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2005 CLAXTON SHIELD AWARD WINNERS

CONGRATULATIONS 
NEW SOUTH WALES PATRIOTS
2005 CLAXTON SHIELD CHAMPIONS!

NSW REPEATS IN REPEAT HOME FINAL!

Let us be equally clear about the fact that we stated BEFORE the tournament began that, unfortunately, and through not much fault of their own, the decision for Blacktown to host the event for the past three years and, god forbid, into the future, MUST place an "asterisk" next to their achievements during this regrettable period in Australian baseball history! It is no secret that 'Flintoff & Dunn' are proud Victorians and this places us in a difficult position tonight... it would have been much easier had it been WA who finished runners-up... but we will not, under any circumstances, hide from the TRUTH!

We will not continue to labour this point, but let us be assured of the fact that the New South Wales Patriots, as good as they are, might have found it a whole lot different recovering from an 0-4 deficit in Melbourne, or on any other neutral soil... or to cling to their one run lead during those tense final three-or-so innings until they broke the game open. The simple fact of this situation is that, had this occurred anywhere else, we could have lauded the NSW team for their fantastic comeback against the odds. As it is, they deserve credit, but how much credit we cannot be absolutely certain!? This is the difficulty that Baseball Australia has created with this tragic situation... it is not a level playing field... enough said!

New South Wales went back to the well tonight, drawing on their success from the 2004 final by inserting usual reliever Ryan Rowland-Smith into the position as tonight's starter in the big game. However, on this occasion the experiment did not come off when a couple of hit batters, a single, a passed ball and a throwing error would allow Victoria a handy two run start in the opening stanza. It was enough to chase young Ryan from the mound and this would have produced some cause for confidence in the Aces dugout so early in the game.

Then, when Ben Utting produced a RBI double, followed by a Paul Rutgers RBI single, the Victorians had grabbed a most useful 4-0 advantage after the top of the fourth innings. They would not have very long to savour the situation when a hit batter started the ball rolling for NSW in the bottom half of the frame, enabling a Glenn Williams single to be converted in the best possible way by a Gavin Fingleson RBI single. The Victorians would soon be slumped back into their seats when talented young backup catcher and DH Anthony Krajancic launched a three-run bomb over centre field to very quickly neutralise their hard-fought lead in the contest.

It is at this time that the local crowd really found some voice and, dare we mention it again, this was a very significant advantage to the hosts who visibly lifted from that point on in the game. The pressure applied by the encouragement of the host fans certainly didn't help the visitors in the bottom of the fifth when Trent Oeltjen stole second following a one out walk, then took maximum advantage of a wild pitch to score on a Glenn Williams single later in the innings. The NSW Patriots had snatched a lead that hadn't looked likely about ten minutes before... and they never really looked likely to let it slip from there. This is in spite of the fact that Victoria had the tying run put out at home plate in the very next innings.

Unlike the unlimited supply of seasoned arms in the NSW bullpen, Victoria had replaced gallant starter Cameron Forbes with 18yo rookie Donavon Hendricks, to be followed by inexperienced 19 year-olds Dean Barker and Brendan Wilson. These lads did pretty well under the circumstances but they were unable to plug enough holes in the dyke when the Patriots overflowed with three more game breaking runs in the eighth innings. A Craig Lewis double was compounded by an error and a Gary White walk before the emerging Tim Auty, who we said was hotting up, slashed a 3 RBI double to "ice it"!

Surprise packet pitcher Jared Mangioni was very good through three innings to collect the win in the Championship game, while Matt Bennett contributed with one more out for the tournament. As we reported after their semi-final, there would be no reason for jubilation among the Aces when 'The OX' Chris Oxspring was able to return to close the last two innings. In hardly surprising dominant fashion Oxspring put another exclamation mark on a sensational period in his career... he would be entitled to wish that the 2004/05 summer season would never end! It is a great launching pad for the rest of his career and we hope we can report big things for him in the professional ranks quite soon!

As mentioned previously, young pro signing Tim Auty showed tremendous promise in his first Claxton Shield carnival, gaining confidence as the tournament progressed. He put the icing on the cake with another two hits in the biggest game, along with Glenn Williams who also put another two-hit game onto his highlight reel for this summer.

For Victoria, Ben Utting stood out like a beacon tonight with 3-4 to end a terrific rebound tournament after his rusty efforts last season following a year away from the 'big league'. The same can be said for the entire Aces squad who will realise, after the disappointment subsides, that they have regained almost all of the pride lost during their miserable 2004 campaign. We pay a huge credit to their new management team led by pitching great David White who, we are assured, made a MASSIVE difference to the attitude and the performance of the team this year... not to mention his selections!

