Pitching for his family

Berwick City Cougars playing coach Wayne Porter, with wife Amanda and sons Cooper and Mitchell, has enjoyed a long and successful baseball career. 24961 Picture: Luke Plummer

By Marc McGowan
WAYNE Porter’s right arm was his meal ticket to baseball fame.
Porter, now 39 and playing coach of the Berwick City Cougars, had the ability to throw opponents out from anywhere on the field with frightening regularity.
And it took the Cranbourne resident to the heights of the now defunct Australian Baseball League, where he had stints for the Melbourne Monarchs and Canberra Bushrangers.
But a combination of injuries and the temptations of youth conspired to cut short Porter’s promising career at that standard.
He snapped the AC joint in his left shoulder on the eve of the 1992/93 season and was strapping his shoulder seven days a week for the rest of the year.
Porter left the Monarchs at the end of that season to join the Bushrangers, who were formerly based in Melbourne.
“I moved up there, but I blew that away, too,” he said.
“I was in my early 20s – people pay for your house, you’re a semi-celebrity and I was getting free beers at nightclubs.
“If your head is not around it very well – and mine wasn’t – you end up doing the wrong stuff.
“I got injured again and got cut and came back home.”
Those experiences could have brought an end to Porter’s association with the sport, but he instead learnt from them and prospered at state league level.
“It gives me a better understanding now when I’m coaching guys and I stress to them to make the most of their abilities before it’s too late,” he said.
“I absolutely regret it and it could have been a make up of a lot of things, like never being pushed too hard to try to excel like that or it could have been a bit of fear.”
Porter was also a talented cricketer as a teenager, but rejected St Kilda Cricket Club officials’ overtures to join their development program.
An affinity for coaching was another early development in his career and he mentored his first side as a 14 year old.
It was a coaching challenge that played a major role in him switching from Moorabbin, where he first played in 1977, to rival club Ormond in 2002.
Porter, who is a type-one diabetic, helped Ormond gain promotion to Division Two before telling club officials they should seek a more high-profile coach for the higher grade.
Berwick City officials heard that Porter’s services may be available and, after some discussions, started his next test – reinvigorating the Cougars.
He is in the middle of his second season at Cyril Molyneux Reserve and already has Berwick City’s youth-laden squad heading in the right direction.
“Yesterday (Sunday) I was filthy (about the Cougars’ weekend defeat),” Porter said.
“I was actually thinking about why I was getting so upset because I’d been doing this a long time, but it’s good because it means I’ve still got that passion.
“Stewing about it means you care about the guys you’re coaching and you should because you’re developing relationships with people.”
But Porter’s baseball achievements come a distant second in his life despite winning numerous most-valuable-player awards and playing in Division One grand finals.
Family is most important to him and he cannot speak highly enough of his wife of seven years, Amanda, and sons, Mitchell, 6, and Cooper, 2.
“I don’t think there is any real comparison. Baseball doesn’t come close,” Porter said. “I can’t even describe the bond I have with my kids. I’d walk in front of a train without even thinking about it – I’d give up anything for them.”