Baseball: Northland gets into the swing

No pun intended but Whangarei baseball already has a pretty good strike rate, organiser Aaron Moore believes.

For a fledgling sport in Whangarei, the junior programme has already seen four players selected to play in teams travelling to Japan and Taiwan in the past few years.

"That's not a bad strike rate for success," he deadpanned.

"We think there's a good future in the sport, there's a chance of a professional career as well as travel at the junior level because it's such a big sport overseas."

The Whangarei baseball season kicked off with a junior open day at its new base at Tikipunga Sportpark on Sunday attracting at least 80 children.

The junior programme was its focus but they also had a few adults signing up.

"The adult team is in its early days at this stage. We took a team away to Orewa last year ... but there's plenty of interest, I think because softball used to be such a big sport here but there hasn't been any for quite some time so people are really missing it," he said.

"But the junior programme remains the focus and Sunday was about letting people know about the move to Tikipunga this year and just letting kids have a go with a bat and a ball."

He said the move to Tikipunga would make it easier for the kids from the northern suburbs to participate.

"We've had good support from places like Tikipunga and Kamo and when we worked out that it was just as close from Whangarei Intermediate to Tikipunga as it was to William Fraser Park, that was the kicker for us," he said.

Getting the primary schools to enter teams was a focus for organisers so they could build on the eight teams from last year.

For more information visit: www.northlandbaseball.org.nz.