Adelaide's first baseball season in 1889; South Australian players part of games tour of United States cities in 1897

Early South Australian baseballers, building on a foundation going back to 1889.

Baseball has its first local competition games in Adelaide in 1889. This was the year after American millionaire A.G. Spalding organised an Australian tour, including Adelaide, by Chicago White Sox and All-America teams.

Harry Simpson stayed on in Australia from that tour and formed baseball clubs in Melbourne, Adelaide, Broken Hill and eventually Sydney. Eight Adelaide clubs – Survey, Norwood, North Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Padlocks, Post & Telegraph, Goodwood and Engineering in Chief Department – were at the meeting in 1889 to decide the start of a South Australian baseball season.

Although Melbourne chose a winter season to let cricketers play baseball, South Australia went for summer to accommodate players tending to be footballers wanting to keep fit off season. Officials elected at that meeting were: president T. Gepp (Kensington & Norwood mayor); vice presidents, G.E.C. Stevens, C.W. Uren, W. Blinman, W. Mitchell and A.J. Wight; honorary secretary E. Stewart; honorary treasurer J.H. Cragg; Committee R. Hill, J.J. Wood, H.C. Burnet and George Giffen.

A novel preview of the 1889 first season came when a South Australian league team played members of the visiting Hicks Sawyer Minstrel Troupe, an American negro brass band playing in Adelaide’s Garners Rooms, in two games at Adelaide Oval. The locals won the first game (Saturday, April 6), 19-2, with the minstrels probably more interested in entertaining the crowd with antics. Rue Ewers (an early star of game with his son Claude) hit a home run for South Australia. The minstrels won the second game 16-12 the next Thursday.

The 1889 season opened on October 26 at Kensington Oval. Two four-horse drags left the general post office at 215pm and took many people to the ground, including the Eastern Suburban Band, who played selections. The first premiership was won by Post and Telegraph Club, the other teams being Norwood, North Adelaide, Goodwood and Kent Town. Next year, a junior league was formed.

Also in 1889, a South Australian team (including R. Ewers, J. McKenzie, J. J. Lyons, E.G. Phillips, A.W. Pettinger, W. Slight, J.J. Woods, J. Rundle, G. Shawyer and G. Bonnor) won two of the three games against Victoria on East Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1890.

A bigger venture came in 1897 when South Australian players joined Victorians to form an Australian team (the first from outside) to make a United States tour taking in cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Brooklyn and Philadelphia, but playing against second- or third-grade teams.

They also had a game in England on a tour that was a financial disaster. This, together with cricketers’ disregard of summer baseball in South Australia, hampered the game.

An Australian Baseball Council was formed  in 1913 and South Australian league president Norrie Claxton donated a trophy that became the permanent prize for state teams in the Claxton Shield competition.