Barry Pratt inducted into Baseball NSW Hall of Fame
Sutherland District Cricket Club | March 19, 2025
On Saturday 1st March, Sutherland 1st Grade player #26 Barry Pratt was inducted into the NSW Baseball Hall of Fame. He was selected for the Hall of Fame by virtue of being a member of the NSW 75th Diamond Anniversary All Star Claxton Shield Team selected in 2009.
Barry played for Sutherland DCC from 1966-67 (when he made his 1st Grade debut) to 1972-73, playing 100 matches across 1st to 4th Grades and scoring 1915 runs at an average of 19.5 with a highest score of 112 not out in 3rds in 1969-70. He captained 3rds in 1969-70, 2nds in 1970-71 & 1971-72 and 1sts in 1972-73 – a total of 63 matches. His teams made the final without success in 3rds in 1969-70 and 2nds in 1971-72, as follows:
3rd Grade Final 1969-70
Manly Warringah 267 (Ken Hatherly 3-33, Dave Gazzard 3-64, Alan Kay 2-64) drew with Sutherland 0/13 – no play day 2 due to rain. Manly Warringah declared premiers as higher-placed team.
2nd Grade Final 1971-72
St.George 194 (Steve Boehm 3-10, Howard Reus 3-47, Ian Napper 2-20, Graham Chudleigh 2-76) & 3/99 d. Sutherland 164 (Howard Reus 35, Grahame Goodman 26no, John Dyson 26, Ian Napper 23).
Barry had previously played grade cricket for Waverley, including two 1st Grade matches in 1965-66. As club historian, I had no idea that Barry had originally come to Sydney from the north coast to play baseball. I was made aware of an interview that Graeme Hughes from Talkin’ Sport on 2SM had conducted with Barry in the lead-up to the Hall of Fame induction on Wednesday 19 February, in which they talked about his baseball career and a bit about cricket. For those who are interested, you can listen to the interview by going to https://2sm.com.au/shows/talkin-sport/ and scrolling down to the Podcast section. Select 19 February and go to the 1:13:44 mark – the interview goes until the 1:24:25 mark.
This prompted me to do a search for details of Barry’s baseball career and I found this article from The Lismore App (local digital newspaper) in 2021, which comprehensively details Barry’s career and later life in retirement:
SUNDAY PROFILE: Barry Pratt, one of Lismore's most talented and successful sporting people
Steve Mackney
26 December 2021, 5:26 AM
Barry Pratt is well known in the Lismore sporting community, perhaps most notably as a former baseballer who was selected to pitch for Australia five times and who was later selected as a second baseman for the National team, whose skilful glovework and ‘catlike’ reflexes saw him seamlessly transition from a specialist pitcher to become a pivotal member of the infield. As a pitcher, there are numerous newspaper records about Pratt mesmerizing batters and dominating games from the mound. Amongst an impressive list of accolades from his baseball career, Pratt was included in a very strong NSW squad that was named in 2009 when the very best baseballers in the history of Australian baseball for the period 1934 to 2009 were named in the respective State Claxton Shield teams of the Century. His exploits as a crafty right-hand pitcher for QLD, NSW and Australia and later an outstanding second baseman for NSW and Australia, during the sixties, were justifiably recognised with legend status, from a career that started on the Far North Coast. The former boy from a dairy farm who taught himself how to throw a ball hard and accurately by repetitively throwing a tennis ball against a wall would have almost certainly become a valuable baseball product on the lucrative World Stage if his career was forged say two decades later than it was.
Like all stories about someone, it’s appropriate to go way back in time and in Barry’s case, it starts when he was born at Casino on 27th September 1938. Arthur and Pearl Pratt were Dairy Farmers at Bentley in the forties and the four children, John (now deceased), Margaret (Nixon), Barry and youngest sibling Colin, like many local children of that era, went to school and otherwise worked on the farm. Early school days for the Pratt kids were at Manifold Public School, which Barry remembers consisting of perhaps 30 kids. High School for John and Barry required travel to and from Lismore every day for several years, where they attended Marist Brothers High School (now known as Trinity). Like many children of that era, Barry left school before his fifteenth birthday, with his first employment being at McLeans General Store, with duties in the Hardware section and then getting a position at the new and soon flourishing Grangers Hardware business.
