Australian Baseball League Woes

The 2020-2021 season was supposed to be huge for the Australian Baseball League. The moment last year ended the league started implementing big plans for the next campaign. Slowly, but surely, every one of those plans ran into a major speedbump. It has now reached a point where a season that was supposed to be a major turning point for the ABL on their road to better recognition has instead become one that sees them clawing at whatever they can grasp to keep it all together.

The woes started with the attempt by the ABL and Cam Vale to crowdsource a women's league. Vale is the Chief Executive Officer of Baseball Australia; the organization that oversees all of baseball in Australia and is in charge of the ABL. Vale's goal was an admirable one, one that was supported by many people, including myself.

Unfortunately, the women's league failed to reach the $250,000 goal to jumpstart a season (as of this writing the total donations sit at $31,176). Undeterred, four teams were granted provisional licenses to exist, and Vale announced that a four-game series would take place in early January. As of right now, the Australian Women's Baseball Showcase is still slated to take place. Except there is the rather large problem of the Coronavirus looming large.

COVID-19 has run roughshod over all of the ABL's plans this season. It began with the league being forced to restructure its usual schedule. They attempted to form two pods, one in Australia and one in New Zealand. However, about a month before the season was set to begin rumors started to swirl that teams were refusing to play in New Zealand and that all games would take place in Australia. Shortly after those rumors started, both Geelong-Korea and the Auckland Tuatara announced they would not be participating in the 2020-2021 ABL season.

When Geelong-Korea made their announcement it received almost no pushback from ABL officials. On the surface, it made perfect sense that a team full of South Korean prospects would not make the trip to play in either Australia or New Zealand while both countries were under strict COVID-19 protocols. The caveat that bears mentioning is that the Geelong-Korea club is owned by Baseball Australia wholesale. The decision for them not to play was made in conjunction with Baseball Australia and the ABL itself.

The same can't be said for the Tuatara. They are owned by Baseball New Zealand. Immediately after their announcement, harsh words were levied by Vale against the team's decision. Those harsh words quickly turned into demands that the Tuatara needed to meet or they would no longer be allowed to play in the ABL in future seasons. It seemed an overreaction at the time and as the ABL season has struggled to take shape it is clearly a worse overreaction than first thought.

Even with the loss of Geelong and Auckland, Vale and company were able to put together a new schedule and bubble that made sense for the remaining six teams. As the season drew within a couple of weeks of opening Manny Ramírez hit Australian shores and the ABL breathed a sigh of relief.

The should-be Hall of Famer had decided to come out of retirement to likely finish his career with a swansong in Australia. Based on the strength of his name alone the Sydney Blue Sox, Manny's ABL team, signed a deal with a paid service to stream every one of their home games.

As the Manny appearances and promotions picked up steam it seemed as if the ABL was about to right the ship and still put on a season that would enlarge their place on the worldwide baseball map. Then moments before Opening Night rolled around Ramírez was scratched from the lineup.

An announcement that followed hinted at existing medical conditions having flared up and that Manny likely would not play in the 2020-2021 season at all. Just like that, the ABL had lost their main draw and all the worldwide attention that would have come with his playing in the league.

Still, Opening Night went off without a further hitch, and once again the ABL hoped to right the ship. That hope lasted all of one night when the very next day the Canberra Cavalry/Perth Heat series had to be canceled thanks to new Coronavirus cases and unrestricted state-to-state travel being halted throughout Australia.

The Heat ended up playing a couple of exhibition games against the Brisbane Futures (ABL doesn't have a minor league, but if they did the Futures would be that sort of team) but more problems struck as the final two games of the Blue Sox/Melbourne Aces series were canceled to allow Aces players to return back to the state of Victoria before they instituted travel restrictions.

Fresh off the heels of a botched opening weekend the ABL had to announce that three Cavalry/Sox games set for the final week in December had been postponed due to travel restrictions. At the present time, the ABL season should be humming along, instead, it's entering its third week with only two games having been played. Perhaps more will have been played in the time it took to edit this article, but there's no way of knowing; the season has been that volatile thus far.

It would be all too easy to place all the blame on Cam Vale and Baseball Australia. The truth of the matter is that Australia and New Zealand both had a better handle on the Coronavirus than most other countries. There was no reason to suspect that the start of the season would coincide with new COVID-19 outbreaks, or that Manny Ramírez would see his health drastically change for the worse, or that people would not support a women's professional league that would be great for the sport.

That's not to say that Vale is without blame, his handling of the Tuatara situation has been awful and only seems to be getting worse for no reason other than spite. However, things seem to keep going wrong for the ABL that are simply beyond their control. Neither Vale nor Baseball Australia can be blamed for that which they cannot control. One thing is certain, what was supposed to be a huge season for the ABL has turned into a nightmare that won't end.