CLEVELAND — Todd and Tara Boedigheimer are Oregon State alumni and longtime supporters of the highly successful Beavers baseball program.
The Boedigheimers’ bond with their alma mater was strengthened tenfold in 2011, when their 3-year-old son, Drew, needed an emergency heart transplant. After Drew’s procedure at Chicago Children’s Memorial Hospital — the Boedigheimers live in Arizona but needed to travel to find the necessary care for their son — the staff wanted to do something special for a family who had been through so much.
“He makes it through a couple rough weeks, and when he was finally on the other side of everything, they said they’d really like to do something cool for him,” Tara recalled. “‘Is there anybody special he follows on the Cubs or the White Sox?’ I was like, ‘Actually, there is.’”
That special somebody was Cubs rookie infielder Darwin Barney, who had starred for the Beavers during their run to back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007, the first two titles in program history. When Barney learned of Drew’s story, he made a point to connect with the family, building the foundation of a friendship that would change the Boedigheimers’ life forever.
“Darwin came to the hospital to see him, and then we became tight with Darwin,” Tara said. “He was sort of our entrance to [then Oregon State head coach] Pat Casey, the inner-workings of Oregon State. Before, we were just fans.”
A decade later, in the fall of 2021, the Boedigheimers were in Corvallis on their annual visit to check out the Beavers baseball team during fall practices, having grown close with the program’s leadership and players in the years since their initial encounter with Barney. Barney — at this point an assistant coach with the Beavers, with his playing days behind him — wanted Drew to meet someone, a freshman infielder from Sydney named Travis Bazzana.
“Darwin goes, ‘Drew, you're gonna wanna get to know Travis,’” Todd recalled. “‘Because Travis is going to play in the big leagues for a very long time.’”
On Tuesday, the Boedigheimers were at Progressive Field as part of a large contingent of family and friends who traveled from near and far to be in attendance forBazzana’s major-league debut with the Cleveland Guardians. The 23-year-old batted seventh and started at second base against the Tampa Bay Rays, marking the first chapter in a journey that Barney foresaw before Bazzana had played his first collegiate game.
During his three years in Corvallis, Bazzana blossomed into one of the best players in college baseball, rewriting the school record books along the way. His stock soared among scouting circles, as it had for many Oregon State stars before him en route to selection in the MLB draft, including new Guardians teammate Steven Kwan. After a monster junior year in 2024, Bazzana was selected No. 1 overall by Cleveland, adding to Oregon State’s illustrious reputation as a pipeline to the pros. But even more importantly — and more personally — it marked a massive development for baseball Down Under, as Bazzana had single-handedly redefined what was considered possible for young ballplayers in Australia.
"I had thought about it and dreamt about it as long as I can remember — like 5, 6 years old,” Bazzana said pregame of his big-league dreams while growing up in Hornsby, a northern Sydney suburb. He played many sports growing up, including the more popular bat-and-ball game of cricket, but baseball always had his heart.
“I remember in the computer room when I was maybe 6 to 8 [years old], like having a tab of mlb.com and just watching the daily highlights,” he recalled. “It was just something I had always thought about.”
As he entered his teen years, Bazzana was undersized relative to his peers, instilling some doubt that he could keep up with his competition. But it didn’t take long for his special talent to catch up and for his burgeoning work ethic to put him on an unprecedented path to the majors.
"Once I kind of grew and started really getting into some quality training routines and striving for more and understanding goal-setting,” he said. “… I'd say about 15 was when I was like, ‘I can go and do what I want and what I set my mind to.’ And I was pretty confident in that.”
At that point, Bazzana’s name began to circulate in Australian baseball circles. He made his professional debut in the Australian Baseball League as a 16-year-oldon Dec. 13, 2018, serving as a late-game defensive replacement for the Sydney Blue Sox. That next year, he headed stateside withNxtGenBaseball, an organization started by former major-league reliever Ryan Rowland-Smith to help Australian ballplayers get more exposure from scouts and college coaches in the U.S. Bazzana’s performance at these showcases helped put him on Oregon State’s radar, setting the stage for what turned out to be a record-breaking career in Corvallis.
That’s also when Bazzana met another Australian baseball luminary, former closer Grant Balfour, who appeared in 534 career games across a dozen major-league seasons.
