The Australian Baseball League (ABL) is a professional baseball league in Australia. The league is governed by the Australian Baseball Federation (ABF), and is jointly funded by the ABF, Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Australian Federal Government. It uses the same name as a now defunct competition held during the 1990s, and though it shares some history of the original league with the Claxton Shield awarded to winners of both competitions, it is considered to be a separate competition.
The current champions are the Perth Heat, having won the 2011–12 season by defeating the Melbourne Aces two games to one in the championship series, after also defeating the same team in the major semi-final series. In doing so, they successfully defended their championship from the previous season, and remain the only team to be ABL Champions under the current version of the league.
Because the ABL's season takes place from November through February, the ABL has several players who also play in the minor leagues in North America, making it a winter league (although it is summer in Australia when the season takes place.)
Read more about Australian Baseball League: Organisation, Media Coverage, Current Teams
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“Beyond the horizon, or even the knowledge, of the cities along the coast, a great, creative impulse is at work—the only thing, after all, that gives this continent meaning and a guarantee of the future. Every Australian ought to climb up here, once in a way, and glimpse the various, manifold life of which he is a part.”
—Vance Palmer (1885–1959)
“When Dad can’t get the diaper on straight, we laugh at him as though he were trying to walk around in high-heel shoes. Do we ever assist him by pointing out that all you have to do is lay out the diaper like a baseball diamond, put the kid’s butt on the pitcher’s mound, bring home plate up, then fasten the tapes at first and third base?”
—Michael K. Meyerhoff (20th century)
“Stereotypes fall in the face of humanity. You toodle along, thinking that all gay men wear leather after dark and should never, ever be permitted around a Little League field. And then one day your best friend from college, the one your kids adore, comes out to you.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)