they're off to Geelong again

My seventeen-year-old nephew has qualified for the NSW Country under-eighteen baseball team again this year. He is the only representative from Tamworth baseball's four teams to have made the under-eighteen squad. Another player from the same club has qualified for the under-sixteen squad.

On Thursday, he and my sister are off to Geelong in Victoria for the National Championships.

photo taken from the Facebook site of the Cougars Baseball Club, Tamworth, NSW

He's a pitcher; one of the top two of the nine on the team.

We are very proud of you and wish you luck, N.

Go Country NSW!

exciting news

It may surprise you to know that baseball is not one of the most popular sports in Australia.

It is not broadcast at all on free-to-air television.

It is certainly not the big deal that it is in USA.

However, my uncle (dad's brother) played baseball for many years. Dad's first cousin also played baseball, as did his sons, and at least one of his son's sons.

My sister's son, my only nephew, started playing tee-ball when he was much younger.

From tee-ball he graduated to baseball.

So, in summer he'd play cricket (one of our most popular national sports) and in winter - yes, that's right, winter - he'd play baseball.

This is a photo of him after the Grand Final of the B-grade earlier this year. He also played in the A-grade grand final.

photo copied and cropped from Cougars Baseball Club Facebook page

This summer he will not be playing cricket.

Instead, he has been named in the 2012 Under-18's NSW Country Baseball Team as a pitcher. So he will spend the early part of the summer travelling around the state for training and then compete in the national championships in Geelong, Victoria, in January.

This is very exciting news in our family. He has made a state representative team and may, if he plays really well, make it to the national team.

That is great news in itself.

But my nephew is still six weeks short of his sixteenth birthday!