MLB Targets Australia for Games, Possibly 2011 Opening Day

The list of baseball players from Australia isn’t exactly a high profile list of names you’ll see in Cooperstown, so this nugget that was sort of buried at the bottom of a Tom Verducci piece from the Winter Meetings is particularly curious:↵↵⇥Major League Baseball is making early plans to bring back an international barnstorming tour with All-Stars after the 2010 season. Following past trips to Japan, which set the stage for regular season games played there, MLB is exploring a tour that could visit South Korea and Australia, with the possibility of regular season games being played in Australia as early as Opening Day 2011, with the Red Sox mentioned as one likely team.↵↵NESN jumps up and contradicts a report from The Daily Telegraph that the Red Sox are in negotiations to play in Australia in 2010. That still leaves some wiggle room for Verducci’s report about 2011.↵↵It begs the question: Why Australia? The Asian markets in general are viewed as growth spots for just about every sports league in the U.S., except perhaps hockey, so I understand the desire to go to South Korea. ↵

↵↵Grant Balfour, pictured in this post, is one of the few notable Aussies kicking around MLB these days.↵

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