STAGG AND TANNER PICKED FOR MLB WORLD SELECT TEAM
On Friday 30 September, Baseball Australia announced that seven young men that will represent their country as part of the MLB World Select Team at the upcoming Arizona Fall Classic in Phoenix, AZ.
Two of these players are from South Australia. Congrats to Ali Tanner (Kensington) and Max Stagg (West Torrens) on the call-up.
Here is the player list from around the country:
Max Stagg – SA
Nick Bertucci – VIC
Adam Bates – NSW
Jayden Kim – VIC
Liam Grant – NSW
Josh Nati – NSW
Alistair Tanner – SA
Stagg, Bertucci, Bates and Kim were all part of the Team Australia side that played in the U18 World Cup earlier this month in Florida. Team Australia concluded their campaign with a 7-2 victory over South Africa to finish ninth.
The group has been joined by Liam Grant, Josh Nati and Alistair Tanner who flew from Australia this week. Grant, Nati and Tanner participated at the U-16 National Championships in Redcliffe this year and were selected out of that event to join the older players.
National Player Development Manager, Andrew Riddell was at the U-18 tournament and has remained with the group ahead of the upcoming competition.
“It’s been an exciting and action-packed month, with the under 18’s taking on the best in the world and growing as a group, to now having these seven athletes compete at another exceptional level is a credit to the guys, their families and the opportunity they have been provided in Australia.”
“To travel, experience what international baseball is like and then to put on the MLB logo and represent a world selected team is amazing for our young players and will help them continue to develop as well as showing them how much work needs to be done to compete at the very top.”
One of the main purposes of the MLB World Select Team is to showcase members of MLB’s international academies, with players from eleven countries including Australia, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, France and Brazil to be exposed to college/professional level baseball.
The team will be playing multiple games in Arizona in the leadup to the Arizona Fall Classic, which begins on the 29th of September.
Make sure you keep up with the progress of the Australians in the MLB World Select Team via the Team Australia Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.