Baseball returned for season 2022/23 on Friday night under the bright lights of Diamond 1.
It would be a battle of last year’s grand finalists with reigning premier Tigers taking on Centrals.
The night was a special occasion for the local baseball brigade with Darryl “Syd” Hosking honoured after being inducted into the South Australian Baseball Hall of fame.
Hosking was honoured with throwing the opening pitch to Centrals player Nathan Meinck who unfortunately lost his father in the off season and was a great teammate to Hosking.
With the formalities over it was time to “play ball” and it was Jesse Foster who was given the job for Tigers on the hill, while Centrals went with young gun Alex Ridding.
A tight contest was what the crowd expected and it’s what it got through the first four innings, with even Ben Marcus winding back the clock and making an unreal play at second base being somewhat parallel with the ground to make a play.
Centrals started to make a move when Dylan Chuck collected his second hit for the night and made the game a three-run advantage for his side.
A pitching change in the sixth saw Joey Sims replace Foster for Tigers and Centrals clearly enjoyed this move, with errors and hits the scoreboard suddenly blew out of control and before Tigers and the crowd knew it was a 12- 2 ball game.
Chuck closed out the last innings to avoid Tigers getting a sniff and the game was called due to a mercy rule after seven innings.
Tigers were missing stars Garth Ransom and Garrett Ha for the game along with coach Karl Ransom while Centrals were also missing young guns Koby Chant and Ethan Chuck.
Centrals proved to the league it was hungry after last year’s shock grand final defeat.
Saturday afternoon saw Federals make its Division 1 debut after a year in the development stages where they were up against a young South outfit that has made a number of changes in the offseason.
South and Federals showed what local sport and mateship is all about before the first bounce with both clubs honouring the losses of two South champions in the offseason by standing side-by-side for a minute of silence.
Ryan Placcucci had the South boys firing early and took a comfortable lead in the first at bat. Federals have nothing but respect from the league, with the Division 1 side having an average age of 16 years take the ball park.
Federals leader Matt Nichols was strong on the hill showing a great outing and having Federals back playing Division 1 is a great story.
South proved to be too strong in the end with a big win getting their season off to a flyer.
