Australians bring unique perspective to Miracle clubhouse

Fort Myers Miracle relief pitcher Todd Van Steensel and infielder Logan Wade both hail from Australia, but they have brought more than just their baseball skills to Southwest Florida. Bringing a bit of home and an Australian sense of humor, their unique baseball background adds variety to the Miracle clubhouse.

Enduring limitless Crocodile Dundee jokes as well as questions about kangaroos and koalas, Logan and Todd dish it back to their teammates.

Todd called out Logan, "Well this guy [Logan] gives it to Ryan Eades all of the time. He calls him Gator Boy because he's from Louisiana."

With a smirk, Logan agreed, "I just call him Gator whenever I'm playing with him."

They both laugh, "I guess we just try to give it to them as much as they give it to us," Todd concluded.

When Logan and Todd make the over 9,000-mile trip to the States, there are many things they have to adjust to with a 12-hour time difference. A lot of these adjustments are physical especially when jumping into professional baseball.

"For me, flying back here the first week is always a struggle," Todd explained. "I go to sleep around midnight every night and wake up at 4 a.m. just wide awake and it's a struggle to get back to sleep."

He continued, "Half of the days during Spring Training I'm so tired because it's bedtime back home so I sleep from like 4 p.m. to 7 p.m."

Logan had a similar take on the situation of flying across the world and getting into a normal routine again.

"I'm pretty bad with coming over here. I get here and I won't sleep the first night whether it be because I'm missing home or mainly because of jet lag," Logan commented. "Then I won't sleep and go to the field and train all day and then I'll sleep until dinner time and then I won't sleep all night so it probably takes me about a week or two to adjust."

Both of these two ball players choose to come to the U.S. earlier than the required date for Spring Training to give their bodies a chance to adjust.

"I ask them to fly me over like two or three days earlier," said Todd. "Even though they're working out at the field during those two or three days I'm like 'No, I'm staying in my room and not doing anything.'''

Logan chimed in, "I came over a week or two early to get into things. For me, as a hitter I want to come here and take swings and that stuff. It's nice knowing that there are not as many people here and you can get settled in before everyone else."

Once Wade and Van Steensel are all settled in, the baseball season commences and they form a pattern. This season, they have been using a footy, a rugby football, to warm up with at the field. They're not the only ones to join in too. It's become a team affair.

Todd was the one to introduce footy to the clubhouse.

"I bring it over to have a little taste of home while I'm here," he said. "Every once in a while it's nice to have a footy to kick and pass around and try to teach the American guys how to pass and it's entertaining to us."

In case Miracle fans are wondering, Todd dished us the inside scoop on who are the best on the team when it comes to kicking and throwing the footy.

"When Matt Summers used to be here, we would go half an hour before stretch and kick it around," Todd disclosed. "Summers, Alex Muren, myself, Corey Williams and Tyler Jay all run around and kick it. I'd say Muren was the best at kicking it, he can get that thing about 50 yards."

Logan interjected and complemented Muren, "Easily. He's a freak athlete."

Wade's take on bringing a footy around the field is that it's similar to an American bringing over a football to play catch with before a game. "Here, it's something to lighten the mood and it's something completely different and I'm sure if an American guy came over to Australia, which they do, they'll bring their gridiron ball. It's the same thing."

However, kicking around a footy is nothing new to either of these two Australians. When Wade was growing up, he had to eventually choose between a rugby or baseball career.

"I guess it was a choice because I didn't really play baseball when I was young. My main sport was rugby so I never really shined in baseball until maybe a year before I signed," he explained. "Usually guys sign out of Australia when they're 17, just like the Dominican because they see the young talent. I was playing rugby for an Australian Rules football school, which was a heavy commitment."

Logan continued, "It was a school that if you didn't play rugby then they didn't really want you there. I played rugby and then I played baseball in the off-season and then I just had to make a choice, really like any kid does, you can't play three sports at once. So after school, I played a year of rugby and then I was also playing baseball and got this opportunity and thought 'why not?'"

Although Van Steensel didn't play as competitively as Wade, he still wakes up at 5:30 a.m. on the weekends to watch his favorite team from home play.

Todd's rugby passion started when he was a young lad. "I used to play Aussie Rules Football when I was 12 years old until I was 16 years old and it was never really serious for me so I didn't take it like I was going to make a career out of it. I turned up to practice and mucked around in the games on the weekend and hungout with my mates pretty much."

Like many athletes in America, rugby served as a second sport to break up long baseball season.

"It was something to take my mind off baseball because we had baseball all year round," expressed Todd. "When you're that young you'll probably end up hating the sport so that was my escape."

Van Steensel was unaware of his now profession growing up.

"I had no idea what baseball was at all," Todd recalled. "My brother's friend from soccer when I was eight or nine years old said, 'Hey come play baseball in the off-season' and so my brother went and played. I watched practice one day and I thought the uniforms were cool so that's literally why I started playing because I wanted the uniform."

With a laugh he continued, "I didn't know you could sign pro or that there were colleges to go to until I was about 16 and someone thought I was pretty good. I started taking it more seriously around 15 or 16 years old."

"I knew I wanted to be a pitcher when I forgot how to hit the ball," he chuckled. "I was a terrible hitter."

Baseball is said to be the third or fourth most popular sport in Australia. However, the Minnesota Twins have a history of signing Australians. The Twins signed eventual Major lLeaguer Peter Moylan, along with former Miracle players, who are now in the MLB, including Liam Hendriks, Grant Balfor and Luke Hughes. Other Australians in the Twins minor league system are Lewis Thorpe and Brian Tippett.

Logan had a similar upbringing to Todd in terms of being submersed in the baseball world in Australia.

"When I was growing up, baseball wasn't the biggest thing so I didn't really follow it over here as much or know the Australian guys that signed because I was always playing club ball," he said. "I never really made a top team until I was 18, so all of those guys I didn't really know. But then when I got over here, I did my research and everything kind of kicked in and I found out who they were."

Luckily, there isn't much culture shock according to Wade and Van Steensel when they come over to the States.

"There wasn't that big of a culture shock for me but there are some things that I would say or do because I have different humor," Logan informed. "Where I come from, Australians have pretty blunt humor."

Todd interjected, "Dry and sarcastic."

Logan continued, "We say something and people might take it seriously, but we aren't being serious. I don't remember exactly what I would say and they wouldn't laugh, but in Australia we would be laughing."

The biggest difference for Todd, however, was getting used to playing with players from Latin America because of the language barrier. He expressed, "My first year here, hanging out with the Latin players was a huge difference because I'm not used to people who don't really speak English. So, when you're trying to communicate with your teammates and have no idea what's going on, it was a bit of a culture shock at first."

And no, the Outback Steakhouses here aren't very Australian at all. Logan voiced, "I've never been to an Outback Steakhouse until I came here. And it's nice but there's nothing really Australian. I mean it's cool and I like the concept."

Many Miracle fans might know that Todd is infamously active on social media, particularly Twitter. As a result of being one of the most popular tweeters in the MiLB, he is up for a "Top 10 MilB Twitter Accounts" nomination.

"I love interacting with the fans and getting to know all of the people that come to our games and the Twins' fans," said Van Steensel.

He explained a comical situation with one of the Miracle fans; "I'm sure you guys saw that article about minor league pay and a fan sent me a $15 Chipotle gift card after reading it. She felt so bad for me so she sent me a gift card. So, I guess there are benefits to it [laughs]."

Lastly, from the two Australians, they have never heard of Fosters beer until they came to America.