Tuatara want to unearth new Kiwi talent

Auckland Tuatara manager Steve Mintz has urged anyone interested in joining the team to come along to the trials this weekend.

The country’s newest professional sports team will be holding trials in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland today and tomorrow, with spots available on the roster for their inaugural season in the Australian Baseball League.

It’s the opportunity for anyone with decent hand-eye co-ordination, or who can throw a ball or run hard, to earn a ticket into a professional organisation.

Mintz has made an early trip over from his home in North Carolina to attend the camps and see what New Zealand has got to offer.

‘‘We’re going to test the guys, let them run,’’ Mintz said.

‘‘We may find a guy that’s super fast and maybe on the team to steal a base in the eighth or ninth inning to win us a game.

‘‘Or it’s maybe a guy with some arm strength, who can make some adjustments to turn him into a pitcher.

‘‘Or it maybe a guy who’s got some pop in his bat and we teach him how to hit.

‘‘We’re going to be looking for athletes, people who can get around the diamond, catch the ball, throw the ball and see if we can put him on our team and make us successful.

‘‘I hope someone turns up, no-one knows his name, who he is and he’s like a superstar baseball player.’’

There could be a fair few softball or cricket players who come to the trials, given that they are sports similar to baseball and Mintz will welcome players of those codes to come along.

‘‘We’ve advertised to every community here, whether it’s cricket, softball whatever, we haven’t cut our ties with anyone,’’ he said.

‘‘I know softball is huge in this country and we’d love to see some of those guys come out, but whoever does, we’re going to run them through the training and see what they can do and then we’ll make our choices.’’

Over the next week, the Tuatara will announce some more American players who’ll join the team for this season and they’re likely to be players from minor league teams, who’ll be looking at this as an opportunity to help them get into Major League Baseball.

They’ll get to play a few months of high quality baseball and work under Mintz, who says he’s a manager who likes to take risks.

‘‘I take the game to the other team,’’ he said of his style of managing baseball games.

‘‘I don’t sit back and wait for something to happen, I like to take the game to the other team.

‘‘When the game gets going and you’re in the lead or behind, you have to do different things in your managerial decisions.

‘‘But I’m very aggressive, I like to make the other team make mistakes.

‘‘I like to try to score from second base, going home on base hits.

‘‘I like to steal bases, so we’re going to try to make it an exciting type of baseball. Obviously not to the point where we lose ball games, but I don’t like to be on my heels.

‘‘I’m not laid back a lot, I like to push the envelope.’’

Trial details Wellington: