Auckland Tuatara

The Auckland Tuatara are a professional baseball team from Auckland . The franchise was founded on August 26, 2018 as the expansion team of the Australian Baseball League and plays there in the North-East Division .

history

The admission of a New Zealand team to the Australian Baseball League has been discussed since 2009. In November 2017 it was decided to expand the league by two teams for the 2018/19 season and Auckland, along with Geelong, was selected as one of the two cities for the establishment of an expansion team. The official name and team logo was released on August 26th. Former MLB - Pitcher and past Adelaide Bite Manager Steve Mintz was appointed to the team's first manager.

The team will play for the first season at McLeod Park in Te Atatu, a suburb of Auckland , and will move to the larger North Harbor Stadium the following season .

Current squad (ABL season 2018/19)

Pitcher

No.	Nat.	Surname	birthday	Age	previous teams	in the team since	Contract until	ERA
Starting pitchers
19th		Josh Collmenter	February 7, 1986	34	Atlanta Braves , Gwinnett Braves	2018	2019	2.37
50		Kyle Glogoski	January 6, 1999	21st	Sydney Blue Sox	2018	2019	1.37
28		Atsuki Taneichi	September 7, 1998	21st	Chiba Lotte Marines	2018	2019	3.45
36		Scott Cone	March 1, 1992	28	Canberra Cavalry	2018	2019	4.50
39		John Holdzkom	October 19, 1987	32	Pittsburgh Pirates	2018	2019	3.38
46		Jimmy Boyce	June 2, 1997	23	Scottsdale Community College	2018	2019	4.29
Bullpen
20th		Tomohito Sakai	2nd January 1993	27	Chiba Lotte Marines	2018	2019	2.57
24		Yuki Harada	October 19, 1994	25th	Kagawa Olive Guyners	2018	2019	16.88
34		Brandon Marklund	June 10, 1996	24	Bryan College Lions	2018	2019	2.16
21st		Chen Yu-Hsuan	October 25, 1995	24	Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions	2018	2019	9.64
40		Ryota Okumoto	April 2, 1992	28		2018	2019	5.79
30th		Nathan Crawford	5th November 1986	33	Canberra Cavalry	2018	2019	10.12
27		Ross Vance	December 7, 1991	28	Somerset Patriots	2018	2019	54.00

Outfield player

No.	Nat.	Surname	birthday	Age	previous teams	in the team since	Contract until	AVG
Infielder
		Daniel Lamb-Hunt	May 20, 1987	33	Bonn Capitals , Brisbane Bandits	2018	2019	.234
		Nick Tanielu	4th September 1992	27	Houston Astros ( AAA )	2018	2019
		Taylor Snyder	September 28, 1994	25th	Colorado Rockies (A)	2018	2019	.105
		Taiga Hirasawa	December 24, 1997	22nd	Chiba Lotte Marines	2018	2019	.000
		Joe Perez	August 12, 1999	21st	Houston Astros ( R )	2018	2019
		Luke Hansen	July 29, 1994	26th	St. Cloud State University, MN	2018	2019	.161
		Tsai Yi-Hsuan	May 14, 1994	26th	Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions	2018	2019
Outfielder
		Blaine Prescott	July 28, 1995	25th	Texas Rangers (A)	2018	2019
		Max Brown	April 30, 1993	27	Adelaide Bite	2018	2019	.222
		Zach Clark	5th December 1995	24	Milwaukee Brewers (A)	2018	2019	.216
		Eric Jenkins	January 30, 1997	23	Texas Rangers (A)	2018	2019	.240
		Xu Guiyuan	January 29, 1996	24	Baltimore Orioles (A-)	2018	2019	.310
Catcher
		Beau Bishop	July 6, 1993	27	Adelaide Bite	2018	2019	.200
		Kuo Chun-Wei	July 18, 1992	28	Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions	2018	2019	.167

Reserve player:

Andrew Marck, Kris Richards, Takahiro Kaneka, Marko Lezaic, Yuuki Takahashi, James Hill, Sage Shaw-Tait, Dante Makea-Matakatea,

Matt Boyce, Mitchell Finnie, Nao Fukuda, Correze Nepia, Elliot Johnstone, Duncan Izaaks, Keegan Swanepoel, Seth Gibson.

As of December 10, 2018

Venues

The North Harbor Stadium in Albany , future home of the Auckland Tuatara

For the first season of the Auckland Tuatara, McLeod Park in Te Atatū, a suburb of Auckland, was expanded to a capacity of 2,000 spectators. In the following 2019/20 season, the move to the North Harbor Stadium in Albany is planned, which must first be extensively converted for this purpose.

Trivia

The name Tuatara refers to the same, from the extinction of endangered reptile , which is also under the name Tuatara is known. The lizard species now only exists on around thirty small New Zealand islands. It is believed that there are still around 50,000 to 100,000 Tuatara worldwide, the largest of which is found on Stephens Island in New Zealand. Due to the acute endangerment of the species, the franchise plans annual donations to associations that are committed to preserving the tuatara.

In addition to the Auckland Tuatara, other New Zealand teams from Wellington and Christchurch are planned for future ABL seasons .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Christopher Reive Christopher Reive is a sports reporter for NZME: Baseball: Auckland Tuatara officially unveiled as New Zealand entry to Australian Baseball League . In: NZ Herald . August 27, 2018, ISSN  1170-0777 ( nzherald.co.nz [accessed August 27, 2018]).
2. ^ Mintz named first Tuatara manager | Australian Baseball League News | The Official Site of the Australian Baseball League. Accessed August 27, 2018 (English). 
3. ^ Auckland Tuatara sign future stars from Houston Astros and Texas Rangers. Retrieved November 6, 2018 . 
4. ↑ New Zealand-Weinboutique.de : Animals of New Zealand - Tuatara the living fossil. Retrieved August 28, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Watch: NZ's first pro baseball team, the Auckland Tuatara, unveiled . In: TVNZ . ( tvnz.co.nz [accessed August 28, 2018]).
6. ↑ Why it's Auckland Tuatara and not NZ Tuatara for new baseball team. Accessed August 28, 2018 .