The Claxton Shield was the name of the premier baseball competition in Australia held between state-based teams, as well as the name of the trophy awarded to the champion team. From the summer of 1989–90 until 2001–02, and again since 2010–11, the tournament was replaced by one of three other competitions: the original Australian Baseball League (ABL), the International Baseball League of Australia (IBLA), and since the 2010–11 season the new ABL. Despite other competitions being held in place of the Claxton Shield, the physical trophy has remained the award for the winning teams. Though city-based teams have competed for the Claxton Shield in some seasons, 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.
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. 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 2022–23 Australian Baseball League season. It was the Adelaide Giants first ABL title.
History
There had been interstate baseball tournaments held prior to the start of the Claxton Shield. Prior to the federation of Australia, an inter-colonial series was held in Melbourne in 1890 between Victoria and South Australia at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground. South Australia were the eventual winners of the series, winning two games to one. New South Wales and Victoria started holding an annual series between themselves in 1900, that was only called off for a smallpox outbreak in 1913, but would not return until 1919 because of World War I. The first "national" tournament 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. None were held regularly though, and they did not always involve all baseball–playing states.
Establishment
In 1913 and in the wake of national tournaments having already been played, the Australian Baseball Council was formed by representatives of the state controlling bodies. Because of conflict between the north and south Tasmanian baseball community, they were not among the states on the council, which included New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria. Further national tournaments were not organised though, until the efforts of Norrie Claxton in 1934. Claxton, who had played for South Australia in both cricket and baseball, and was a patron of the South Australia Baseball Association, donated a shield to be awarded to the winners of the annual carnival, with the intention of permanently awarding the shield to the first team to win three consecutive tournaments, and was named the Claxton Shield.
The first tournament was held in 1934, with matches played at the Adelaide Oval and Hindmarsh Oval in Adelaide. The hosts South Australia won the tournament, and would go on to win the next two editions as well. At this point, all participating states agreed that it should be a perpetual shield awarded to the winner each year. In 1936, the Western Australia Baseball League applied to join the other states in competing for that year's tournament in Sydney. However their request came too late, as the arrangements had already been confirmed. A month after the tournament, Western Australia hosted Victoria in Perth for a three-game series as a form of preparation for their entry in the 1937 tournament in Adelaide. In a repeat of circumstances, the Queensland Baseball Association applied to send a team to the 1937 tournament, but as had been the case with Western Australia their application was too late. Queensland would make their Claxton Shield debut in the 1939 tournament in Melbourne.
Post WWII
The early part of the decade was interrupted by World War II, however the post war years provided many new players to the competition and brought Australian baseball to new heights. The Victoria Aces began their rise to the dominance of Claxton Shield by achieving their first hat-trick of titles between 1947 and 1949.