John and Barry would play backyard cricket after the evening milking was complete, with John being the ‘England team’ (or the Pom, as Barry recalls cheekily) and Barry ALWAYS the Aussie. The obligatory pleasure and pain created through the instinctive competitiveness of backyard cricket was evident on the Pratt cricket field and Barry would delight in keeping John (in the field) bowling for LONG intervals (and definitely until dark). The family moved into town (i.e. Lismore) when Barry was about age 13 and he started playing for Marist Brothers Cricket Club, where his dad was the Second Grade captain. Barry cut his teeth playing cricket in various senior teams and his first stint in local cricket as a young lad would see him become a promising batsman, scoring several centuries as a teenager in First Grade, including an innings described in a newspaper report in 1958 as being, ‘A chanceless innings that placed Marist Brothers in a near unbeatable position in the race for the Lismore First Grade minor premiership.” The team captain that day was Barry Wappett, who was himself a brilliant sportsman, going on to represent Australia in baseball as a catcher and who would, along with local sporting icons including Harold Crozier, Reg Baxter, John McMahon and Barry Pratt, each etch their names into sporting prominence beyond local competition.
Although baseball would become the number one sport for Barry, he also played hockey in his early days and while the details are now sketchy, he says that he played junior representative hockey and his first trip to the ‘big smoke’ was when he went to Brisbane for a tournament. It was however learning to master how to throw a ball that appealed to Barry and he would spend many hours perfecting his speed and accuracy. The repetitive use of his right arm, combined with adolescent maturity, saw the development of a lethal future pitcher.
Barry would delight in any opportunity to throw a ball and found himself fascinated with the ‘knock a dolly” type target constructed of tins stacked in levels, so he built one at home throwing a tennis ball from about 10 metres with deadly precision, over and over again. He became so good at hitting the tins that he was banned from entering the ‘knock a dolly’ tent at the annual Lismore Show and also the booth at the Catholic Church Carnivals that were held annually near Humbly Oval because his accuracy saw him win a prize almost every time until the vendors put an end to Pratt’s fun.
A curious young Barry Pratt and a mate were walking past what is now Heaps Oval (Lismore) one Sunday when a game of baseball was in progress and the lads were asked to play. It wasn’t long after that time when Barry started playing baseball for Marist Colts (in second grade as an outfielder). He has some memory of eventually being asked to do some pitching and as if just yesterday, talks about pitching to a catcher named Ivo Brewer who wore the standard pretty basic equipment available in those days.
Ivo had his hands full, being the catcher as this young hurler would pitch curveballs, fastballs and a range of other pitches that made the job of catching tough work. Poor old Ivo would regularly end the day ‘black and blue’ after being on the receiving end of catching Pratt’s relentless array of fastballs and a standard of pitching that was not expected in second grade and with a glove that was clearly inadequate to protect a hand from the pounding of so many accurate pitches. The next season saw Barry progress to the top grade, in a pretty handy side that included Barry Wappett who would later Catch for Australia, Adrian Meagher (senior), Greg Youngberry, Frank Harmon, John McMahon and Tom Redford.
The catch cry for Barry was now definitely ‘Play Ball’ and playing in a Cohen Cup Series against a Brisbane representative side in 1957 brought Pratt to the attention of selectors outside the region. The following year was the start of a long career of baseball prominence and Barry played for QLD as a pitcher in the 1958 Claxton Shield Series (Australian Baseball Tournament) in a side that included fellow Far North Coast players, Peter Boland (who was tragically killed in a car accident in 2020), who played catcher and Ken Martin who was an outfielder. Pratt was picked in an Australian side named with that team playing an opposition called ‘The Rest’, consisting of other players who had competed in the Claxton Shield that year.
The next series was played in Melbourne and Barry was asked by scouts whether he would be interested in going to Sydney to play for Waverley in the next winter season. An offer was made to increase his TEN quid a week that he was earning at Grangers Hardware in Lismore, to a very tempting TWENTY quid a week (plus accommodation). This was of course a time when employment and security outranked sporting ambition, so a pragmatic Barry Pratt approached his boss Edgar Schaefer, asking IF his job would still be here IF he went to Sydney in pursuit of baseball……Edgar did not hesitate and said, “GO FOR IT”.
