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5 May, 2000

The film, Gladiator, is released in the United States to instant Oscar buzz and commercial success. It's 171 minutes of gladiatorial combat and Roman political intrigue and stars Russell Crowe, the greatest actor in the world*, in the lead role of Maximus Decimus Meridius.

2 August, 2000

Russell Crowe is instilled as an early favourite to win the Best Actor award. His main competition, Tom Hanks, is reportedly outshone by a volleyball in Cast Away.

Now, this bit of information may seem unimportant but it's vital to this whole story: Russell Crowe was born in New Zealand, he moved to Australia when he was 4, moved back to New Zealand when he was 14, before moving back to Australia when he was 21. Is he a New Zealander or an Aussie? The New Zealand newspapers demanded to know.

The Right Honourable Winston Peters, the Member of Parliament for Tauranga introduced a motion to the House on this day.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Mr Speaker, I seek leave of the House to introduce a motion to congratulate the thespian Russell Crowe on his performance in the motion picture Gladiator. It is a true tour de force, you can check out my full review in the latest issue of my zine: Winning with Winston. I also ask this parliament to reaffirm that Russell Crowe should be considered a New Zealander, not an Australian. Those chinless scoundrels across the Tasman have taken credit for too much of our accomplishments over the years. This aggression will not stand.

The motion passed 119-1, the only dissenter was ACT MP Rodney Hide. He was grumpy that Winston had taken one of his bottles of whiskey the night before.

3 August, 2000

You see, New Zealand had a bit of a chip on its shoulder about Australia. Over the years, Australia had the habit of claiming New Zealand inventions as their own. Fictional character Fred Dagg, the desert Pavlova, the racehorse Phar Lap, and the rock bands Crowded House and Split Enz all form part of the list of New Zealand things that Australia had laid a claim to. Russell Crowe was the latest in this list.

The Australian parliament didn't respond kindly to Winston Peter's motion. Prime Minister John Howard called a press conference.

Hon. John Howard: Look, we do we want. Howard out!

He then carefully placed the microphone on the ground. It didn't quite provide the drama of dropping one on the ground but microphones are expensive.

20 September, 2000

The war between Australia and New Zealand over Russell Crowe was growing intense. His march towards winning the Oscar was proving to have the momentum of an runway freight train. It was all the news could talk about, no one in either country were aware that the Olympics was literally happening in Sydney right then. They were much too focused on this Russell Crowe thing.

26 October, 2000

Russell Crowe attends the fifth game of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets at Shea Stadium. The Yankees win and Russell Crowe goes away thinking that baseball is "quite neat".

2 November, 2000

Australia and New Zealand agree to a rap battle between the two Prime Ministers, as was the style at the time to settle the issue of Russell Crowe.

Crowe hears about this and begins the process of making his way to Canberra from New Jersey, where's he filming A Beautiful Mind. He elects to travel by sea, he'll swim the entire way.

3 November, 2000

Crowe arrives in Canberra and makes his way to Parliament House where everyone is getting ready for the rap battle that's about to take place. Helen Clark from New Zealand is in one corner of the room, John Howard from Australia is in the other. Helen Clark points to a bit of paper and asks her aide if she can say this word. Her aide says no. Crowe enters the room.

Russell Crowe: Stop this madness, how many more people must die in this conflict?
Helen Clark: No one, literally no one has died.
Russell Crowe: I find it humbling that everyone is so passionate in this discussion. How all-consuming it is, I mean, John, did you even notice that the entirety of Western Australia disappeared two months ago?
John Howard: Wait, what?
Russell Crowe: It's an important issue: is the greatest actor that has ever existed a New Zealander or an Aussie? It's worth fighting over, it's worth dying over but I have an idea of how we can solve this without bloodshed.

He pauses for dramatic effect. The pause goes on too long as he waits for someone to start talking so he can interrupt.

Helen Clark: How?
Russell Crowe: [interrupting] Baseball. It's an amazing sport that I invented. We'll get some teams from Australia, some teams from New Zealand and they can play a whole bunch of games against each other. The team that wins gets some cool trophies, but most importantly the country that produces the winning team gets to claim Russell Crowe as their own for a year.
John Howard: Sounds fair.
Helen Clark: New Zealand Aotearoa officially accepts.

Both Prime Ministers suddenly start singing their national anthems.

25 March, 2001

Russell Crowe wins the Academy Award for Best Actor in Gladiator. The film also picks up awards for Best Picture, Best Sound Mixing, Best Costume Design, and Best Visual Effects. But who cares about all those filler awards? Russell Crowe was on top of the world.

Since his meeting back in November, a lot of work had gone into getting this baseball league up and running and it was all coming together nicely. Opening day was scheduled for early October -- just in time for the New Zealand and Australian summers. They ran a small tournament in Queenstown in January and it was a huge hit.

Finally, the question of Russell Crowe was about to be settled.

Coming Up: actual baseball! I promise!


* Source: Russell Crowe