MLB: Travis Bazzana is touted as one of the top prospects for the upcoming MLB draft, with the Aussie crunching the record at Oregon State.
March 19. It is a date that Travis Bazzana will always remember and because of one moment in particular — even if he can’t actually remember much about the moment itself.
“It comes back to conversations I had with family and mentors and people like Jimmy when I was in high school,” added Bazzana. With every home run hit and base stolen, Bazzana is helping put Australian baseball on the map. And at just 21 years old, he’s only just getting started.As was the case when Oregon State and Stanford played earlier this year, Nati and Bazzana were rivals on different teams. Except this time around they didn’t know each other.Bazzana, who was playing for the Ku-ring-gai Stealers, stepped up to the plate while Nati lined up at shortstop for the Greenway Giants.
“We’re obviously really lucky with Travis that he decided to play baseball and left cricket because we were able to get an athlete of his calibre. Then there’s the mental side of things and the work ethic and things like that that have enabled him to get to where he is.So was Nati. The two were from the same representative region and that meant they saw a whole lot more of each other, sometimes as opponents and other times as teammates.“Or as much as we could,” added Nati.
Bazzana has been around the game for a long time. Since he was three years old, to be exact, when he first starting swinging and he hasn’t stopped since, as if the bat became an extension of his hands.Although it wasn’t always a bat he was holding. At one stage of his childhood it was a two-litre bottle of coke his dad used to create a device that Bazzana played with to learn how to bunt as a kid.
Why exactly? Well, it turns out Bazzana was just that good, so good that he was ready to play with kids two years ahead of him. But they needed permission first.“He’s always just been a weapon.” But Bazzana didn’t need to be on the field to be learning something. Every moment spent around former big leaguers like Gift Ngoepe and Andy Burns was an opportunity for growth.
Others didn’t share that same belief. In fact, there was plenty of talk of a different kind in and around the locker room — the kind that Bazzana said he used as “fuel” to get to where he is now. It would have been easy to let the words consume him. To stop being a dreamer and start being a realist. To accept the ceiling that had been placed on where he could go and who he could be.
The kind of confidence Bazzana has, the unwavering self-belief that took him to the top of draft boards and put his name on the map in America, is often celebrated over in the States. “Then you combine that with I guess the track record of Australian baseball at the time I was coming through. There wasn’t many position players or infielders like me making it at the highest level or going to Power Five, Division I baseball programs and so everyone sort of thinks it’s not possible and the coaches that have been there, done that it’s like, ‘If I couldn’t do it, how can this kid do it?’ and so their words are limiting.
That means that when he doesn’t have a baseball in hand often you’ll find him with a book instead and sometimes it may not even be his own. “… I told him to make sure he takes a lot of notes in it in the margins so that I can see which parts of the book really caught his attention and I can learn from those as well.”
“So my thought process as soon as I thought college was going to be the route was what college is going to allow me to do is put myself up against a playing field that gets scouted consistently and the performance will do the talking. He discovered that with NxtGen Baseball and Rowland-Smith, who founded the performance company with the aim of giving the next generation of Australian baseball talent the platform and opportunities that he never had.Too often the norm was signing a professional contract at a young age with the hope of making it, only to come up against players who had grown up facing the top level of competition in America.
Having already lived out his dream, Rowland-Smith wanted to help other young aspiring Australian baseball players do the same. Not that Bazzana needed convincing anyway. He’d already convinced himself long before then that he wouldn’t just settle for what was expected.It’s what brought them together on that Sunday afternoon at Klein Field at Sunken Diamond in the first place and it’s why, despite taking separate journeys there, they have and will continue to be inextricably linked in everything they do.
“That’s kind of a guesstimate. But most kids are signing right around the six-figure mark. To put that in context, that’s like the 400 or 500th pick in the Major League Draft every year that gets about that much money or the 10th to 20th rounders. To jump at the opportunity to tell all the people that ever doubted him that he had already made it, not just to a Division I school but to one of the most decorated baseball programs in the country.
“As he’s getting emotional and kind of overwhelmed a little bit and you can see it on his face he paused and said, ‘I wanted this my entire life but I need to make sure that I get home and talk this over with my family’. Bazzana quickly proved it too in the summer before joining Oregon State, setting a new single-season record for batting average while playing for the Corvallis Knights in the West Coast League.
