The Sydney Blue Sox are a professional baseball team, and one of six founding teams in the re-formed

Australian Baseball League The Australian Baseball League (ABL) is a professional baseball league in Australia. The league is governed by the Australian Baseball Federation (ABF). It uses the same name as a now-defunct competition held during the 1990s, and though it s ...

(ABL). The team plays their home games at

Blacktown International Sportspark Blacktown International Sportspark (BISP) (officially known as Blacktown Olympic Park) is a multi-sports venue located in Rooty Hill, a suburb in Sydney, Australia. The venue includes two cricket grounds, which have also been used for Australi ...

(BISP), one of the two venues used for baseball at the

2000 Sydney Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, officially branded as Sydney 2000, and also known as the Games of the New Millennium, were an international multi-sport event held from 15 September to 1 October ...

, when it was known as Blacktown Olympic Park. The Blue Sox hosted the league's

Opening Day Opening Day is the day on which professional baseball leagues begin their regular season. For Major League Baseball (MLB) and most of the American minor leagues, this day typically falls during the first week of April, although in recent year ...

for the inaugural season on 6 November 2010, when they played against the

Canberra Cavalry The Canberra Cavalry (nicknamed Cavs) were a professional baseball team from Canberra, Canberra, ACT, Australia. Established in 2010, the team was a founding member of the Australian Baseball League (ABL). The Cavs home ground was Narrabundah B ...

, and won the game 1–0. The Blue Sox are the only team in the Australian Baseball League to implement sabermetrics as a way to run their team with volunteer statistician, Anthony Rescan. Fan response was very positive for the Blue Sox in the lead up to their inaugural season. As the sole team in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, they attracted interest beyond the Sydney metropolitan region; as far north as

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...

, which hosted the former ABL franchise

Hunter Eagles The Hunter Eagles were formed for the 1994–95 Australian Baseball League season after purchasing the Sydney Wave's licence, who had left the league two seasons earlier. The Eagles played in the ABL until the 1997–98 Australian Baseball L ...

throughout the 1990s. Five hundred season tickets were allocated for the 2010–11 season, which sold out two months prior to the season's start; a waiting list for 2011–12 season tickets was soon created. Such was the demand to see professional baseball return to Sydney, several games had sold out well in advance of their scheduled dates, including the season opener. As of 2025, the Blue Sox are the only founding ABL team to never appear in or win the Claxton Shield.

History

Formation

The creation of the ABL was announced at a press conference on the Gold Coast, at the Palm Meadows Baseball Complex, site of the

Major League Baseball Australia Academy Program The Major League Baseball Australian Academy Program (MLBAAP) is a seven-week baseball development program held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia for prospective Australian baseball players and officials. The Academy began in 2001 with th ...

in July 2009. Though there was speculation at the time that there may be as many as 10 teams in the competition, with teams possibly from

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

, it wasn't until two months later that the number and location of teams was announced:

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

would have one of five confirmed teams, with

Canberra Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...

eventually being successful in bidding for the sixth team. Names and colour schemes for each of the teams were determined through a competition launched in December 2009 called "Name Your ABL Team". Fans were asked to select from one of four options for the team's name or provide their own alternative. Though the four options provided for the Sydney team were "Sydney Sting", "Sydney Rocks", "Sydney Surf" and "Sydney Bluewave", the name announced in August 2010 was "Sydney Blue Sox", with Sydney's colour being the blue traditionally associated with

sporting teams. The Blue Sox would have Blacktown Olympic Park as their home ground, which had been the

New South Wales Patriots New South Wales Patriots compete in the Claxton Shield baseball championship in Australia. The Patriots were one of the founding teams of the Claxton Shield in 1934 and competed as New South Wales until 1988 when the Claxtion Shield was awarded ...

home in the

Claxton Shield The Claxton Shield was the name of the premier baseball competition in Australia held between state-based teams, as well as the name of the trophy awarded to the champion team. From the summer of 1989–90 until 2001–02, and again since 2010� ...

the previous three seasons. On 19 August 2010, Blue Sox signed Glenn Williams as

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

for the 2010–11 season. Williams had last played baseball in Australia with the Patriots in the

2007 Claxton Shield The 2007 Claxton Shield was the 73rd anniversary of the event, it was held between 19 and 28 January 2007, at Baseball Park in Western Australia, the first to be held outside of Blacktown Baseball Stadium in New South Wales since 2002 when it wa ...

, and played 13 games for the

Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. The team is named afte ...

during the

2005 Major League Baseball season The 2005 Major League Baseball season was notable for the league's new steroid policy in the wake of the BALCO scandal, which enforced harsher penalties than ever before for steroid use in Major League Baseball. Several players, including veter ...

, becoming the 17th Australian-born player to reach the Major Leagues. The following month, Eddie Bray was appointed as

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

of the club, having held the same role with the Patriots in the

2010 Claxton Shield The 2010 Claxton Shield was the 76th Claxton Shield tournament, the premier baseball competition in Australia, and was held from 6 November 2009 to 7 February 2010. It was hailed as the precursor to the new Australian Baseball League that would ...

