The 1939 Claxton Shield was the sixth annual

Claxton Shield The Claxton Shield was the name of the premier baseball competition in Australia held between state-based teams, as well as the name of the trophy awarded to the champion team. From the summer of 1989–90 until 2001–02, and again since 2010� ...

, an

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n national

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

tournament. It was held at

Richmond Cricket Ground Punt Road Oval, also known as the Richmond Cricket Ground or known by naming rights sponsorship as the Swinburne Centre, is an Australian rules football ground and a former Cricket oval located within the Yarra Park precinct of East Melbourne, ...

, Albert Ground, South Melbourne Cricket Ground, and

National Park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

from 29 July to 5 August, the second time Melbourne had hosted the Shield.

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

won the Shield for the third time, successfully defending their title from the previous two years.

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

joined the other four states for the first time in the tournament. The other participating teams were

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

, and

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. It was also the first year an Australia national team was picked primarily based on the Championships.

Format

As had been the case in the

1937 Events January * January 1 – Anastasio Somoza García becomes President of Nicaragua. * January 5 – Water levels begin to rise in the Ohio River in the United States, leading to the Ohio River flood of 1937, which continues into Feb ...

tournament, the four teams played a round-robin schedule, meeting each other team once, with two competition points on offer in each game. The points were awarded as follows: * Win – two points * Tie – one point * Loss – no points At the end of these preliminary games, the top two teams played each other to determine the champions, while the remaining two teams faced each other to determine third place. In the event of a tie between teams in terms of points, the

tiebreaker In games and sport, a tiebreaker or tiebreak is any method used to determine a winner or to rank participants when there is a tie - meaning two or more parties have achieved a same score or result. A tiebreaker provides the additional criterion ...

used would have been the net runs for and against, with the team achieving the greater value and placing in the higher position.

Results

Preliminaries

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Finals

Third place final

Championship game

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All-Australian team

At the conclusion of the tournament, representatives from the Australian Baseball Council selected an All-Australian team. Though the selected team did not actually play together, it was the first time an Australian team had been selected.

References

Bibliography

* * {{Claxton Shield

Claxton Shield

1930s in Melbourne Baseball in Victoria (state) Sports competitions in Melbourne July 1939 in Australia August 1939 in Australia