The Brisbane-based club, originally formed to play in Masters Games baseball tournaments in Alice Springs, has morphed into a dominant ball club at the annual Tamworth Carnival.

Peter Dutton, who first came to Tamworth as coach of the Queensland Under 14 side for the 1995 National Championships at the Field of Dreams, returns as head coach again.

They will be strong again, with the likes of Brisbane Bandits first baseman David “Goofy” Sutherland and pitcher Rhys Nitt on the roster.

“We’ve had a few players pull out but have a couple of others come in,” Dutton said this week.

“We are struggling for catchers though.”

While the Interport Masters chase a fifth successive title, they have won six A Division titles after first coming to Tamworth as a “true Masters” side in the mid 1990s.

“We first came down as a Masters side, all over 40 playing in the lower grades,”  Dutton said.

“We played B Grade for a few years but had all these young kids coming through.”

To give the young players such as Peter’s son, Brad, good competition, they agreed to play A Division.

Brad Dutton and Josh Roberts, who were captains of the Brisbane Bandits two years ago, have been key players for the Interport Masters along with baseball and cricket legend Kevin “Craze” Cantwell.

“It’s Craze’s birthday today too,” Dutton said during  Thursday’s  interview with The Leader.

“He’s 82.”

The Interport Masters handle success well too.

At one stage they won 10 Masters titles, five at Alice Springs and five at Australian Masters at various venues around the nation in alternating years.

Dutton is looking forward to another big weekend, especially with a the emergence of the JC’s Legends team, which is full of Gold Coast players.

That makes it almost a local derby when they play the Interport Masters tomorrow afternoon.

JC’s Legends start their A Division weekend with a match against Tamworth at 10.15am today when this journalist has the honour of throwing the first pitch on John Carter Diamond, Field 1 of the Field Of Dreams complex.

Tamworth manager is Craig Lee, who was also a great mate of the late John Carter and excited to be a part of that match.

He also thinks the Tamworth side is capable of winning a Country Championship this weekend as well.

The Tamworth, Newcastle and Country B Allstars will also be playing for the Country Championship within the tournament.

“We’ve got 10 good pitchers,” Lee said.

“Five or six quality starters too. Johnny Warren is also our pitching coach.”

Interport play their first game against Country All Stars at 8.10am today on the John Carter Diamond before tackling Deadstars on Ground 5 at 10.15am, the same time as the Tamworth-JC’s Legends game and Country Allstars playing Newcastle on Chris Parsons Diamond (FOD2).