“I had a really good training session and my dad asked me, ‘How good do you think you’re going to be in the West Coast League? How do you think you’re going to compare to these guys?’ It was his separator. But Oregon State was something else entirely, yet another test in seeing just how far this little known Sydney native could go.
Bazzana’s coming-out party came against Arizona State, with the second baseman hitting a grand slam and driving in eight runs – just one shy of tying the Oregon State record. In that moment of complete vulnerability, after he went 0-for-4 and left eight runners on base in the 4-3 loss to the Auburn Tigers in the Super Regionals, he showed a completely different side.
“It’s also an expectation of the guys and me to continue this rich history in this program and the want to go out and perform for the great staff that we have. I want nothing more than to bring a championship back to Oregon State again.”A year on and Bazzana had done all he could to try do just that, setting the Oregon State single-season record for stolen bases and that was just the start of one of the best individual offensive seasons in Beavers history.
In order to truly appreciate magnitude of Bazzana’s achievements though, first you have to take a few steps back. “He’s an example coaches will be using for years to come on what it takes to succeed and what you need to do to be a high-level player. I know his teammates love him, his coaches love him, Oregon State baseball fans love him. He’s just a beloved and respected figure in this program.”
But then he was no longer eligible to be drafted after his sophomore season, meaning instead of having just the one summer to prepare before the draft Bazzana now had two. “In Travis’ case he didn’t really have too many weaknesses, especially for a college player. He was already above average and was looking to increase that level to a pro level while still being in college.
“Some guys will gain a couple miles an hour during that time which is still a lot, that’s more than anyone else will be able to train someone at that rate, and then Travis saw an even bigger jump than that.” Whatever the day’s work, Bazzana — or the “hitting doctor” as Nati likes to call him — would have something on his mind.Or, in the case of when he missed out on a representative team back home in Australia, he’ll train and train and then train some more as Rowland-Smith recalled.
But the Oregon State staff trusted he was making the right decision. The key word here being trust, something that is earned. “It’s insane, so you look at both ends of the spectrum physically and obviously some of the preparation side of things, he’s just next level. I was just blown away. “That’s how we learn… I think that was a great time for him to go up and do that, too and then last year to go out and push himself and play in the Cape all summer and really show out on a new level has really helped his case.”Speaking of which, Bazzana headed to the Cape with plenty of hype after a sophomore season that saw him earn five All-America selections while also being named to the All-Tournament teams for the Baton Rouge Regional and Pac-12 Tournament.
“If you’re facing elite pitching in the Cape Cod league and you produce like that, Major League Baseball scouts want to see that, because that is an indicator of your potential future success so that’s kind of that’s a big deal for sure.” “I coach third base, so the visiting dugout is usually behind me and hearing other players kind of talk about him in a sense to be like, everybody was taking notice of him, you know? I even had certain people , ‘He’s legit isn’t he?’, and I’m like, ‘I mean, he’s pretty good. He’s as good as everybody says he is’.
“I haven’t seen very many hitters come up to the Cape League and be able to do that consistently with the wood bat,” Becker added. “And then once he started playing well, it’s like, ‘OK, this kid’s a superstar and he has superstar potential’, not necessarily just because of what he does on the field but because of how he handled himself and all the other situations that he is in because of the type of player that he is.”
“He has that chip on his shoulder and he has it on his shoulder all the time and I think that’s what gives him his edge and that’s what makes Travis Bazzana Travis Bazzana.”A name that surged up draft boards. A name that became household in baseball circles. And a name that was still somehow relatively unknown back home, where everything began.
“Him being the type of person that he is, that’s why I feel like I’m able to say that because I know the impact kids like Patrick Mahomes has had on people and knowing Travis Bazzana, I think he has the same type of pedigree.
