Jason Derr considers himself an adopted Scot. Having initially left his native Seattle for a two-week holiday, he has now been here for seven years and has no plans to return home.

So, is he missing his favourite sport, baseball?

Well, no.  He gets his fix here as player, coach, manager and president of Edinburgh Diamond Devils and their future is in his hands.

Having played for Team Scotland, Derr, 34, is hoping to one day take the Diamond Devils back into the British League (it is three years since the team played there) and perhaps back into European competition.

The new Scottish League season begins this month with two new teams having entered, Aberdeen Roughnecks and Edinburgh Canons, and Derr concedes it is a transitional year for the team.

Glasgow Baseball Association have entered a team in the British League but the Diamond Devils will attend to matters closer to home.

“I left one cold, rainy place for another cold, rainy place!" laughs Derr, on his move from Seattle to Edinburgh.

”I’ve been with the team for seven years and have been coaching for the last six. I’m pretty much head coach, team manager and club president.

“I played baseball in high school in the States and I was surprised to find it was played here but we have a good mix of people playing.

“I’d say it was maybe 60-40 in terms of foreigners to Scots.  We have players from South Africa, Australia, Poland and Hungary as well as North Americans.

“I think a lot of guys have seen the sport on television and come along to try out. It’s pretty casual in that we encourage players along no matter their standard.

“We’ve had to take a bit of a step back in the last few years and we no longer play in the British League as the travelling costs were proving too great.

“This is a transitional year as two Scottish teams folded last year but there are positive signs coming out of the Aberdeen team and we hope we can build it from here.”

Scottish players have made their mark further afield in recent years, perhaps most notably David Donaldson from Perthshire who is now playing in Australia.

Most famously in baseball history, Glasgow-born Bobby Thomson - the Staten Island Scot - made his mark in 1951 for the New York Giants with his "shot heard 'round the world" which earned him a place in the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.

But the chances of another Scot playing Major League Baseball in America appear distant.

“It would be difficult for a Scottish player to ever break into Major League Baseball, pretty much because when an American player reaches 18 they’ve had ten years playing the game," Derr points out.

“In Scotland, players are really only starting out at 14 and haven’t had the same level of competition.
“Scotland is still a small country in baseball terms although there are a lot of teams now playing down south and I think there are ten teams in the Northern League this season and around 18 teams in the London League.

"But David Donaldson has done well and, in fact, his cousin Mark plays for us."

The Diamond Devils, founded as Edinburgh Royals in 1986, have moved around the Edinburgh area in search of the perfect home field and there is a new home this year at Warriston Park, near the Botanic Gardens.

Derr knows that for the Diamonds to ‘shine’, there needs to be a permanent baseball diamond to attract players to the sport.

“We’ve been around a bit - from Prestonpans to Peffermill to Union Park and now to Warriston," he explains.

"We’ve had talks with the council about setting up a permanent home and they have been really positive.

“I think they see that it makes sense to have a field where people can go and play the game regularly. It would help get people involved in the sport.

“We want to go into schools and offer them a chance to send kids over for coaching on an evening and that would be great to boost our playing numbers.

“Television now covers the game more than ever and I think there is a lot of interest out there. We don’t have a problem with equipment and we see this as a time to build a playing base.”

RM
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