Waverley Reds
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Melbourne Reds were a
Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...
-based
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 ...
team in the
Australian Baseball League The Australian Baseball League (ABL) is a professional baseball league in Australia. The league is governed by the Australian Baseball Federation (ABF). It uses the same name as a now-defunct competition held during the 1990s, and though it s ...
. They were the only team to win the championship 3 times. The Reds originally played at the home of
VFL/AFL The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition ...
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
,
Waverley Park Waverley Park (also and originally called VFL Park) is an Australian rules football stadium in Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. The first venue to be designed and built specifically for Australian Rules football, for most of its history, its pu ...
from 1989 until the 1994 Championship, when they moved to the former home ground of the
St Kilda Football Club The St Kilda Football Club, nicknamed the Saints, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier league. The club's name originates fro ...
,
Moorabbin Oval Moorabbin Oval (also known as RSEA Park under a naming rights agreement) is an Australian rules football ground in the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia at Linton Street in the suburb of Moorabbin. The ground was most notable as the home ...
for the 1994/95 Championship and played there until the end of Australian Baseball League in 1999.


History


Birth of the Reds

After the 1988 Claxton Shield the idea of an Australian Baseball League was floated, with the Waverley Baseball Club being one of the strongest clubs in Victorian Baseball they stepped forward in instigating a team to represent the south-east of Melbourne, and the Waverley Reds were created. In the first Australian Baseball League championship the Reds went through the season winning 34 out of 40 games, with a home record of 17 wins 2 losses, the Reds went into the championship series favourites against cross town rival the
Melbourne Monarchs The Melbourne Monarchs were one of the foundation members of the original (now defunct) Australian Baseball League. History The Monarchs had their licence revoked after the 1990–91 championship following a controversial dispute with Australia ...
winning 3 out of the 4-game series to become the inaugural Australian Baseball League Champions. The Waverley Baseball Club were the original majority owners and managers of the team, until it was foreseen that ownership of the team was not going to be a profitable exercise and distanced themselves to avoid future debts affecting the future of the baseball club.


After Waverley

In 1993, shortly after the owners’ departure, the young and ambitious American, Andy Karetsky, bought the team. Karetsky owned and operated the Reds, determined to lead them to victory. Karetsky was truly a trailblazer for Australian baseball. He brought his US baseball knowledge and innovative thinking to Waverly. Karetsky’s leadership style resulted in the 1994-1995 Championship title and a 2nd place finish in the 1995-1996 season. Towards the end of the “Karetsky Era”, the Australian Football League did not renew the Reds’ lease of Waverly Park so the team moved to Moorabbin Oval where they adopted their new name: The Melbourne Reds. After 3 highly successful seasons, Karetsky sold his ownership of the Reds and returned to the US.


Decline of the ABL

After Karetsky, local baseball junkie and businessman Geoff Pearce purchased the majority ownership of the Reds, leading into the most difficult time of the ABL. Dwindling crowd numbers, severe lack of media attention and the ever-shrinking budget of the club took away a lot of the early excitement and entertainment from the Reds games. However, with all these factors Pearce lead the club to its last hurrah in the 1997/98 Championship, becoming the only team to win the ABL competition 3 times. Late into the 1998–99 Australian Baseball League championship, the Reds were in the process of making a deal with ACES Sporting Club in
Keysborough Keysborough is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, southeast of the Melbourne central business district, located within the City of Greater Dandenong local government area. Keysborough recorded a population of 30,018 at the . Keysborou ...
to convert their golf driving range into a light baseball diamond with grandstand to be the home of the Reds, however with the Australian Baseball League collapse after the 1999 Championship this deal never went ahead, however the Sporting Club entered into a sponsorship with the successor Victorian team after the ABL, the
Victoria Aces The Victoria Aces are an Australian baseball team who compete in the Claxton Shield Baseball Championship. One of the founding teams of the Claxton Shield in 1934, they competed until 1988. Thereafter the Claxton Shield was awarded to the winne ...
as naming rights sponsors of the team.


