The Claxton Shield was the premier baseball competition in Australia, first held in 1934 and last held in 2010. The Claxton Shield is also the name of the trophy awarded to the champion team, and has also been awarded to winners of both the original Australian Baseball League (ABL) and the International Baseball League of Australia (IBLA). The current version of the Australian Baseball League uses the Claxton Shield as its championship trophy in the same way as its predecessor of the same name did.[1]
There had been interstate baseball tournaments held prior to the start of the Claxton Shield. The first was held in Hobart in 1910, won by New South Wales defeating Victoria and hosts Tasmania. New South Wales repeated the feat in 1912 in Melbourne when they won again, this time with the addition of South Australia.[2] None were held regularly though, and they did not always involve all baseball–playing states. In 1934 Norrie Claxton was the principal driver of an annual national competition, and donated the shield to be awarded to the champions. Though it was originally intended to be permanently held by the first team to win in three consecutive years, when South Australia won the first three tournaments all participating states agreed that it should be a perpetual shield, and named it the Claxton Shield in honour of Norrie Claxton.
The Victoria Aces were the last team to win the shield under the Claxton Shield format, having won the 2010 tournament by defeating South Australia two games to nil in the final series.[3] It was the eighteenth time the Aces had won the shield, and the twenty second time it had been won by a Victorian team—the most by any state—including three times by the Waverley / Melbourne Reds and once by the Melbourne Monarchs. The Adelaide Giants currently hold the shield after overcoming the Perth Heat in the 2023–24 Australian Baseball League season. It was the Adelaide Giants first ABL title and seventeen time a South Australian team has won the Claxton Shield. Though city-based teams have competed for the Claxton Shield in some seasons, including under the current ABL format, the name engraved on the shield is that of the winning state; for the 2010–11 ABL season won by the Perth Heat, "West Australia 2011" was engraved.[4]
| Team Titles | The number of championships won by that team at the time. (Treats ABL/IBLA teams as separate from the state teams.) | |
|---|---|---|
| † | Denotes most championships by a team/state at the time. | |
| ‡ | Denotes tied for most championships by a team/state at the time. | |
| Denotes member of Baseball Australia Hall of Fame. |
| Season | Champion Team | Games | Runner Up | Team Titles | State Titles | League MVP | Ref | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Waverley Reds | 3–1 | Melbourne Monarchs | 1† | 16† | Phil Dale (WR) | |||
| Perth Heat | 3–2 | Daikyo Dolphins | 1‡ | 7 | David Nilsson (DD) | |||
| Daikyo Dolphins | 3–1 | Perth Heat | 1‡ | 5 | Adrian Meagher (DD) | |||
| Melbourne Monarchs | 2–0 | Perth Heat | 1‡ | 17† |  Kevin Jordan (BB) | |||
| Brisbane Bandits | 2–0 | Sydney Blues | 1‡ | 6 | Homer Bush (BB) | |||
| Waverley Reds | 2–0 | Perth Heat | 2† | 18† | Scott Metcalf (PH) | |||
| Sydney Blues | 2–0 | Melbourne Reds | 1 | 11 | Gary White (SB) | |||
| Perth Heat | 2–1 | Brisbane Bandits | 2‡ | 8 | Andrew Scott (AG) | |||
| Melbourne Reds | 2–0 | Gold Coast Cougars | 3† | 19† | Brendan Kingman (SS) | |||
| Gold Coast Cougars | 2–0 | Sydney Storm | 2 | 7 | Adam Burton (MR) |
| Season | Champion Team | Games | Runner Up | Team Titles | State Titles | Helms Award Winner | Ref | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999–2000 | Perth Heat | 2–1 | Queensland Rams | 1† | 9 | |||
| 2002 | Victoria Aces | 1–0 | Perth Heat | 1‡ | 20† |
| Season | Champion Team | Games | Runner Up | Team Titles | State Titles | Helms Award Winner | Ref | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2–1 | 1† | 12 | James McOwen (ADE) | [5] | |||||
| 2–1 | 2† | 13 | Tim Kennelly (PER) | [6] | |||||
| 2–0 | 1 | 1 | Adam Buschini (CAN) | [7] | |||||
| 2–0 | 3† | 14 | Ryan Casteel (MEL) | [8] | |||||
| 2–1 | 4† | 15 | Aaron Miller (ADE) | ||||||
| 2–0 | 1 | 10 | Justin Williams (BRI) | [9] | |||||
| 2–0 | 2 | 11 | Aaron Whitefield (BRI) | [10] | |||||
| 2–1 | 3 | 12 | Jake Fraley (PER) | [11] | |||||
| 2–0 | 4 | 13 | Tim Kennelly (PER) Marcus Solbach (ADE) | ||||||
| 2–0 | 1 | 23 | |||||||
| 1–0 | 2 | 24 | |||||||
| Season cancelled due to COVID | |||||||||
| 2–1 | 1 | 16 | Jordan McArdle (ADE) | ||||||
| 2023- 24 | Adelaide Giants | 2-1 | Perth Heat | 2 | 17 |
| Rank | State | Titles | Most Recent | Tournaments Contested< | -- Correct as of 2017-18 season --> |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 24 | 78 | |||
| 2nd | 17 | 2023-24 | 78 | ||
| 3rd | 15 | 73 | |||
| =4th | 13 | 2018-19 | 68 | ||
| =4th | 13 | 2005 | 75 | ||
| 6th | 1 | 18 | |||
| =7th | 0 | 8 | |||
| =7th | 0 | 2 | |||
| "Titles" includes seasons of the ABL & IBLA. |