Ian Bishop is one of the gentlemen of Sunraysia sport. The baseball identity has just been awarded life membership to Baseball Victoria, almost 35 years after being bestowed the same honour to the Sunraysia Baseball League. The 78-year-old sat down with Angus Dearlove to talk about his love affair with baseball, and what his latest honour means to him.
IT has been 64 years since Ian Bishop first picked up a glove to play baseball.
Back then he was a student at Mildura High School, the year was 1955.
From then nobody could tell Bishop would go on to become one of the most respected figures in Sunraysia Baseball League history, making his mark on the game locally over a long playing and umpiring career.
Regardless of having a list of achievements longer than the run from home plate to first base, Bishop was still surprised after recently being awarded life membership to Baseball Victoria.
“It was something I never expected to be nominated for,” he says.
“It’s a pleasure to be nominated and I’m very proud to accept that nomination.
“It comes down to being involved in a sport you love. I’ve played many sports over the years, and at the same time some of them, but it’s a sport when I first saw it in 1953 I thought that’s a very good sport, I got involved with two years later and I’m still involved.”
Bishop has been heavily involved in both incarnations of Sunraysia’s baseball leagues, the first from 1961-1972 and then from 1979 onwards when it all started up again.
He originally played for Hawks (not affiliated with the current Hawks side), from 1961-1964, then Dodgers in 1965 and 1966 before acting as playing coach with the Stars from 1967-72.
Off the field he was secretary-treasurer of the league in 1966 and treasurer in 1972.
So what kind of player was he?
Bishop played third base and represented the league in every match they played from 1961-1972.
“I did win four best baseballer awards in the 1960s in the original league,” he smiled.
“I was the very first in 1962, there was no award in 1961.
“I enjoyed the game and played with good blokes, I was lucky enough to be in good teams that played well, and you played well when you were in those teams.”
Perhaps a sign of Bishop’s calibre is since 1993 the league’s A Grade MVP has been awarded the Ian Bishop Medal.
He was an integral part of the league’s reformation from 1979 onwards, playing with Eagles and Sunraysia representative sides from 1979 until he retired in 1984.
Bishop was league treasurer from 1980-1982 and then the league’s secretary-treasurer from 2007-2017.
On top of this he managed the SBL representative sides from 1985-1987 and forged a long umpiring career at league and representative level from 1985-2017.
“I thought we needed local umpires in a full time position,” Bishop says.
“All players did umpiring, but until 1985 we had no full time umpires who did nothing else.
“I started it off and we got an umpires league happening, at one stage we had 12 umpires.”
Now his official duties have finished with baseball, Bishop can still be found down at the diamonds as a spectator.
“I finished in the administration in 2017, basically finished umpiring in 2017 as well, but I come down almost every Sunday to watch games — it just depends what’s on and if there’s any championships on in Mildura I’ll come down to those too,” he says.
“The attraction to the sport is still there.”
Bishop believes the sport was still going strong locally.
“I think it’s going along very well at the moment, we’re down on numbers on what we used to have but what we have got is playing it well,” he says.
“We are represented well by the sides we send away, they do us very well in their achievements.
“Junior baseball I think will improve more, that’s got a long way to go to get where it was 20-25 years ago but it is in there hanging on.”
And the most rewarding part of being involved in baseball?
“I think it’s the people you meet, you make friends playing baseball,” Bishop says.
“There’s people still associated with baseball who I know and get along well with I’ve known right back to the 1960s.”