No matter what else anyone might say, the New South Wales Patriots are a tremendously talented and experienced unit and they will take great pride from their successive Championship triumphs... rightly so!... it's just a pity about that big "ASTERISK" that must be placed next to the result on the historical records... they probably don't deserve to have their achievement downgraded, but then we'll never really know, will we!?... this is the issue folks!!

Above everything else, for the greater good of Australian baseball, we sincerely hope that we don't have to magnify this situation again in coming years... we hope to wake up some day soon to hear that the Claxton Shield will be hosted somewhere else other than Blacktown and New South Wales... or, better still, that we have a NEW NATIONAL LEAGUE to really progress our favourite game in this great sporting nation!

NSW AVENGES THEIR LOSS TO SA IN SEMI!

It started in the afternoon semi-final when Victoria's "human steamroller" Simon Beresford enabled the Aces' solitary manufactured run to stand-up against the tremendous pitching of WA's Kelly and Thomas. In the nightcap the NSW Patriots had most of their big guns blazing as they narrowly out duelled the SA pair of Ruzic and Fidge courtesy of a couple of unearned runs in the fourth innings! There was hardly a moment to take a deep breath in either game and the price for one mistake would be an extremely high price indeed!

In the second semi New South Wales, as we would expect, were in no mood to do any favours to the South Aussies who had "blanked" them 5-0 in the preliminary round. Highly experienced 'AAA' Mariner Craig Anderson secured another AMLB win with his very tidy five innings of two-hit baseball, but if SA felt that things might get easier after that...uh uh! Young Olympian and professional prospect Richard Thompson took over to keep the clamps securely affixed to the South Australian bats. When he had tucked away three innings it was "time for the OX" to ensure no last inning heroics.

It would not surprise us if the South Australian dugout could hear the sound of "Hell's Bells" tolling as Olympic hero Chris Oxspring strode to the mound to deliver last rites to their campaign for 2005... much in the same way that the San Diego Padres "nasty" closer Trevor Hoffman used to intimidate hitters in the last innings! And, for those hoping that Oxspring might also deliver a flourish to finish the evening, he did not disappoint his audience with an Eric Gagne style closure that consisted of one swishing strikeout and two others left paralysed looking at third strikes. It was quality stuff!

The South Australian pair also deserve a huge word of sympathy as they could not have been asked to do much more than to limit the mighty Patriots to two runs... BOTH UNEARNED. In fact, if you ignore the unearned runs and the fact that he copped the 'L' at the end of the game, SA's lanky hurler Dushan Ruzic probably deserves to be sitting on the same plane as Beresford, Ough, Challinor and Bonaddio for his fantastic starting performance... it's just that while they will be travelling first class with victories, he may have to settle for business class! In any event the talented giant has certainly made the transition from his early days cutting his teeth with the Provincials to a genuine Claxton Shield pitching star.

It was also nice to see Darren Fidge, who has been one of the great stalwarts of Australian Major League baseball, leave his mark on this tournament with a typically sound performance out of the bullpen tonight. Fidge, as we would expect, once again proved his talent and resilience by bouncing back from a shaky start to the tournament on opening day... this is by no means an easy thing to do over a short Claxton Shield carnival.

Much like the first semi-final, there is not much to report from the offensive side of this game except that New South Wales made the most of their limited opportunities while South Australia really didn't produce any decent run-scoring chances on this occasion against the suffocating New South Wales pitching artillery. We had an early warning of what was likely to follow when both teams were flattened in the first and third innings by innings-ending double-plays. It was an ominous warning that rallies would be few and innings would be brief.

As so often happens in these circumstances, the ice would inevitably be broken by an innings that started with an error when Gavin Fingleson scampered aboard courtesy of an infield throwing error. This enabled Brendan Kingman to follow with a single, then Glenn Williams who put the first run on the board with a RBI single. Later in the innings Craig Lewis would provide another RBI single to conclude the scoring for the game. Is there any surprise in the fact that these are some of the biggest and most experienced names in recent Australian baseball history?... no need to answer! We also noted that soon-to-be rookie professional Tim Auty gathered momentum throughout the tournament and he delivered with another two hits in a tight game today.

While the Patriots will advance to the Championship Grand Final, a glance at those who were able to produce the four hits for the South Australians also provides interesting reading to end their pretty good tournament. New face Leigh Chynoweth seemed to find his feet as the carnival progressed and Dan Wilson also started to look more at home during 2005. But, the man who found two hits against the Patriots was none other than BEN WIGMORE who we have mentioned many times before. Ben seemed to have a rather quiet tournament, by his lofty standards, but can we believe that his 7-23 effort at Blacktown in 2005 will actually lower his astonishing AMLB career average of .449!! What a consistent player!

