Brisbane Bandits
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Most recent season: 2015–16 Australian Baseball League season |
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| Team Details | |
|---|---|
| League | Australian Baseball League |
| City | Brisbane, Queensland |
| Ballpark | AFA Stadium at Holloway Field |
| Year founded | 2009 |
| Inaugural season | 2010–11 |
| Postseason | |
| ABL Championships | 2 (2015–16, 2016–17) |
| Minor premierships | 1 (2015–16) |
| Uniforms | |
 |
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| Colours |
Black Maroon Gold |
| Management | |
| Manager |
  Dave Nilsson
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| Owner | ABL |
| General Manager | Paul Gonzalez and Kate Dobie |
The Brisbane Bandits are a professional baseball team in Brisbane, Queensland that plays in the Australian Baseball League and is one of the six founding teams of the league. From the 2010/11 season till the 2012/13 season their home ballpark was the Brisbane Exhibition Ground, the ground which the old Brisbane Bandits played at for the majority of their nine-year tenure. As of the start of the 2013/14 the Bandits home ground is Holloway Field in Newmarket.
Although the name is the same as the original team from the Australian Baseball League which ran from 1989 to 1999, the organisation shares no links, apart from the name, with the previous Bandits.
In the inaugural season, Paul Gonzalez was announced as the GM, replacing Kim Jessop as the previous GM with the Queensland Rams. Former ABL MVP and MLB All-Star Dave Nilsson was named the manager and Gary Nilsson the pitching coach. In 2011, another ABL MVP and ex-MLB player, Kevin Jordan, replaced Nilsson as manager.
The current General Manager for the Bandits is Paul Gonzalez (Commercial)and the Assistant General Manager is Amy Grounds
The Brisbane Bandits and the Perth Heat opened their seasons in Brisbane. The ceremonial first pitch was thrown by Graeme Lloyd and caught by the Bandits' manager Dave Nilsson; the only all-Australian battery to appear in a Major League Baseball game and both Baseball Australia Hall of Fame inductees in their own right. Despite Robbie Widlansky's two extra base hits and his scoring two runs, Perth was unable to take the lead at any point in the game. Brisbane's Wade Dutton, Shuhei Fukuda, Jerry Owens Andy Dominique, Alan Schoenberger, and Joel Naughton each had multi-hit games to help the Bandits to an 8–3 win in their first ever ABL game. Perth however went on to win the series 3-1. Brisbane went on to split the next five series against Sydney, Perth and Adelaide, with Josh Roberts hitting the first home-run for the Bandits in the 9th game of a season. The Brisbane season then took a bad turn travelling to Melbourne for the first time and getting swept in the four game series. The team found it difficult to compete at the extremely batter friendly Melbourne Showgrounds, conceding 56 runs in four games despite hitting 10 home-runs. Brisbane split the home series at the RNA against the Aces before winning their first series of the season, downing Canberra away 3-1. With an entire series washed out by the 2011 Brisbane floods, the season would hinge on the team's results in Adelaide where two wins out of a six-game series would see the team have to play a makeup series against the Cavalry. However, the Bite won five out of the six games from the Bandits, finishing the Bandits season 8.5 games out of first and one place out of the playoffs.
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