DOUG WHITE’S HISTORY WITH THE ADELAIDE BASEBALL CLUB.

 Doug first played with Adelaide as a fourteen year old in 1954. The Club home ground was in the South Parklands between Pulteney Street and Unley Road.

The first four years he played in the Minor F grade (Division 8 in present time). 1957 he won an award for the most improved player in the team, the only award Doug ever won with the Club. In the following years he played in Minor E, D, and in his final year finals, in 1956 and 1957, without a win.

In the 50s and 60s there were Major A and B Grades then Minor A to Minor G grades. That was equivalent to today’s Division 1 to Division 9 grades.

In 1957 and 58 with his friend Rolly Vaughton junior, they were the club’s diamond markers for the South Parklands ground. Every Saturday morning they mixed the lime powder and water, tipped it into a tank on wheels with a bike pump connection, pump it up with a bike hand pump, open the pressure valve, and away they would go. Doug would then race home and get changed and back to the ground for a one p.m. game start.

About 1959 the Club transferred their home ground to West Beach Reserve.

Adelaide Club had four primary schools they looked after in their area. The schools were Cowandilla, Plympton, Forbes and Richmond. The Club ran a Saturday morning competition between the schools on West Beach Reserve.

1960 and 61, Doug had the job of organizing this competition, arranging umpires and coaches of from the club and making sure everything came together each Saturday morning.

This involved him transporting the Cowandilla boys and their gear in his car. It was a lot of hard work but he found it was worth the effort seeing the boys enjoying themselves at there games.

Doug left the Club at the end of season 1963, and started umpiring baseball in 1964.

He continued umpiring until the end of the 1991/92 season, umpiring in a total of 1,162 games.

.1999 Doug was involved with the Masters Games at Weigall Oval. On going into the club rooms and looking at the Adelaide Baseball Club’s honour board he noted that there were no Club records showing prior to 1960.

On enquiring found out that the early club records had been lost. Being an ex Adelaide player Doug thought it needed correcting as 100 years of the club was coming up in 2008. He asked Sep Trimboli, who was president at the time, if it was OK with him if Doug did a bit of history digging. Sep said go ahead and good luck.

In his pursuit Doug managed to track down 106 addresses and phone numbers of old players dating back to 1940. This came in handy when sending out invitations for the Club’s Centenary Dinner. Off and on between 1999 and 2007 Doug managed to find enough information to be able to print a 181 page book on the history of the Club in time for their Centenary celebrations. Doug was also on the Adelaide Baseball Club committee organizing the celebrations for their 100 years.

The Club decided to have a team of the century and as Doug had all the playing information on past players back to 1914, he did a summary on all players nominated for the team. Doug was on the selection panel and a team was chosen from the information he tabled at the final meeting.

Doug was asked by Greg Frick, president of the Adelaide Club to put together an application for Norm (Chalky) White for life membership of the South Australian Baseball League. This he did and Norm received his life membership of the League at their annual general meeting in 2009.

Paul Chandler, CEO of Baseball SA, contacted Doug regards information on Norm White as the League was going to nominate him for the Australian Baseball Federation Hall of Fame. Doug supplied all the information and worked with Paul in putting the nomination together. The nomination was successful and Norm was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2011.

Adelaide Baseball Club awarded Doug White with life membership of the Club for his outstanding contribution to the Club over the previous ten year. The presentation was made by Greg Frick at their annual general meeting on the 27th March 2012.