Baseball Jobs Overseas Podcast

In my previous two podcast interviews with Bryan Ruby, he was not openly gay. Since our last interview, Bryan has come out and is now the only known active, openly gay professional baseball player in the world. His coming out was not just within his friend and family circle but on a national stage when his story was featured on the front page of the sports section of U.S.A. Today and at Dodgers St...

https://baseballjobsoverseas.com/ In this second interview with our globetrottin', country-music-singin', pro baseball player, Bryan Ruby, we talk about his experience playing winter ball in Guatemala in the fall/early winter of 2020 during the midst of a second COVID-19 wave and the Mavericks League in Oregon during the summer of 2021. This interview takes place two-thirds of the way through his...

https://baseballjobsoverseas.com/ Ryan "RJ" Johnson is a player in high demand overseas for a number of reasons and is currently living in the Czech Republic year-round as an import for a club that is on the rise. The former American Association pitcher has re-invented himself as a high-level two-way player overseas and it is paying off as quoted below from the interview. "I said make me an offer...

Lindsay and Nicole Thomas took their twin pitcher-catcher act overseas in 2017, one year after graduating from UNC Greensboro where they were both standout players. A year into NCAA D1 coaching careers, both girls made the decision to put their coaching careers on hold and sign together to play in Vienna, Austria. Their international careers snowballed from there, both as a pair and as individuals...

Pennsylvania-born Bryan Ruby is a baseball player and country music songwriter who has traveled the world playing baseball while continuing with his career in music. Bryan's passion for country music was behind his decision to pass up a D1 baseball scholarship in order to study and play closer to Nashville, the mecca of country music. Bryan eventually wrapped up his college career at a D3 school i...

Best known for his unique Tomahawk delivery, former MLB pitcher and Baseball Jobs Overseas member Josh Collmenter talks about his baseball career starting from his childhood, through college, leading to his MLB debut and then overseas to New Zealand. We talk about who is influencers were along the way, his "Tomahawk" delivery, making it to the MLB with a sub-90 mph fastball, his MLB debut experien...

After the summer of 2000 playing baseball in Vienna, Austria, Canadian baseball player Nick DeForest decided to forgo his final two years of college baseball eligibility and make Vienna his home. Twenty years later, Nick sits down to tell his story on the IBC podcast including what career in Austria he ended up in and how BBJO founder David Burns and Nick’s first encounter ended up on the front pa...

In this episode, we hear the story of two corner infielders/ power-hitters from two different corners of the U.S. who first met in 2019 on a softball field in Austria as import players, leading their new team to the Austrian Softball League Championships.   Brittany McGuire (Florida Gulf Coast University) hit a clutch, come-from-behind grand slam late in game 1 of the best-of-three semi-final seri...

baseballjobsoverseas.com/ New York native Ryan Rupp did not play college baseball but took advantage of his dual citizenship with Austria to get his foot in the door in second division Austria in 2013. From there, he worked hard on his craft and in 2017 he won the Best Pitcher award and his second championship in the first division of Austria with the Attnang Athletics. He also became one of the g...

https://baseballjobsoverseas.com/ In this episode of the Baseball Jobs Community Podcast, I hop on a call with club representatives from around Europe to discuss the current status of the Coronavirus in their country, the effect it has had on their baseball seasons thus far, and any further insight into when the seasons could possibly start. Specifically, I speak with Scotty of Korlarka Praha (Cze...