“He was the kind of kid, you could see the talent,” Balfour said. “I remember the year when Ryan brought them — he was one of the younger ones in the group — but you could see, wow, this kid’s got something. His mentality, his work ethic. … You put those things together, and the talent that he is …
“He's very confident in his abilities, and he works hard for that, and I love that. The drive and passion that he has, he could do anything. The sky's the limit for him — he doesn't put a ceiling on himself.”
In addition to the crowd of family members who made the trek across the globe to be at the ballpark on Tuesday, Balfour was another native Australian who made sure to be at Bazzana’s debut. His trip was a bit more convenient from his home in Florida.
“When I knew he was coming, I jumped on a flight at 5 a.m.,” Balfour said during batting practice. “I'm excited to see a bunch of Aussies up in the suite.”
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That bunch of Aussies included Bazzana’s parents, Jenny and Gary, Travis’ older brothers, Hayden and Mitchell, and several aunts and uncles. Gary and Todd Boedigheimer became close friends during Travis’ time at Oregon State, with the Boedigheimers hosting the Bazzanas at their home in Scottsdale on several occasions during the Beavers’annual tripto begin their college season in nearby Surprise.
“[Gary called,] and he’s like, ‘We’d be honored if you guys would be there for his debut,’” Todd said. “So we hustled.”
The Boedigheimers joined the Bazzanas, Balfour, and several other close friends and former coaches who journeyed to Cleveland to see Travis become a major leaguer.
“It's special,” Bazzana said postgame of the scene of his loved ones in the second-level suite behind home plate. “We got coaches, mentors, people I idolized when I was growing up, family, people that have supported me as kind of second families, being in the U.S. without family. It was a great group of people here.”
The game itself —a frustrating 1-0 defeat for the Guardians— was a letdown of sorts, though it wasn’t without some debut drama. After striking out in his first plate appearance, flying out to center field in his second and drawing a walk in his third, Bazzana strolled to the plate in the bottom of the ninth as the winning run with a runner on second and two outs — a storybook scenario for the rookie.
"I live for those situations,” he said postgame. “And I feel like I've had a lot of success in eighth, ninth inning, tie ballgames, one-run ballgames coming up big. And I feel like I was really honing in my focus and felt good."
But after reliever Cole Sulser threw two straight balls to begin Bazzana’s at-bat, Rays manager Kevin Cash decided to intentionally walk the top prospect rather than giving him a chance to do damage on something in the zone.
“I didn't expect it,” Bazzana said. “The umpire was like, ‘Hey, Travis, you can head to first.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ And he said it again. It didn't really scream that it was going to be that scenario in that situation. But I get it.”
Sulser then struck out pinch-hitter George Valera, sealing the 1-0 victory for Tampa Bay and a fourth straight loss for Cleveland. Bazzana’s first career hit will have to wait until Wednesday’s series finale, when the Guardians are slated to take on All-Star right-hander Drew Rasmussen — another former Oregon State star, with Bazzananow the eighth to appear in the majors in 2026.
"Great institution,” Rasmussen said of his alma mater with a smirk when asked about seeing another Beaver make it to the majors. The 30-year-old Rasmussen entered pro ball three years before Bazanna arrived on campus but said he heard only good things during the rookie’s ascent.
“He was the first overall draft pick. That doesn't happen by accident,” he said. “And I know the work ethic's off the charts, and obviously the talent is as well.
“What they always talk about is his character — a really high-character individual, an awesome human being — which is always great to hear. I think when you're talking about representation of the place you care about so much, I think that's probably the most important.”
In Corvallis, Bazzana is the next in a rich lineage of Beavers-turned-big leaguers. Back home in Sydney, his arrival in the majors means so much more.
“Trav, doing what he’s done and being selected as high as he was gives a lot of motivation for other people,” Balfour said. “He tries to motivate a lot of Aussies to follow suit.”
Said Bazzana: “Hopefully there's some baseballers and maybe some non-baseballers that look to me as someone that they kind of look up to. And hopefully, the next baseball players out of Australia can really use this as motivation and as a vision for themselves.
"If you believe and you work toward something with full, wholehearted commitment, you can get pretty cool places.”
For Bazzana, Tuesday was just the beginning of a big-league career he has been diligently and wholeheartedly working toward for years.
“I always look forward to the next thing. But I'm not thinking about that — I'm present right now,” he said. “And it's crazy. It's one of those moments where you look back and think back to the kid version of yourself dreaming of it.
“It’s special.”
