Andrew Scott

Andrew Scott

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 9", Weight 176 lb.

• Born December 22, 1969 in Adelaide, South Australia Australia

Olympics-Reference page

Biographical Information

Andrew Scott was one of the biggest stars in the Australian Baseball League in the 20th Century and played in the Olympics. He never played in a professional circuit but was active in the semipro Japanese industrial leagues for a number of years.

Scott hit .301/.345/.463 in the 1989-1990 Australian Baseball League, the loop's first year. He was named the second-team All-Star second baseman behind David Buckthorpe. In 1990-1991, Andrew improved to .367/.429/.604 and was named the All-Star second baseman. He was on the Australian national team in the 1991 Asian Championship.

Scott fell to .294/.369/.508 in 1991-1992. He was honored as the Best Hitter in the 1992 Haarlem Baseball Week. In the 1992-1993 ABL, the he batted .295/.368/.455 in his fourth season for his hometown Adelaide Giants. He was with Australia for the 1993 Asian Championship. He hit .429/.459/.800 as the Aussie third baseman in the 1993 Intercontinental Cup. He tied Todd Helton for 4th in the event in average behind Omar Linares, Hideaki Okubo and German Mesa. His three homers tied Lourdes Gourriel Sr., Todd Walker and Ermidelio Urrutia for 4th. Linares beat him out for All-Star honors at third.

In 1993-1994, the right-hander produced at a .335/.401/.659 rate with 12 homers and 46 runs in 52 games. He was 5th in the loop in average, 4th in slugging (trailing David Nilsson, Brendan Kingman and Greg Jelks), was second with 29 extra-base hits (behind Kingman) and was second in runs (one behind fleet-footed Curtis Goodwin). He won the league's Gold Glove award (given to one player, regardless of position) and made second-team All-Star at 2B, behind batting champ Homer Bush.

Andrew hit .333/.382/.533 with 9 RBI in 7 games in the 1994 Baseball World Cup, playing primarily left field. At age 25 in 1994-1995, Scott batted .322/.398/.556 with 10 homers in 56 games for the Giants. He was again second-team All-Star at second base, this time behind Scott Tunkin.

In the 1995-1996 Australian Baseball League, the infielder hit .363/.422/.602 with 19 doubles and 36 RBI in 44 games. He was second in the circuit with 62 hits and tied for second behind Gary White with 27 hits for extra bases. He once again was picked as the #2 second sacker in the ABL - Adam Burton became the fourth different first-teamer chosen ahead of Scott.

Scott was Australia's starting first baseman in the 1996 Olympics and batted .345/.367/.621 with 6 runs and 8 RBI in 7 games. He led the Aussies in RBI in the Atlanta Games. In 1996-1997, Andrew had his best season, hitting .414/.505/.575 with 12 steals in 14 tries and 44 runs in 57 games. He led the ABL in average, hits (75) and OBP while placing 5th in steal percentage and walks (31). He was named first-team All-Star at second base and took home the MVP award.

Scott hit .410/.489/.462 for the Australian team in the 1997 Intercontinental Cup, again playing first base mostly (Burton was at second). Andrew had 16 hits to tie Paul Gonzalez and Jelks for second in the event, two behind Jason Tyner. Hitting third in the Bronze Medal game, Scott went 3 for 4 with two walks, a double and two runs to help lead Australia to a 7-6 upset of Team USA for its first Medal ever in a major international competition. Orestes Kindelan beat him out as the All-Star 1B.

The Adelaide veteran's batting line in 1997-1998 was .274/.400/.500 with 10 homers and 41 RBI in 51 games. He hit .439/.467/.707 in the 1998 Baseball World Cup and fell a double shy of the cycle in a semifinal loss to Japan. Splitting second base with Adam Burton and first with Ronny Johnson, Scott played error-free ball despite no set position. He tied Norman Cardoze and Kindelan for 4th in the Cup with 18 hits, one behind co-leaders Henry Roa, Robelquis Videaux and Edgard López.

Scott had another big season in 1998-1999, his last major one, with a line of .310/.381/.550 and 41 RBI in 44 games for Adelaide. He was named the first-team All-Star first base, his 7th All-Star nod in 10 ABL campaigns. He tied Gary White for third in the loop with 53 hits (trailing Burton and Gary White), led with 41 RBI (robbing Burton by one RBI of a Triple Crown as he had taken the other two legs), scored 35 runs (tying for second, 4 behind Burton), had 23 extra-base hits (one shy of leader Burton) and tied for the most doubles (14). Despite that, he was left off Australia's historic 1999 Intercontinental Cup team, when they won their first Gold ever in a major tourney, beating Cuba in the finale. Burton was still holding down second and Johnson was at first.

In the 10 seasons of the ABL's existance from 1989-1999, Scott had finished among the leaders in almost everything - average (.329, 3rd behind Nilsson and Jelks), games played (469, 1st), at-bats (1,582, 1st), runs (343, 1st by 42 over Johnson), hits (521, 1st by 43 over Gary White), RBI (307, 2nd to Johnson), doubles (115, 1st by 15 over White and Johnson), triples (9, 5th), homers (72, 6th), total bases (870, 2nd, 9 behind Johnson), slugging percentage (.550, tied for 10th with Scott Metcalf), OBP (.428, 7th), walks (198, 3rd behind Johnson and Peter Vogler), strikeouts (195, 16th) and steals (55, 10th).

Scott played one last season in Australia in the 1999-2000 International Baseball League of Australia. Switching to wood bats and turning 40 years old, he struggled by going 11 for 63 with 7 walks, 2 doubles, a homer and 4 steals for an inglorious end to a great career.

In 2005, he was inducted into the Baseball Australia Hall of Fame as part of the initial class.

Sources

• Flintoff & Dunn Australian Baseball Almanac
• Defunct IBAF site
• 9/21/1991 The Age, pg. 26