David Burns and Jimmy Jensen from Baseball Jobs Overseas discuss how to position yourself for success in receiving offers from clubs overseas and once signed, how to make the most of that opportunity to further your career. This episode is particularly beneficial to those players who have yet to play professional baseball and are looking overseas as a career option but are still looking to play at...

https://baseballjobsoverseas.com/ After a lustrous career as an international import player and coach, Owen Reid decided to go to work for himself as an International Baseball Consultant and Mobile baseball coach. Now settled and based in Singapore, Owen has now traveled to five different continents and 21 countries as a baseball coach including some very unknown baseball markets such as the Unite...

https://baseballjobsoverseas.com/ American born and Wofford College alum, Eric Brenk, has been living and playing baseball in Germany since obtaining his dual citizenship in 2014, only 4 months after graduating from college. Eric not only helped bring home a championship for his Bonn Capitals in 2018, he has also been a major player for the German National Team, most recently at the 2019 European...

http://www.baseballjobsoverseas.com There are a large number of baseball players overseas these days looking to take their career overseas with a large variety of backgrounds. Those who may not have the strongest of backgrounds or the strongest of stats, may have to take matters into their own hands to get their foot in the door. Dave and Jimmy tackle that topic in this episode.

The Australian Baseball League has made huge strides in recent years, with the expansion to include a team from Korea and New Zealand in 2018 as well as the signings of former MLB players such Josh Collmenter, Gift Ngoepe and Pete Kozma. The league also featured Japanese NPB stud pitcher Shota Imanaga and some of Europe's top talent in Markus Solbach (GER), Alex Maestri (ITL), and Dwayne Kemp (NED...

http://www.baseballjobsoverseas.com Jimmy Jensen went from cut from his high school baseball team, to All-American, to men's league baseball before he decided to give overseas a try. Little did he know that signing his first overseas contract in 2015 would change his life forever in multiple ways. List to part two of his story, continuing where we left off at the end of his first season on IBC Pod...

http://www.baseballjobsoverseas.com Baseball New Zealand CEO Ryan Flynn returns for the third time, this time to provide an update on the exciting times going on in the world of baseball in New Zealand, in particular the new Australian Baseball League professional franchise team based in Auckland. Some of the topics discussed in this episode are: Growth of baseball in New Zealand in recent years N...

In this interview with professional pitcher Arik Sikula, he speaks of his experiences both in Australia and Colombia pitching in the winter and why these experiences helped him improve as a pitcher and an athlete.

Three years ago on IBC Podcast Episode #26 I interviewed Zak Colby who was fresh off of his first season playing independent professional baseball in Japan in the Shikoku Island League. Zak has continued to play there working his way into a foreign recruitment role for the whole league while playing for the Kochi Fighting Dragons. His biggest signing to date was Manny Ramirez who he signed to play...

Recently one of the top pitchers in independent professional baseball decided to give up the lifestyle that comes with playing pro baseball in the U.S., which he said he loves, in order to play club baseball in the Czech Republic which play mostly on weekends. Sound crazy? Soon to be 30 years old, Tim Brown has been playing professional baseball for 8 years now and while still at the top of his ga...

http://www.baseballjobsoverseas.com/e68 Daniel Catalan had a successful college career playing with Holy Name University where hit a very respectable .282 and a very nice OBP in his senior year of .410. He also led HNU in triples in both his seasons there and did not commit a single error in the outfield. Like many talented college graduates, professional teams did not come knocking on his door. S...

http://www.baseballjobsoverseas.com Overseas professional import Jimmy Jensen tells his story how he made his way up from cut from his high school baseball team travelling the world playing baseball.

Josh Wyant grew up playing baseball in North Carolina and was never the standout player but always had a passion for the game and worked hard at getting better. He was a three sport athlete between cross country, baseball and swimming and as college grew closer, he was told his best shot was at running. In his senior year of high school he moved to a new high school and was given the opportunity t...

In 1995 Ryan Schurman was a 10th round draft pick of the Atlanta Braves. Twenty years later he is married with a baby boy and living in Germany and coaches cricket. Ryan is another remarkable story of how playing baseball overseas can not only be a way of extending a playing career, but also a life changing experience.

In 2012, Tanner Leighton, the #4 ranked NAIA prospect in the country from The Masters College in California, was one of many players in the independent ball system who had been in contact with scouts during his college tenure, yet had no luck come June. After a season of Independent ball, playing with both the Washington Wild Things and London Rippers, Leighton went to play winter ball in Australi...