By the 1930s, the “national sport of the United States” was becoming popular with sportsmen in Australia and the people of  Wagga had their first taste of baseball around that time. Since then, the sport has been revived in Wagga a number of times over.

The School of Arts was the venue for a meeting on June 21, 1935, which had the object of introducing baseball to Wagga sporting enthusiasts. The meeting was presided over by Mr E Gooch and was well attended.

A temporary committee was formed with Mr M Cusick appointed as president and Mr K Davis as secretary. The committee members were Messrs Mould, C Griffen, Foorde, S Josselyn and S Sly.

And so the Wagga Wagga Baseball Association was formed to control the baseball clubs that would grow. The temporary committee put together a constitution to govern the clubs.

Mr Mould, an experienced interstate player, had captained the NSW Baseball Team and he explained the finer points of the sport to those locals unfamiliar with the details of baseball.

Mr Griffen and Mr Foorde were also accomplished players and it was decided that a baseballl tutorial would be conducted at Wagga Cricket Ground.

The first match of the newly formed Wagga Baseball Association was held on July 7, 1935, on the Wagga Cricket Ground. The ground was prepared by Messrs G Pinkstone and T Taylor. The teams were selected on the ground by Messrs J Mould, C Griffin and T Taylor.

By September, surrounding districts were showing an interest in the game and it was decided to hold an exhibition game by two teams from the Wagga Association. The exhibition match was held in the Junee Park and, prior to the baseball match, a new grandstand was opened by the Mayor of Junee, Alderman CJ O’Sullivan.

The Wagga team competed in “Country Week” each year and they were the winners of the country premiership in 1938. The players travelled interstate quite extensively as well as locally to play their sport and many exhibition games were organised.

In June 1939, as part of the world-wide centennial celebrations of the commencement of baseball in the United States, one of the biggest carnivals organised in Sydney began with the country representative teams opening the competition at Marrickville Oval. Wagga narrowly defeated Newcastle, 13 points to 11. They followed that win up by defeating Port Kembla the next day, fourteen points to three.

The war years, when the young men were joining the forces, was a difficult time for all sports in Australia.  The lack of available (and interested) people to field teams had a detrimental effect on baseball, too.

The Baseball Association was left with only two teams but once the RAAF School was established at Forest Hill they were able to field two more teams which enabled the association to arrange a competition.

But then the city teams dropped out in 1949.  And, due to lack of interest and co-operation of players, the 1950 season was a failure.

A competition in which service teams took part continued until 1952 when the Wagga Association found it necessary to cease functioning owing to lack of interest.

In 1956, baseball made a comeback when an American, Don Moeckel, arrived in Wagga. He became known as “California” and began promoting and publicising the game. He also published a newsletter known as the The Wagga Baseball Association News.

“California” had the support of many former players and officials such as Stan Lugton (the newly elected Association President), Stan Sly and Ron Dubedat.

Once again the sport began to gain popularity and by 1961 the Wagga Baseball Association had seven teams: the Dodgers, the Tigers, the All Stars, the Wagga Teachers’ College, Narrandera-Leeton, the Army and the RAAF.

The CSU Regional Archives has just one collection that refers to Wagga’s baseball history, which was donated to us by Kerry Cutting in 2001.  The collection was compiled by Reginald James Goodwin, a local man with an interest in many sports.

The collection has items relating to local clubs that played lawn bowls, cricket, hockey, baseball, football, and shooting, as well as the William Farrer Social and Sporting Club. 

Of special notice, are the scrapbooks in this collection, most of which relate to the 61st Battery Shooting Club and local baseball and hockey clubs from the 1950s to the 1970s.

The Goodwin Collection is open for public use so if you’d like to browse through the collection, simply visit our Search Room on the south campus of the University.

Compiled by June Dietrich

References: The Goodwin Collection, CSURA RW2100; Tom Lennon Collection RW1574/274/1022; The Daily Advertiser, 19 June 1935, 22 June 1935, 6 July 1935, 23 September 1935, 12 June 1939, 1 May 1951.

CSU Regional Archives is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and the first Saturday of every month from 10am to 3pm. Located in the Blakemore Building on the South Campus of the University, access can be gained via College Avenue or Hely Avenue in Turvey Park.

Members of the public are welcome to visit the search room where professional archival staff can assist with enquiries. For those people unable to visit the archives in person, staff can provide a research service for straight forward enquiries for a fee of $55 per hour (includes copying and postage).

For further information, please phone (02) 6933 4590, email archive@csu.edu.au, or visit our website at www.csu.edu.au/research/archives.

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The CSU Regional Archives is currently extending its opening hours to include the first Saturday of the month. This initiative has been put in place to cater for those researchers who are unable to visit the Archives on weekdays during normal business hours.

The next Saturday opening will be on October 4, 2014, from 10am to 3pm.