So, in 1960, a young, still single Barry Pratt went to Sydney where ‘digs’ had been arranged for him at Double Bay. As they say, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy and now being in a world that he had never experienced, Barry eventually got his bearings and worked out ‘North’, South, East and West. The city lights, trams and plenty of time spent travelling to work at Griffs Furniture, where he would become a valued employee, was only replaced by trips around the city for sport, finding a forever home with Waverley Baseball Club, where in due course Barry would be bestowed with Life Membership, in an ultimate tribute to his status at that club.
Sydney would become the Home Base for Barry for the next thirteen years where the sporting landscape was baseball in winter and cricket in summer. My research reveals countless newspaper reports heralding Barry’s outstanding performances on the mound for Waverley and further, for NSW, where his pitching feats won numerous games for his respective sides. After moving to Sydney in 1960, Pratt was available and selected in each of eight series of playing Claxton Shield over a ten-year period, only missing trips to South Australia and Western Australia (twice) due to work commitments.
Cost was also a factor when long travel was involved, with players having to pay for all costs to represent and later when Barry and his wife Loy married in 1960 and subsequently had a young family, it meant that baseball was no longer the highest priority. A newspaper clipping found from 1964 made mention of Barry pitching an innings for Waverley where he struck out 14 batters to guide his side to a 6-1 victory on the very day (and after the birth of course) eldest child, daughter Lesley, was born. When quizzed about that moment, Barry described it as a brilliant day and recalls how he felt ten foot tall after becoming a father for the first time and I sense his facetious wit as he tells me that he was able to finish the game and return in time for the evening feed. Pitch perfect by Loy as well!! The phenomenal consistency of Barry’s form was demonstrated by his longevity at the highest level of baseball played domestically, with his selection to play for Australia in 6 of the 8 years that he played Claxton Shield. That is extraordinary in any sport and for a pitcher in baseball, just amazing.
Although Barry’s baseball prowess is largely remembered as an outstanding pitcher, the relentless physical drain on throwing a baseball at speed, would take its toll. In the Claxton Shield series in Adelaide during 1966, Barry pitched for 13 innings in a 3-2 win against South Australia (his favourite State team to pitch against), but this game would prove to be the end of his pitching career (at age 28).
The modern top-flight pitcher is unlikely to be subjected to the load on pitchers that often happened in those days. A change from pitcher to the in-field prolonged Barry’s career, but as a second baseman, first plying his skills in that position at club level with Waverley. In 1967 and again in 1969, Barry was selected for NSW as a second baseman and was subsequently selected for Australia, this time as an infielder, putting him in rare company of players who have made such a transition at the top level. A stellar baseball career continued for a few more seasons but the commitment to upholding the demands of elite sport gave way to being even more devoted to his young wife Loy and children Lesley and Tony. From those early days as a bachelor living on the North Shores, family life started by renting at Lilyfield for a while, then Bronte, before buying their first house at Sylvania.
The baseball journey would continue on a more relaxed level when Barry returned to Lismore in 1975 and his involvement with the game over the next decade was not as a player but as a coach for Marist Brothers and variously for the Far North Coast team. Barry recalls that he made it known that he wanted FNC selectors to include young players rather than those who were from a past era. Barry had a view that representative sport should have an eye on the future and his long experience in baseball beyond this region prompted him to urge selectors to harness the recognised talent of up-and-coming players to progress baseball for future generations.
Barry Pratt - REPRESENTATIVE BASEBALL CAREER
1957 Queensland v NSW Interstate match in Sydney
CLAXTON SHIELD
State Location Further selection Position
1958 Queensland Brisbane Australia Pitcher
1959 Queensland Melbourne Pitcher
1960 NSW Sydney Australia Pitcher
1961 Not Available
1962 Not Available
1963 NSW Brisbane Australia Pitcher
1964 NSW Melbourne Pitcher
1965 NSW Sydney Australia Pitcher
1966 NSW Adelaide Australia Pitcher
1967 Not available
1968 NSW Brisbane Australia Second Baseman
While his exploits in baseball are rightfully “Hall of Fame” type level, there are plenty of highlights in the Barry Pratt sporting scrapbook (proudly kept since the early days by Loy), that confirms he was a very handy cricketer. Further, he was a single-digit golfer for many years (being able to maintain this ability, well past turning 70 years of age) and I understand that Barry was very adept on the tennis court as well.
Barry’s cricket CV includes captaining Sutherland First Grade in 1972-73 when a young John Dyson (who would go onto open for Australia), was one of Barry’s charges. Team-mates through Barry’s cricket career included the legendary Norm O’Neill and stories abound of playing against cricket royalty headed by the great West Indian fast bowler Wes Hall and champion Australian batsman Brian Booth. Not bad company for a kid from the bush, who says he learnt so much from those days gracing the sporting arenas with so many exceptional individuals.
