The Major League Baseball Australian Academy Program (MLBAAP) is a seven-week

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

development program held on the

Gold Coast, Queensland The Gold Coast, also known by its initials, GC, is a coastal city and region in the state of Queensland, Australia, located approximately south-southeast of the centre of the list of Australian capital cities, state capital, Brisbane. It is ...

, Australia for prospective

Australian baseball In Australia, baseball is a game that is played in all states and territories of the country. History Baseball was believed to have been brought to Australia with American gold miners in the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, where miners ...

players and officials. The Academy began in 2001 with the backing of the

Australian Baseball Federation Baseball Australia, formerly the Australian Baseball Federation is the national governing body of Baseball in Australia and owns the Australian Baseball League. Baseball is played in all the mainland states and territories, but it struggles fo ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

and the

Australian Sports Commission The Australian Sports Commission (ASC) is the Australian Government commission responsible for supporting and investing in sport in Australia. The Commission incorporates the Australian Institute of Sport. From 2018 to 2022, it was known as S ...

, with the aim of improving the quantity and quality of young Australian baseball players. The Academy has included notable MLB coaches such as

Rod Carew Rodney Cline Carew (born October 1, 1945) is a Panamanian-American former professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a second baseman, first baseman and designated hitter from 1967 to 1985 for the Minneso ...

, Pat Kelly,

Graeme Lloyd Graeme John Lloyd (born 9 April 1967) is an Australian former professional baseball pitcher, who appeared with the Milwaukee Brewers, New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays, Montreal Expos, Florida Marlins, New York Mets, and Kansas City Royals o ...

, David Nilsson, Mark Hutton and

Luke Prokopec Kenneth Luke Prokopec (born 23 February 1978) is an Australian former right-handed pitcher who played in Major League Baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays. While with the Dodgers in 2000 and 2001, the tandem of Prokopec ...

. MLBAAP has been the catalyst for over 140 professional player signings, boasts 2 Major league players among its alumni ( Rich Thompson and Brad Harman) and has seen many more progress through the ranks of the

Australia national baseball team The Australian national baseball team represents Australia in international baseball tournaments and competitions. It is ranked as the top team in Oceania, and is the Oceanian Champion, having been awarded the title in 2007 when New Zealand na ...

Structure

The location of the Academy is the Palm Meadows

Radisson Hotel Radisson Hotels is a multi-brand hotel chain with a worldwide presence. Its brands include several using the Radisson name, as well as other brands like Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts and Country Inn & Suites. In June 2022, Radisson Hotel Group ...

resort, which includes a world-class baseball facility. Players are split into four teams ( Roos,

Wombat Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials of the family Vombatidae that are native to Australia. Living species are about in length with small, stubby tails and weigh between . They are adaptable and habitat tolerant, and are ...

Koala The koala (''Phascolarctos cinereus''), sometimes inaccurately called the koala bear, is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only Extant taxon, extant representative of the Family (biology), family ''Phascolar ...

s and

Dingo The dingo (either included in the species ''Canis familiaris'', or considered one of the following independent taxa: ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or ''Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient (basal (phylogenetics), basal) lineage ...

s) and the program is set up very much like professional rookie leagues in North America. Academic staff from several Gold Coast state schools and the Gold Coast Institute of

TAFE Technical and further education or simply TAFE () is the common name in Australia for vocational education, as a subset of tertiary education. TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational courses. Colloquially also known ...

assist with tutoring and supporting the athletes, to ensure their educational requirements are achieved. Teaching staff are chosen on their experience and empathy regarding the difficult combination of balancing elite sport with academic excellence. Education sessions are conducted Monday to Friday, with an expectation that year 11 and 12 athletes set aside at least 2 hours additional time per Saturday and Sunday for private study. The seven-week program consists of at least one match a day against each other and other touring teams, with a break on Sunday, giving players and officials plenty of match practice. Between 60 and 80 players are given a scholarship from all states and territories of mainland Australia as well as other invitees from countries including

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, Japan, New Zealand,

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), is an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territory and Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), commonwealth of the United States consistin ...

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

and

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. The current

head coach A head coach, senior coach, or manager is a professional responsible for training and developing athletes within a sports team. This role often has a higher public profile and salary than other coaching positions. In some sports, such as associat ...

is national team manager Jon Deeble, who is supported by national team

coaching Coaching is a form of development in which an experienced person, called a ''coach'', supports a learner or client in achieving a specific personal or professional goal by providing training and guidance. The learner is sometimes called a ''coa ...

staff Phil Dale, Tony Harris, Pat Kelly, Graeme Lloyd and Dave Nilsson. As of , there are 84 Australians playing professionally in North America.

References

External links

MLBAAP
home page {{Baseball in Australia Major League Baseball Sports organizations established in 2001 Baseball in Australia Sport on the Gold Coast, Queensland Sports education and training Sports academies

Structure

See also

References

External links