Bazzana driven by passion for baseball from Down Under to MLB

CLEVELAND -- An 18-year-old Travis Bazzana arrived at the airport in Sydney, Australia, in June 2021, set to embark upon a trip across the world to play college baseball at Oregon State. As he approached the start of a new life in the United States, Bazzana brought a customary two bags to the airport.

But Bazzana managed to get an extra, special third bag onboard -- one with a bit of Australian flavor.

“That bag had five pounds of Tim Tams and three cans of Milo, and some special treats,” Bazzana’s father, Gary, said of the Australian delicacies his son brought with him to the U.S. “Because, as we kissed him goodbye, it's like, ‘Whatever's packed in these bags is your life.’”

Bazzana was embarking upon a new and unknown frontier at that moment. His U.S. journey has of course proven to be a smashing success. Bazzana became the first Australian-born No. 1 overall pick in MLB Draft history in 2024, and on Tuesday, he made his big league debut in the Guardians’ 1-0 loss to the Rays at Progressive Field.

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None of this was guaranteed for Bazzana, who’s the rising face of baseball in Australia, when he arrived at the airport nearly five years ago. Then again, so much of what he did leading up to that moment was in preparation of achieving his lifelong dream of playing in the Majors.

“It's crazy,” Bazzana said after going 0-for-2 with a pair of walks in his debut. “It's one of those moments where you kind of look back and think back to the kid version of yourself, dreaming of it. It’s special.”

And Bazzana’s mom, Jenny, and dad had a front-row seat to his journey. They were among the many loved ones in attendance on Tuesday, along with his brothers, Hayden and Mitchell, aunts, uncles, mentors and friends.

Gary Bazzana recalled how Travis was a bit of an underdog for a lot of his childhood, with people putting down his dream of playing high-level Division I baseball, let alone following that journey to the Majors. Bazzana is not the first Australian big league player, but baseball is not the country’s primary sport.

Bazzana’s commitment, however, was evident from a young age.

“He had a little red book where he was writing about his hitting strategies and things,” Gary Bazzana said. “He was kind of obsessed with the game and trying to work it out, and trying to work out how to be great at it from a pretty young age, and then got very committed in terms of his exercise.

“He had a cardboard on his wall that he would constantly update with little goals about, ‘I'm gonna bench press this,’ and ‘I'm gonna do a 60-yard dash, and I'm gonna break seven seconds, because that's the Major League average.'”

Gary noted Travis played one or two games per week growing up in Australia, perhaps much fewer than kids in the U.S. But he wanted to get better as much as he could. A work ethic that flashed at a young age is one reason the Guardians were enamored with Bazzana during the Draft process two years ago. It’s deeply rooted in his core and helped get him to this point.

To that end, any young baseball players in Australia dreaming of the big leagues have an inspiration to look up to. Bazzana can help grow the game back home and serve as an idol for those looking to follow in his footsteps.

“The ability for him to showcase it and get younger kids to actually see that what the game is about will be fantastic,” Jenny Bazzana said during Travis’ debut. “I think he's driven by that, too.”

Bazzana’s debut aired on ESPN2 in Australia and across the Pacific Rim region, and streamed on Disney+ in those territories. His mother’s inclination was emblematic of the message he shared earlier in the day, when asked what he hopes his debut sends to kids watching back home.

“If you believe and you work toward something with full wholehearted commitment, you can get pretty cool places,” Bazzana said. “Hopefully, there's some baseballers and maybe some non-baseballers that look to me as someone that they kind of look up to.

“Hopefully, there's the next baseball players out of Australia really using this as motivation and as a vision for themselves.”