Mount Gambier man Darryl ‘Sid’ Hosking has been awarded an Order of Australia Medal in the King’s Birthday Honours for his service to baseball.

Mr Hosking was inducted into the Baseball SA Hall of Fame last year for his continuous and passionate impact on South Australian Baseball through excellence in Baseball Administration.

He is also an elected life member of both the Centrals Baseball Club and the Mount Gambier and District Baseball League.

The baseball stalwart was awarded the Australian Sports Medal for his service to baseball in 2000 by then Prime Minister John Howard.

Mr Hosking said he was ‘flabbergasted’ to learn he was receiving an Order of Australia Medal.

“I thought receiving life memberships was the pinnacle and then I thought the hall of fame was the pinnacle but now this is another level,” he said.

“You only do that stuff (volunteering) because you want to, and you love it.

“While I am thankful that is not what I did it for.

“They (awards) are a bonus, a very good bonus.”

Mr Hosking said he would like to thank his family who followed him along on his baseball journey which spanned over more than six decades.

“Jill and I started going out back in 1969 and she was a softballer but she became a scorer for Centrals and followed me everywhere and was behind me the whole way,” he said.

“Family is everything, but baseball has been a fair bit of my life.”

Fittingly, after his youngest child Jo was born Mr Hosking under the approval of his ‘supportive and loving’ wife Jo made the split-second decision to go play a night game of his beloved sport.

Mr Hosking is known in a number of positions in his club and the local league including president, treasurer, statistician, organising committee member and club coach.

He started playing in 1960 and at 75 years old is still playing baseball in the Mount Gambier Legends Masters team.

“It is still fun and the comradeship you get from everyone is just good,” he said.

Mr Hosking has played over 700 games for Centrals since he joined the club in 1971 and played in six division one premierships.

The local sporting legend said his inaugural Centrals division one premiership in the 1980s in which the club broke a 19-year championship drought was his favourite personal grand final win.

Mr Hosking said a cherished memory was when he coached a winning division three championship team in which his two sons played.

Mr Hosking was heavily involved with the league’s transition from winter to summer baseball in 1980 in a decision he said he wished had happened sooner.

“Back when we started we used to play in the winter so Australia wide it was a winter sport,” he said.

“I had wished we had changed much earlier as the capital cities had done.

“It is much more conducive to more fun.”

While Mr Hosking has played in a number of Victorian Provincial Baseball League representative games he said his inaugural junior experience in 1964 in Dandenong was one he will not forget.

He and his teammates were staying near the Southern Hotel where the Beatles were residing in Melbourne.

He recalls someone in an upstairs floor waving a mop out the window and the crowd going ‘absolutely wild’ thinking it was one of the Beatles shaking their head.

As a proud lifelong Centrals supporter Mr Hosking can still be seen out at the diamonds scoring a game or cheering on his team.

“I was really excited last year they won the grand final in division one along with four other grades,” he said.

The baseball stalwart said he has an interest in preserving the history of the Mount Gambier Baseball and District League which formed in 1931.

“When we started summer baseball I started scrapbooking all the newspaper clippings so I sort of kept up with that continually,” he said.

“I have now got basically the full history of the Mount Gambier baseball league from 1931.

“It is an ambition to have them copied and put in a book or books.

“Whether it happens in my lifetime or not I have no idea.

“I think it is something that is important for baseball.

“I think it is important for people to be able to reflect on how it all got there.”

Given the chance Mr Hosking said he would do it all again minus one aspect.

“The only thing I would probably change is I probably would not have retired (from playing),” he said.