Barry returned to Lismore First Grade cricket in 1975 after a 12-year absence and the now seasoned and highly credentialled sportsman brought a host of ideas and concepts to share back home as he maintained an involvement in sport. His ‘second innings’ proceeded until 1982 and Barry’s influence at Marist Brothers Cricket Club was significant both ‘on and off’ the field. He became club president and respected club identities Maurice and Paul Gahan say that beyond Barry’s astute tactical knowledge in both cricket and baseball, where he set high standards for players to aspire to, he evolved the club’s administration and fundraising during that period.
The Pratt name has been synonymous with Brothers for many decades and Barry’s son Tony came into First Grade locally in the early eighties as a promising all-rounder, before later making a name for himself as a very competent all-rounder in Sydney First Grade cricket.
These days you will occasionally find Barry at the Lismore Workers Golf Club, where his energies not only include playing the odd round (several times a week), but also as a regular volunteer. Despite celebrating the milestone of turning 80 a few years ago, Barry continues his selfless commitment to helping around the course to support the small band of green-keepers that make the Lismore Golf Club facilities a very impressive place. Whether cooking on the barbecue at charity events, such as the annual Our Kids Charity Golf Day, or wherever a need exists, Barry is a person who is quick to make himself available to help. He will however always deflect credit from himself to others, as he always does, demonstrating the depth of his humility.
On the fairway, Barry can still compete with most low markers and at age 78 back in 2016, Barry hit a six over round of 76, replicating the same score two years earlier and he has in fact ‘hit a round equal to his age’ several times. In addition, Barry is credited with having a hole-in-one on four occasions, As displayed in every facet of his life, Barry is always quick to step forward and contribute to the greater good. A motion on 24th November 2019 that was moved by Tony Scofield and seconded by Peter Warren, was endorsed to award Life Membership to Barry Pratt. It was said at that time, that Barry has been a strong servant and contributor to the Golf Club over more than forty years, participating in countless working bees.
The work career of Barry Pratt from his early days in Lismore, then to Sydney and later back to Lismore, included working in retail, as a sales rep, owning a small business and several years in real estate, where he finished his formal days of employment. It is obvious that the personal qualities, traits and dedication that made Barry a brilliant baseballer, talented cricketer (and sportsman generally), extended to his value as an employee.
The support given and belief shown in Barry was always vindicated, with Barry endearing himself on a personal level in all instances, through his integrity and display of unconditional loyalty. Barry is way too modest to talk himself up, but I have uncovered some written references from Loy’s stash of clippings and share excerpts from Barry’s workdays where the Managing Director of A.H. Beard Pty Ltd, Mr Beard wrote in 1973, “During his 13 years with this company, Barry has been a most conscientious and highly respected employee. His dedication to the Company and his consideration to our customers has been exceptional. His honesty and trustworthiness are beyond reproach.”
A letter written by the club president of Waverley Baseball Club, Mr B. Cohen, upon learning that Barry and the family were heading back to Lismore, included heartfelt words, “Barry, from the time you arrived all those years ago as a boy from the bush to take your place on the mound and pitch yourself and this club into an era of great success, till your final seasons loafing around second base, the familiar Pratt drive and enthusiasm has been synonymous with Waverley Baseball Club’.
Life for Barry these days still includes an ingrained love for sport and despite his ‘glass half full’ disposition, he is also one of those frustrated St George rugby league supporters (but everybody has a cross to bear). Barry and Loy still live in Lismore, both now retired, with immediate family, son Tony and his wife Gloria and children Emily (20), Ryan (19) and James (11) living in Sydney, while daughter Lesley and her sons Sam (24) and Harry (21) live in Lismore.
As grandpa to 5 grandchildren, Barry lives an uncomplicated life, with the centre of his universe being family (he just fits in a few rounds of golf in his spare time). Barry makes it known that memories are good, but he doesn’t feel comfortable in talking about himself (with a request for me to ‘tone it down Steve’) ….but as the author of this article, I am proud to ‘use a few words’ to stand and applaud a man who deserves recognition.
On behalf of every team-mate who has been privileged to share a sporting moment with you, I say ‘Well Played Barry!!”
