Traces of D-Backs make way to N.Z.
Ian McDonald brings AZ lessons back to Auckland
As the Diamondbacks' season was winding down, manager Torey Lovullo looked at the late wins over the Dodgers' as way to still leave a mark on the blueprint of the postseason. An impact on the NL West pennant race would carry on even once his team finished playing.
But the 2018 Diamondbacks also had an impact that will last much longer and reach much, much further.
Auckland, New Zealand, and Phoenix are separated by a 20-hour time difference and more than 6,700 miles. Arizona's relationship with Ian McDonald is making that trek feel a little closer.
McDonald, the communications adviser for Baseball New Zealand, spent the last few weeks of the Diamondbacks' 2018 season shadowing different people across the organization to learn how the team operates.
He was the recipient of the Winston Churchill Fellowship, a fund that allows Kiwis to travel abroad to learn about their respective fields and bring that knowledge back home. He spent three weeks with Major League Baseball itself, before he came to Arizona for another four weeks of hands-on learning with the Diamondbacks.
He's now back in New Zealand, where he'll put what he's learned into practice. McDonald works with the national team, coincidentally named the "Diamondblacks," and with the Auckland Tuatara, which will become the country's first professional baseball team this November.
McDonald chronicled his fellowship on his blog "Intern in the Big Show" on Baseball New Zealand's website, ending each post with the same signature: "Until next week, keep watching baseball." And McDonald has had a lot to watch.
"(I'm) really learning heaps — so much knowledge to take back to New Zealand that it’s not funny," McDonald said during the Diamondbacks' final home series. "It’s been awesome, yeah."
The relationship stemmed from a trip that the Diamondbacks took to New Zealand and Australia in 2013, when McDonald met Derrick Hall, Paul Goldschmidt and Josh Rawitch.
But long before the Diamondbacks' trip down under, McDonald had fallen in love from afar with America's pastime.
"I guess the first real games I watched were the '96 World Series between the Yankees and the Braves. And so, just quietly, I’ve always been a Yankees fan since then," McDonald said.
He was flipping through channels when he saw on the TV guide that the World Series games would be on. With the time-zone differences, it was around 1 or 2 p.m., but also technically a day ahead. McDonald was hooked.
"I just fell in love with the game," he said. "I grew up with cricket in New Zealand, and rugby, but I just prefer baseball. I love the traditions of the game, the history."
Now, McDonald will have a chance to create some traditions of his own, when the Auckland Tuatara go into full swing this November. (Tuataras are reptiles unique to New Zealand.)
The team will play in the Australian Baseball League.
"I guess you could safely say that we’re the equivalent of the (Toronto) Blue Jays," he said. "We’re the team from outside the country."
Baseball has been on the rise in New Zealand, and the speed at which it's growing stood out to the Diamondbacks on their 2013 visit. McDonald recalled hundreds of kids quietly hanging on to every word as Goldschmidt spoke inside a rugby stadium.
It's fitting in a way that one of the youngest teams in the MLB is helping pass the baton elsewhere. As McDonald tries to foster traditions with the Tuatara, he can look to the Diamondbacks as a model.
"What we’re going to aim to do is keep hold of the ball from the first pitch and all of those firsts and just tuck them away in the corner in someone’s cupboard, until I guess like what the Diamondbacks did this year with the 20th anniversary, was dig out all that history over the last 20 years and bring it out," McDonald said.
The Diamondbacks were adamant about making sure he could get an inside look at all aspects of the franchise and packed his schedule accordingly. Some of the places he shadowed included: public relations, corporate communications, social media, running the Jumbotron and marketing. With so much to absorb, he just tried to act like a sponge.
"I sort of shadow people during the day and then go back to the hotel and make a few notes so I don’t forget things," McDonald said. "Come when I get home, in the days before I go home, I’ll go back through those notes and try to remember what they’re all about."
Even if there's a few notes he can't decipher, his time in the states was certainly memorable. He had pinch-worthy moments meeting Joe Torre, Luis Gonzalez and Theo Epstein.
In Arizona, he benefited from additional time to get to know some of the current Diamondbacks on and off the field. During Eduardo Escobar's fundraiser at Fogo de Chao, the New Zealander got to go to a Brazilian steakhouse with players from Venezuela, Japan and the Dominic Republic. That dinner was just one example of the Diamondbacks' global outlook.
"I think from the top of the organization on down, everybody recognizes that we are supposed to be doing our part to grow the game internationally," said Josh Rawitch, the senior vice president of content and communications for the Diamondbacks. "It's why we play in Mexico. It's why we played in Sydney. It's why we visit Japan regularly and go down to the Dominican."
McDonald did give Lovullo a Baseball New Zealand cap, but other than that, the relationship between McDonald and the Diamondbacks wasn't particularly symbiotic. People in the Diamondbacks who crossed paths with McDonald heralded his contagious enthusiasm, but with his suitcases stuffed with notebooks, McDonald was the clear beneficiary.
"I think it’s just part of who the Diamondbacks are. It’s not like we’re looking for anything in return," Rawitch said on the team fostering global relationships. "It’s not done for a benefit necessarily. It's more so just to try to help. I think that's what we try to do in all ways."
The way the Diamondbacks helped McDonald will show up hemispheres away and for years to come. Of course, McDonald will certainly have to scale some things down. Chase Field saw 2.24 million fans in attendance this season, roughly half the population of New Zealand.
The proportions may be different, but the connection will be clear.
"I’ve got a lot of ideas to take back and I’m looking forward to putting some of those into practice, if not all of them," McDonald said.
Until then, he'll keep watching baseball.