Australian draft pick Brent Iredale shows 'anyone from a small country can do it'

This story originally ran previously, before Brent Iredale was drafted with the No. 203 pick by the Pirates.

There were just three outs to go and Panama was leading Australia, 2-0, in the 2016 Little League World Series. If Australia wanted a chance to advance, to keep their championship dreams alive, they would need to tie the game up and soon.

Up to the plate stepped lanky 13-year-old Brent Iredale. On a 2-2 pitch, Iredale swung, connecting with the ball and driving it up and over the right-field fence to tie the game. Though Panama would go on to win, 3-2, thanks to a walk-off walk in extra innings, it was a peek at what was to come.

"As a kid growing up in Australia, that's literally what you [dream of], because that's what you can do at that age," Iredale told MLB.com ahead of Sunday's amateur Draft. "You want to go to the Little League World Series. We were fortunate enough to win state, and then win the nationals and end up over there at Williamsport. It's everything you dreamed of as a little kid, playing in front of big crowds, going to America to play. I mean, even the big hill with the cardboard slides. It was just a dream come true."

The Sydney native later took his talents to New Mexico Junior College, where he demolished the baseball to the tune of a .437/.543/.925 slash line with 42 homers and 40 steals in 113 games. That earned him a spot on the Arkansas Razorbacks' roster, where he hit .286 with 14 home runs as a junior to help lead the Razorbacks to the College World Series this past season.

Naturally, there's a few differences between the tournament that Iredale played in as a young teenager and the one he just finished.

"Crowds are a lot bigger and I think the games are more intense," Iredale said of the College World Series. "You're older, so the game becomes quicker and faster. It's big stage and everything, but I mean, the College World Series is a massive thing."

Now, Iredale has his sights set on the MLB Draft, where MLB Pipeline pegs him at No. 177, noting that he "produces some of the highest exit velocities in the 2025 college class." Should he be selected, he has a chance to one day become just the fourth player to ever play in the Little League World Series, the College World Series and the Major League World Series. He would join Michael Conforto, Jason Varitek and Ed Vosberg as the only players to pull off that particular triumvirate.

"If I had the chance to do it, I think it'd be pretty cool, pretty epic," Iredale said. "Coming from Australia, the other side of the world, baseball is not big, but it just shows kids from Australia and smaller countries that aren't major baseball places that anyone can do it."

Iredale, who sports a thin mustache and a mischievous prankster's grin, has already defied the odds to reach this point. He first learned baseball as an 11-year-old, his father and uncle introducing him to the sport. Even then, his family was more into soccer or rugby, sports that more typically dominate Australian households. While youngsters growing up in America are used to playing on finely manicured fields and can find baseball anywhere they look, that's not the reality in Australia. You have to really love the game and want to devote yourself to it from a young age to have a chance.

"Every kid [in the U.S.] is playing every day, practicing every day. They're on these nice fields," Iredale said. "And then you look at us in Australia, and we're only playing once a week. It's raining half the time, so we can't really go outside. The fields aren't the best."

It wasn't until Iredale was 16 or 17 years old and he noticed that he was becoming one of the better players in the country that he considered a future in baseball as a possibility. Then, as he started to fill out, packing on muscle and driving the ball further, that change seemed to become a reality.

"I was a small, skinny kid growing up," Iredale said. "I was around 18 when I started getting bigger, stronger. Then going to New Mexico, then Arkansas, just how I've progressed in my career is interesting."

He's looked to the players who have come before him and knows how important it is for young players in Australia to have players to look up to, who have walked the paths he's about to embark on.

"It's massive. Watching Curtis [Mead], and we've got Liam Hendriks who's still with Boston and Travis [Bazzana] who went with the first pick. It just shows that anyone from a small country can do it," Iredale said.

(Despite the growing prevalence of Australians on big league rosters and in college programs, vegemite -- the thick yeast spread, which is a favorite Down Under -- has still yet to take off. "They all smell it and they're out," Iredale said with a laugh.)

Iredale knows that there will be eyes on him and that many young players will be looking up to him, wanting to replicate his college performance and hopeful path to the Majors. He doesn't feel pressure though.

"All you can say to them is that it's not going to be easy. It's going to be extremely hard," Iredale said. "We don't have the luxuries that most Americans do over here, but we've just got to keep grinding and stay the path."

While he's yet to have any conversations with Dave Nilsson, Australia's manager at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, about the upcoming tournament, Iredale makes it clear that representing his nation would be a highlight -- even if the Draft and his professional career come first.

"I've always wanted to play for Team Australia. It's a dream," Iredale said. "It's always sensational and amazing to play for your country."

His parents flew over to the U.S. to watch him play in the College World Series and they are staying until after the Draft. They will be with him whenever some team decides they want to take a chance on the big slugger with a great love for the game.

"I'm excited for whoever decides to go with me and pick me," Iredale said. "All I can say is that they're going to have a good player. They're going to have someone who doesn't really want to give up, who wants to make this a career. Anywhere I go is a great day. It's going to make my dream come true."

No matter what happens, baseball is something to be enjoyed -- no matter the stakes.

"I think about how I'm playing a kid's game at 21 years old," Iredale said. "I get to be outside rather than just stuck inside. Being out there in the sun, playing with people who I want to be with and who want to be there as well, playing the game that we like ... having fun's an important thing."