Seasons

The Reds were one of the most successful team in ABL history, having won the Championship title 3 times.


1989–90

The first season of ABL play the Reds burst out of the blocks winning 34 out of the 40 games, only losing 2 games at home. The Reds played off with cross-town rivals, the
Melbourne Monarchs The Melbourne Monarchs were one of the foundation members of the original (now defunct) Australian Baseball League. History The Monarchs had their licence revoked after the 1990–91 championship following a controversial dispute with Australia ...
, winning 3 out of the 4 play-off games to take out the Inaugural ABL championship.


1990–91


1991–92


1992–93


1993–94


1994–95

In their first season at Morrabbin Oval the Reds, with many new faces (most notably, Australian Major League superstar David Nilsson), the reds won 44 of the 58 games. Facing the 4th-placed Sydney Blues in the "Best of 3" Semi-Finals, the Reds defeated the Blues 5–1 in Game 1, and then 7–4 in Game 2, allowing the Reds to qualify for the Championship Series against
Perth Heat The Perth Heat is a baseball team in the current Australian Baseball League and a founding member of the Australian Baseball League. It is the most successful team in ABL history, winning 15 Claxton Shields. Australian Baseball League (1989– ...
. The Reds defeated Heat 5–1 in game 1, and then 4–2 in game 2 of the series to win their second ABL Championship.


1995–96


1996–97


1997–98

After finishing last in the previous Championship the reds were looking for redemption. The Reds finished in the top 4 to qualify for the "3-day Round Robin Series" to be played at the
Melbourne Ballpark The Melbourne Ballpark is a baseball park in Altona, Victoria, Altona, Victoria (Australia), Victoria. It was opened in January 1990, at a cost of 3.9m, 2m was contributed by the State Government of Victoria and the remaining 1.8m contributed b ...
. Facing the
Sydney Storm The Sydney Storm, originally Sydney Blues were a team in the now defunct Australian Baseball League (1989-1999), Australian Baseball League. The franchise featured in every post season throughout its existence and won the Claxton Shield once. ...
on Day 1, the Reds easily accounted for the Storm 18–5. Day 2 saw the Reds win a tight game against the
Gold Coast Cougars The Gold Coast Cougars were the re-branded Daikyo Dolphins after major sponsor Daikyo had to end sponsorship of the team due to financial problems with the Australian arm of the company. History See also *Sport in Australia *Australian B ...
winning 2–1. Day 3 the Reds faced off with cross-town rival
Melbourne Monarchs The Melbourne Monarchs were one of the foundation members of the original (now defunct) Australian Baseball League. History The Monarchs had their licence revoked after the 1990–91 championship following a controversial dispute with Australia ...
in a
dead rubber Dead rubber is a term used in sporting parlance to describe a match in a series where the series result has already been decided by earlier matches. The dead rubber match therefore has no effect on the winner and loser of the series, other than the ...
, the Monarchs winning 12–5. The Reds then played off with the Gold Coast Cougars, which saw the Reds run out winners 4–3 in game 1, and then 4–0 in game 2, to become the only team to take out the Australian Baseball League Championship 3 times.


1998–99


Uniform

Waverley white with red trim top with "Reds" across the front, Red undershirt, white pants with red double strip down the leg, white socks with red t-bars. Melbourne ''Home'' – white with red trim top with "Reds" across the front, navy blue undershirt, white pants with red strip down the leg, white socks with red t-bars. ''Away'' – same as home but with grey where white is.


See also

* List of Waverley/Melbourne Reds players * Waverley/Melbourne Reds top 10 statistics


External links


The Australian Baseball League: 1989–1999The History of the Waverley/Melbourne Reds
{{Australian Baseball League original Australian Baseball League (1989–1999) teams Defunct baseball teams in Australia