Inaugural season

Sydney's initial roster included two players—

Chris Oxspring Chris Andrew Oxspring (born 13 May 1977) is an Australian professional baseball pitcher who has played Major League Baseball, Nippon Professional Baseball, KBO League, and currently plays in the Australian Baseball League (ABL) for the Sydney ...

and

Koo Dae-Sung Koo Dae-sung (; born August 2, 1969) is a Korean former professional baseball pitcher. A left-handed pitcher, Koo formerly played for the Hanwha Eagles in the KBO League, as well as the New York Mets of Major League Baseball and the Orix Blue ...

—and

Glenn Williams with Major League experience. With Oxspring also taking on the role of

pitching coach In baseball, a number of coaches assist in the smooth functioning of a team. They are assistants to the manager, who determines the starting lineup and batting order, decides how to substitute players during the game, and makes strategy decision ...

, and a number of players with experience from international league's including

Nippon Professional Baseball is a professional baseball league and the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning simply ''Professional Baseball''; outside of Japan, NPB is often referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league ...

and

Korea Baseball Organization The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO; ) is the Sport governing body, governing body for the professional leagues of baseball in South Korea. The KBO was founded in 1981 and has governed two leagues: the KBO League () and KBO Futures League ( (F ...

, and the late addition to the roster of active Major Leaguers Trent Oeltjen and Rich Thompson, Sydney had the most experienced roster of any of the teams in the league. The Blue Sox hosted the inaugural game of the league, playing against the

at BOP, which they won 1–0. They would go on to sweep the opening series, the first of three series sweeps they would accomplish through the season, the others two against the

Adelaide Bite The Adelaide Giants are a professional baseball team that plays in the Australian Baseball League. They are one of the six foundation franchises of the league, in its first incarnation from 1989 to 1999. The team adopted the name Bite or Adelaid ...

at home, and the

Perth Heat The Perth Heat is a baseball team in the current Australian Baseball League and a founding member of the Australian Baseball League. It is the most successful team in ABL history, winning 15 Claxton Shields. Australian Baseball League (1989– ...

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

Baseball Park A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into two field sections called the infield and the outfield. The infield is an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined in part ba ...

. Ironically, immediately after sweeping the Heat, Perth swept Sydney at BOP. Sydney clinched first place in the league in their final game, beating the Cavalry at

Narrabundah Ballpark Narrabundah Ballpark (also known as The Fort) is a 2,250 capacity baseball complex in the south-central Canberra suburb of Narrabundah, ACT, Australia. It was redeveloped in 2010 for use by the Canberra Cavalry of the Australian Baseball Leag ...

in Canberra. They led Perth by half a game, with Adelaide a further game back, and the

Melbourne Aces The Melbourne Aces are a professional baseball team based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia that competed in the Australian Baseball League. Their home field is the Melbourne Ballpark in Altona. History On 20 August 2010 it was announced ...

six

games behind In some North American sports, the phrase games behind or games back (often abbreviated GB) refers to a common way to reflect the gap between a leading team and another team in a sports league, conference, or division. Example In the standings ...

the Blue Sox. Finishing first earned Sydney the right to host the major semi-final series, in addition to a second chance if they lost the series, against the second-place Heat. Perth maintained the perfect season record in Sydney, sweeping the series and qualifying directly to the championship series. The Bite, having defeated the Aces in the minor semi-final series faced the Blue Sox in the preliminary final series at BOP. Game one of the series featured Sydney

starting pitcher In baseball (hardball or softball), a starting pitcher or starter is the first pitcher in the game for each team. A pitcher is credited with a game started if they throw the first pitch to the opponent's first batter of a game. Starting pit ...

David Welch, who threw the league's first

no-hitter In baseball, a no-hitter or no-hit game is a game in which a team does not record a hit (baseball), hit through conventional methods. Major League Baseball (MLB) officially defines a no-hitter as a completed game in which a team that batted in ...

. This would be Sydney's only win of the postseason, as Adelaide came back and won the series 2–1. Sydney players took three of the six season awards announced by the league: * Koo Dae-Sung – Reliever of the Year *

Trent Schmutter Trent Schmutter (born 27 August 1987 in Sydney) is an Australian former professional outfielder who had played for Sydney Blue Sox The Sydney Blue Sox are a professional baseball team, and one of six founding teams in the re-formed Austra ...

– Rookie of the Year * David Welch – Pitcher of the Year

Season records

Notable players

Gavin Fingleson Gavin Fingleson (born 5 August 1976) is a South African born-Australian switch-hitting former professional baseball player. Primarily a second baseman, he has also played designated hitter, third base, shortstop, and first base. Early life Fin ...

, South African-born Australian, Olympic

silver medal A silver medal, in sports and other similar areas involving competition, is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, ...

ist baseball player * Rhys Hoskins * David Kandilas * Jacob May *

Gift Ngoepe Mpho' Gift Ngoepe (mm-POH, n-GO-pay; born 18 January 1990) is a South African former professional baseball shortstop and second baseman. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Toronto Blue Jays. In 2017, he becam ...

* Zach Penprase * Brad Thomas *

Manny Ramirez Manuel Arístides Ramírez Onelcida (born May 30, 1972) is a Dominican Americans (Dominican Republic), Dominican-American former professional baseball outfielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for parts of 19 seasons. He played wit ...

* Lachlan Wells

References

External links

*
Official Facebook page

Official Youtube channel

Australian Baseball League website

{{Australian Baseball League Australian Baseball League teams Baseball teams in Australia Sports clubs and teams in Sydney Baseball teams established in 2009 Baseball in New South Wales 2009 establishments in Australia