Malvern honours a baseball legend
Media personality Craig "Frita" Kernick was at Wadsworth Field (Malvern) to celebrate a momentous occasion on Saturday 5 October - Opening Day for the 2014/15 Baseball Victoria Summer League season.
Frita kindly supplied Australian Baseball Alumni with the following report and a bank of photographs from the day........
Under glorious Melbourne skies, the Malvern ‘Braves’ had cause for double celebration at Wadsworth Field on Saturday.
First, they had a terrific win to open the 2014/15 Baseball Victoria summer season by defeating the visiting Fitzroy 7-4.
Second was the dignified remembrance of baseball great Jack Wadsworth.
Jack passed away on 17 June 2014 and his beloved ‘Braves’ honoured him with a ‘remembrance plaque’ erected at the club in recognition of his tireless work as a player/coach/president and as an all-round baseball ‘ambassador’.
Family and friends came from far and wide to swap stories about Jack’s accomplishments in the game and to reminisce about the legacy he left to the game of baseball and on people’s lives.
Still playing into his 80s, Jack had passed baseball knowledge on to hundreds, even thousands of juniors over the years. Many of them were at Malvern as a sign of respect to this much loved baseball figure.
Survived by wife Edna, daughter Margaret and sons David and John, all were on hand to celebrate on the field named in Jack’s honour years earlier (Wadsworth Field).
Margaret, David and John all spoke of a wonderful father who loved the club and loved the game, while wife Edna threw out the first pitch to get the main game underway.
