 6pm to 7:30pm local time. That means late night viewing in the US, 10pm for games from Auckland, and around midnight for elsewhere, Perth games, when televised start around 3am.  So the overnight games on Wednesday and Thursday in the States basically start in a variety of times from 10pm to 2am Pacific Time. Which isn’t particularly convenient, however things get better on Fridays and Saturdays in the States. Teams sometimes play doubleheaders on Saturday, in which case games can start as early as 4pm with Tuatara day games. Sunday the games can start anywhere from 4pm from Auckland to midnight with Perth in the Pacific Time Zone. So while there are a number of late games for the insomniac, there is still plenty of baseball for the fan with a normal sleep schedule, at least in the Pacific Time Zone.

The above information doesn’t do much for you until you get used to it in practice and start to figure out what times most games start.

So after a look at the schedules it looks like this

Auckland Home games generally start at 4pm Pacific or 10 pm Pacific, based on what I have read all Tuatara home games will be broadcast.

Brisbane Home games generally start at 12 midnight Pacific although some DH start at 8:30pm, Brisbane does not have any day games scheduled.

Canberra Cavalry most games are at midnight with Sunday games at 6pm on Saturday. One game is scheduled for 7:33pm on January 18th.

Melbourn Aces home matches mostly the same as Canberra, midnight and 6pm but with some DHs starting at 9:30pm Pacific time.

Geelong Korea home games start at 11:30/midnight and 6 pm Pacific Time

Sydney Blue Sox home games are at 11:30pm/12:30am with 8:30pm DH starts mostly. Some 9pm games and 5pm games, they have a variable schedule.

Adelaide Giants are bit shattershot with games starting at ten minutes to 1am, some at 9:30pm and the day games at 5:30, games from Adelaide have not been televised as often as others in past years but when they are it is often confusing to track the time.

Finally, Perth Heat games are at 3am and sometimes midnight west coast. So if you are early rising East Coaster this is the team. The time of games makes me root hard against them, because I like watching the playoffs and playoffs in Perth mean late games.

Anyway that’s the run down, lots of help with the ABL You Tube telling exactly when the games will go live to the schedule on the site, if you follow enough you get the hang of it. Or if you miss, historically the games are archived, so watch when you want.

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Why Follow the Tuatara

I started playing rugby almost twenty years ago. I don’t play anymore becoming old and fat does that to you. The sport is fantastic and as much as I enjoy baseball, well I also enjoy rugby. However, rugby in the United States is still a very fringe sport, it is gaining popularity with a professional league, but it is still very niche. Baseball in New Zealand is in a similar position. It is a sport trying to grow, and to see the sport at this point, to watch it grow is a great opportunity, even if it is from abroad.

The conditions for baseball in New Zealand and Australia are different from the original growth of the sport in America, the Caribbean, or Japan. Here in the United States we have a concept of how baseball is largely based on the MLB influence. We have Independent and college baseball but those are not as well supported and all influenced by the MLB culture, people often watch college baseball to see the prospects for their future value to some MLB club rather than the value to the college team.

Seeing the growth of a country that has just started with professional baseball gives us alternatives to seeing how the game developed. MLB is so omnipresent it will still have influence, but even so, we can see different approaches to baseball. It is vital to see different perspectives of the same thing to get to a deeper understanding, or to maximize the good of that thing. In this case the sport of baseball. MLB keeps grasping at rule changes and tweaks to change the game, because the MLB game is stagnant and needs a fresh perspective. Fortunately, we have those perspectives and the Australian League is just one such opportunity.

There are a few examples of leagues that are on different development paths as well, Dutch baseball, German baseball, and Italian baseball but they are not accessible as New Zealand and Australia, because of coverage and for me, language. There are fascinating baseball worlds out there beyond our limited scope and this is just one of them. These leagues all deserve study, but they aren’t as easy to follow and for now this place will focus on New Zealand, and most notably the Tuatara.

In America, we are growing the sport of rugby, it isn’t all good, there are elements of American sports that when they creep into rugby hurt the traditional attitude of the sport. As long as the sport stays small it doesn’t get those negative influences but as it grows it may lose some of what makes the sport great. The social nature, the lifetime playing, and general rugby sportsmanship. New Zealand has a fantastic rugby culture, and despite the World Cup performance, historically the best international team by far in the All Blacks, I am interesting in baseball’s growth in New Zealand is to see if the rugby traditions of New Zealand make it into the baseball side of it. And maybe if baseball catches on, one or two would be All Blacks becomes a Diamond Black and the rest of the rugby world is given a slight break.

So seeing and watching the Tuatara grow is a fascinating way to get a greater understanding of baseball, to see how a sport grows in similar but altered conditions, if that can bring a fresh perspective to baseball. However, most of all watching and following them is something fun to do in the winter.

Jumbo Latham