1956 Baseball Program - USA Olympic team versus Western Australia
A souvenir program for the 1956 baseball game between the USA Olympic team and a Western Australian team. The front cover displays the coloured flags of the USA and Australia. The back cover has an advertisement for 'Motor Traders Pty. Ltd.' The inside pages are of white paper, yellowed with age, with black text; they contain a photograph of the USA team and pen pictures of the USA and Western Australian team members.
Baseball was not part of the Olympic program at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne; however, Australian officials invited the United States to send a team to compete as a demonstration sport. The USA was represented by a detachment from the United States Far East Command.
Following the Olympics, the USA team toured Australia, playing State baseball teams in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia; they were undefeated. The games were part of Australian baseball sporting history.
This program is for the game played as a night game in Perth at the Western Australian Cricket Association (WACA) ground on December 19, 1956. The three Western Australian representatives in the Australian Olympic team — Neville Pratt, Bob Teasdale, Max Puckett — also played in the USA v. WA game in Perth. The souvenir program also provides information on Night Series baseball games played in 1956-57, and future night games.
National Library of Australia
[https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/138122672 ]
Details
Details
[Front cover]
'Souvenir'
'U.S.A. Olympic Baseball Team v. W.A. State Team'
'Wednesday, Dec. 19, 1956'
'W.A.C.A.'
'One shilling'
[Advertisement for Motor Traders]
[Back cover - advertisement for Motor Traders]
[Back cover - printer/publisher details]
'Printed by Country Job Printers, Perth for the Publishers Brockwise Publishing Co., 5 Riseley Street, Applecross. Phone MJ 1677.'
The game between the 1956 USA Olympic team and the Western Australian team is part of WA's sporting history. All three Western Australian baseball representatives at the Melbourne Olympics participated in the game in Perth. The game was won by the USA team 4-1.
This program was donated to the Baseball WA Museum & Archives by the family of Roy Watson, who was a second baseman in that 1956 Western Australian team. Watson also represented Western Australia in the 1955 and 1957 Claxton Shield Championships. The program is a valuable addition to the Museum's program collection.
A rare and well-provenanced item that provides details of an historic sporting event in Western Australia's baseball history.
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