BERESFORD A BIGGER GUN THAN THE WEST!

Literally days after his 17th birthday a pretty large, for his age, Simon Beresford pitched four shutout innings for Victoria in the 2000 IBLA Claxton Shield... it was a STANDOUT performance for a kid! The next season 18yo Beresford pitched splendidly for a couple of teams in the IBLA played on the Gold Coast... it was enough for him to head off for Texarkana College in Texas USA before being drafted, then signed, by the famous Milwaukee Brewers organisation. After a promising rookie league season with Milwaukee, Simon Beresford reappeared at Claxton 2004 to produce, what many still believe, was the start of the carnival against New South Wales on opening night at Blacktown.

Just a week or so after his near-heroics in the 2004 Claxton Shield, a still developing Simon Beresford was the winning pitcher for Australia in Game 2 of the Olympic Qualification series against South Africa with five shutout innings that must have made it VERY hard for selectors to leave him out of our historic Silver Medal team from Athens!? After another development season with Milwaukee's 'A' team Beloit, Beresford was back, as he would, ready to produce his very best for Victoria's ACES. Not that he was in any way bitter about missing the team, but if Simon Beresford felt that he still had anything to prove, then we reckon he may have proved it BIG TIME at Claxton Shield 2005!

Simon pitched a tremendous six inning start to eclipse the highly rated South Australia in the pivotal opening game of the carnival, to set the lowly Aces (from 2004) on the path to restoring some pride in the 2005 Claxton Shield. I happen to know that Simon was required to return to work... anyone remember that concept?... after his opening day start, and only if the Aces made the semi-finals would he fly back to Sydney for another start. Now, I wonder if any of those loyal Sydney fans who chastised us for having the temerity to suggest that they had home-field advantages would have considered this?... well, we don't blame you for not thinking about it, this is the job of others who are paid to run our beloved game! But maybe, if you have the intelligence, you should realise what a disgraceful, lop-sided situation this really is!

Back to Friday, 28 January 2005 and it was time for just-22yo Simon Beresford to put his excellent reputation on the line again on Australia's biggest baseball stage. Well, if there has ever been a pitcher who seemed to be born to play at this level, it must be Beresford who cast aside the plane trip and the pressures of the big occasion to pitch yet another superb start. We know that there have been MANY great pitching performances in Claxton Shield history, but surely not many could have been much better than Simon Beresford's 83-pitch, two-hit, complete semi-final game shutout on this day! 

For those who may think that we have spent too long talking about the Aces' hero, this is just because (and tell me if there is a better reason!) they were today's winners! But, the truth of the matter is that, on any other day, the WA Heelers' pitchers Mark Kelly and Brendon Thomas may have easily been the heroes themselves with a three-hit, one run game pitched by their brilliant combined efforts. They too were heroes in a losing cause on this occasion! 

In the third inning Glynn Kimberley singled and stole second for the Vics, only to be advanced to third on a Booth single, before Ben Utting walked. It should not have surprised anyone when Victoria's "hot hand" Paul Rutgers delivered a sac fly RBI for, what turned out to be, the only run of the game! Aside from this one run-scoring inning, we are assured that WA's Brendon Thomas deserves equal acclaim to Beresford for keeping the zeroes on the scoreboard with six strikeouts. 

We make no apologies for concentrating on what was quite clearly a "pitcher's dual" today because we have already listed all of Victoria's hitters, apart from the very much welcomed back Peter Moylan who tried to ignite another rally for the Aces in the sixth inning. For the Heelers, only promising rookie Mal Ismail and the usually impressive Lachlan Dale were able to hit anything safely in this game.

Forget Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Marshall Matt Dillon, Wild Bill Hickock or any of those other legendary gun slingers from America's wild west, if I'm ever thinking of recruiting some serious fire-power for an important contest, SIMON BERESFORD will do me! Victorian supporters will not forget his performance on this fine day for a long, long time! 

Our faithful subscribers, who read our Claxton Reviews for 2005, would know only too well how critical we are about the painful fact that our historic Claxton Shield has been seen less often outside of Sydney than the Tasmanian Tiger over recent seasons and what (hopefully repairable?) damage this has done to the sport in Australia. We certainly expected some backlash from those in the Sydney region who are unfortunately unable to see beyond their own short-sighted interests, but we never expected to receive a complaint from a Victorian player!

Yep, just kidding, Simon Beresford has asked us if we can lobby to have EVERY game played at Blacktown Olympic Park because he would like to have that mound transported wherever he goes!... We can't imagine why!?