Kingsley Collins

3 October 2017

 

For the second successive year, Australia has strong representation in the MLB World Select team that will spend two weeks touring and playing in United States during October – including participation at the prestigious Arizona Fall Classic, a showcase event involving over seventy teams of emerging young baseballers from across the globe.

 

Eleven Australian players were selected after careful consideration of their eligibility - gauged by a range of factors including skill level, work ethic, “coachability”, educational potential, commitment, approachability and other personal strengths.

 

Australian Baseball Alumni congratulates the eleven young men who have earned this wonderful opportunity to demonstrate their potential to a legion of discerning United States college and professional scouts looking for their next superstar.  

 

In its news release today, Baseball Australia mentioned that the World Select squad would be playing four games in Millington, Tennessee, as a lead-up to the Arizona Senior Fall Classic starting on 10 October at the Mariners and Padres Spring Training facilities in Peoria.

 

The Classic – one of the premier showcase events in United States, with a history spanning twenty years - has again drawn teams from nearly fifty states and from overseas, with the World Select squad an amalgam of outstanding playing talent and coaching expertise from across the globe.

 

Twenty-eight teenaged players have been listed for the World Select squad (see below), which boasts true international representation with young men from France, New Zealand, Germany Belgium, Italy, South Africa, Netherlands, China and Australia.

 

The eleven Australian players – several of whom have already excelled at national and international level - have been drawn from six mainland states and territories.

 

Dermot Fritsch, Duane Johannsen and Tyson Zamora all hail from Queensland, Jackson Boyd and Jamie Young are from Victoria, Jett Wright from Western Australia. Ky Hampton and Curtis Mead are from South Australia, while James Boeree and Josh Gessner will represent New South Wales. Now living in Australian Capital Territory after growing up in Victoria, Mitch Edwards has made the World Select squad for the second time.

 

Australian involvement in the World Select tour – which is funded by Major League Baseball – helps strengthen the links between the United States governing body and Australian baseball, which has been so wonderfully served by former Major Leaguer Glenn Williams as High Performance Manager prior to his appointment as Team Australia General Manager just recently.

 

Most importantly, the World Select tour offers emerging young players a unique opportunity to showcase their capacitities to a massive and influential baseball audience while testing themselves against some of the very best at their peer level.

 

Australian Baseball Alumni wishes our eleven playing representatives and our support staff all the very best for an exciting and rewarding World Select experience. We will follow squad progress with interest and will seek to provide regular updates during the tour.

 

LINKS:

 

BASEBALL AUSTRALIA STORY

ARIZONA SENIOR FALL CLASSIC 2017