Little League Game Time Baseball Programs People Person Representative Region Getting Game Time Major League Draft Opening Round Andrew Jackson Real Baseball Powerhouse People Kind Batting Championship Seattle College Kids Tall Poppy Syndrome California College Route Logan Hannigan-Downs Talented Young Players Highest Level Stanford Representative Team Leaguer Wood Bat League Playing Professional Baseball School Kids Cal Ripken World Series Offensive Seasons Australian Baseball Mireille Merlet-Shaw Runs Scored Trophy Room Agence France Presse Stuff Works Ku-Ring-Gai Professional Deals Trevor Larnach Wood Bat Freshman Season Draft Pick National Championship Player Development Real Deal American Sports Baseball Ground Hour-And-A-Half Presentation State Of Washington Back Home Cuba Defining Image Australian Sporting History Baseball Circles Preparation Side Batting Practice Professional Contract Historic Sophomore Season Bat League Australia Regular Season Impressive Freshman Season Nick Madrigal Atlanta Braves Professional Teams Degree Decrease North America Brisbane Young Teenager College Players Joe Freeman Selection Honour Board Slovenia Initial Plan Power Five Jimmy Nati For Stanford Kansas Line Drive Tee Work Ryan Rowland-Smith Sophomore Season Single-Season Record NCAA Premiership Winning Teams Jacoby Ellsbury Australian Baseball Talent Jeff Moreland Brooke Knight Dave Nishitani New South Wales Lismore Minor League Game Speed Nebraska Omaha College Baseball Baseball World On-Base Percentage Elite Pitching Pitching Coach Gary Getty Images Inc. College Baseball Playoffs Santo Domingo Told Foxsports.Com.Au Learning Experience Hitting Trainer Young Man College Look Baseball League Andrew Riddell Game Changer Baseball Field Aussie Wonderkid Amanda Loman Dad Kind Cape Cod League MVP Hitting Coach Australian Baseballer Training Session Arizona Final Season Kansas City Home Runs Program Records Position Players College Baseball Game Florida Standout Career Talented Program Perennial Contender Ty’Relle Harris Adam Grant Southern Europe Australian Baseball History Villa Clara Ben Matthews Impact Kids Game Distance Cages Multiple Nights Chicago Cubs Jim Callis Bat Baseball League Australian Baseball Players Young Age Real Separator Mind Works Jack Moreland Childhood Friend Cod Baseball League International Scouting Market Junior Colleges Palo Alto Caribbean Baltimore Orioles Turramurra High School Queensland Baseball Fans Bat Speed Major League Baseball Brett Becker Andrew Green Foxsports.Com.Au Chronicles Professional Baseball Career Promising Young Prospects Australian Prospects West Coast League MVP Single Day North Wahroonga Stolen Bases Wooden Bat League Europe Recruiting Visit Baseball Journey Players Kind Northern America First-Round Selection Honour Player Evaluation Patrick Mahomes Oregon Leaguers United States Of America Hitting Streak Representative Level Joe Ingles Oceania Hitting Doctor Highest Level Talk Career Hits Ups And Downs Shoulder Mentality America Performance Company World Series LIVE On ESPN Mitch Canham Locker Room Australia And New Zealand Example Coaches National Football League Weight Room Patty Mills Andrew Aydt Edwin Friedman Consecutive Premiership Winning Dominican Republic Professional Baseball Role Model Swapping Books
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
‘I love my footy’: Aussie NBA star leaves door open for Aussie Rules returnAFL: Dogs star Marcus Bontempelli is unlikely to sign a new deal until the end of the season and young gun Sam Darcy looks set to sign a monster new deal.
Read more »
Aussie young gun Travis Bazzana becomes instant millionaire after becoming MLB No.1 draft pick7NEWS brings you the latest local news from Australia and around the world. Stay up to date with all of the breaking sport, politics, entertainment, finance, weather and business headlines. Today's news, live updates & all the latest breaking stories from 7NEWS.
Read more »
LIVE: Sydneysider to make Aussie sporting history... and could celebrate with $16m paydayMLB: Travis Bazzana is touted as one of the top prospects for the upcoming MLB draft, with the Aussie crunching the record at Oregon State.
Read more »
Travis Bazzana has conquered Everest. Now he could spark shock Aussie ‘powerhouse’MLB: Travis Bazzana is touted as one of the top prospects for the upcoming MLB draft, with the Aussie crunching the record at Oregon State.
Read more »
A wild Aussie paradise so little-known, one man came here to escape the KremlinThe wild lands of Australia’s final frontier are a totally unspoiled universe of ochre-red cliffs, pristine white-sand beaches, clear turquoise waters and starry, starry nights.
Read more »