Australia bidding to open MLB season

[DBAHO]

Yes please;

 

MELBOURNE (AFP) - Australia has joined the race to open the US Major League Baseball season in either 2008 or 2009 but faces challenges from China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.

 

The league has said it is looking to open outside of the United States, with the vast untapped market of China shaping up as favourite.

 

Australian Baseball Federation special projects manager Alan Weir said the ABF was in discussions with the Victorian state government about Melbourne hosting games.

 

"To host a high-profile game like an opening series of any Major League team would be outstanding for Australian baseball," Weir told Australian Associated Press.

 

"We and Major League Baseball have been working on this for a while and we'll see what happens."

 

Four times in the past seven years, Major League Baseball has staged season openers outside the United States or Canada.

 

San Diego and Colorado met in a 1999 opener in Mexico. The next year, the Chicago Cubs and New York Mets played in Japan.

 

In 2003, the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers began the season in Puerto Rico and the following year the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and New York Yankees kicked it off in Japan.

 

The director of Major League Baseball for Australia and New Zealand, Tom Nicholson, said the league may award games to several countries this time.

 

"That's one item that's being looked by our international office," he said.

 

MLB's senior vice president of international business operations, Paul Archey, told the league's website last month: "We're definitely planning on having a season opener (outside the US), but right now I can't tell you where it's going to be."

 

Late last year, the New York Times said the 2008 season could open in China, citing MLB president Bob DuPuy who said it depended on China completing its ballpark for the 2008 Olympics in time for games in late March or April.

 

ABF's Weir admitted Australia faced a tough challenge against China.

 

"Baseball is a very major sport in Taiwan, Korea and Japan," he said.

 

"China is embryonic but if they get one percent of the Chinese population turned on to baseball then they've got an instant audience straight away of millions of people."

 

Australia has about 100 professional players in the United States and two on Major League rosters -- left fielder Chris Snelling at the Washington Nationals and relief pitcher Peter Moylan at the Atlanta Braves.

[Gregory Pratt]

I'd give it to Japan; they'll give it to China.

It'll be awhile for Australia.

[earthshiner]

I think it is a crime to open up outside of the us or toronto. I think it makes a joke out of the game.

[Flash Tizzle]

It'd be a great idea to open the season in another country..........

 

Just not for the White Sox. Have any other team go.

[WhiteSoxfan1986]

I have never liked the idea of playing regular season games outside the U.S./Canada. If they want to play preseason games fine, but teams get screwed up with the jetlag.

[knightni]

It'd probably need to be two west coast teams.

 

Like San Diego and Los Angeles.

 

 

This way the travel is less.

[LosMediasBlancas]

It'd be a great idea to open the season in another country..........

 

Just not for the White Sox. Have any other team go.

 

 

Yeah, make it yanks/bo-sox. After all, they're America's teams.

[TLAK]

Yes please;

In Australian baseball do they run the bases counter clockwise?

[DBAHO]

In Australian baseball do they run the bases counter clockwise?

Only in Rand McNally.

 

In all seriousness, if the game of baseball is ever going to do something down here, we need something like that.

 

The national league went dead about 10 years ago, and we've barely heard a tremor about Aussie Baseball since then.

 

And yes it would have to be 2 west coast teams. About a 15 hour flight each way from L.A to Melbourne.