New Zealand announces provisional roster for World Baseball Classic qualifier

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AUCKLAND – Baseball New Zealand is pleased to announce the provisional roster for the World Baseball
Classic Qualifier being held in Taipei from 15-19 November 2012. The roster features some familiar
names and faces to New Zealand baseball fans, including a cross section of the country’s domestic
baseball talent and some exciting new Kiwi talent from as far afield as Canada, the United States and
Australia as New Zealand prepares for the biggest tournament in the program’s history.

This year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), the sport of baseball’s world championship held every four
years, represents the first time that New Zealand has been invited to compete in the 28-nation event
and is considered a reward for the significant growth that has been made by the national program
domestically, including a number of Major League Baseball and collegiate signings and dramatic rise in
overall player numbers and new clubs across the country.

The roster announcement follows successful tryouts in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Further
scouting was done throughout the professional leagues in Australia and North America, as well as
United States colleges, with no stone left unturned to enable manager Andy Skeels to put together the
strongest ever New Zealand roster with the sole intention of qualifying for the World Baseball Classic’s
second round in March 2013. Skeels is the current manager of the San Francisco Giants High A club in
San Jose, California.

“We’re incredibly excited about the roster we’re going to have on the field for us in Taiwan,” remarked
Paraparaumu-born Skeels of the previously unranked (and mostly unknown) Diamondblacks team. “It’s
great to have identified so many New Zealand-eligible players of this caliber, current and former
collegiate and professional players, plus talented and up-and-coming New Zealand domestic players
who will, for the first time, reveal what they can do on the world stage.” Skeels said it was incredibly
difficult to cut the squad down from 50 to 25 with so many eligible talented Kiwis, and indicated that the
coaching staff will have three more selections to make during the 10-day Auckland training camp over
the next two weeks.

The 25 players named to the provisional roster for the WBC Qualifier includes 13 who play or have
played professionally overseas. Three players on the roster are currently with professional baseball
teams in North America, including first baseman Boss Moanaroa (Greenville Drive – Boston Red Sox),
catcher Te Wera (Beau) Bishop (GCL Red Sox – Boston), and infielder Daniel Devonshire (GCL Blue Jays –
Toronto), who was drafted this year out of Colby Community College in Kansas. Former professional
players also dot the roster, including former Blue Jays minor leaguer and Future’s Game infielder Scott
Campbell, former Red Sox 40-man pitcher Lincoln Holdzkom, his brother John, a 6’8” right-handed
pitcher who most recently played with the Bakersfield Blaze, the Cincinnati Reds High A team, and
former San Diego Padres minor league hurler Riki Paewai who was mentored by future Hall of Fame
closer Trevor Hoffman.

The roster includes five sets of brothers including David Skeels, brother to Kiwi-born manager Andy, and
former minor league catcher with the Rangers, Athletics, and Mariners organizations, while Sam Bishop
is the 23-year-old right-handed pitching brother of Red Sox catcher Te Wera, who in his fifth pitching
appearance won the Golden Arm award in Australia’s National Under-23 Tournament this year.

They will be joined by an additional four collegiate and high school players, including the youngest
member of the team, Joseph Boyce, a native New Zealand ballplayer who pitches for Chaffey Baseball
Club in Washington State.

THE COMPETITION

Clearly an underdog in the WBC tournament, New Zealand will be competing against Thailand, the
Philippines and host nation, the 7th ranked team in the world, Chinese Taipei, with the victor progressing
to the World Baseball Classic’s next round in March in various locations across the globe. New Zealand’s
National Baseball team is considered the Cinderella team and arguably the biggest unknown of the 28
teams in the tournament, as they are currently unranked in the International Baseball Federation world
standings.

The World Baseball Classic has expanded for this year’s competition, adding 16 new teams to those that
competed in the last World Baseball Classic won by Japan for a second consecutive time in 2009. This
has led to the creation of a new qualification round made up of 12 new national teams (Brazil, Colombia,
Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Philippines, Spain and
Thailand) and the four national teams who failed to win a game at the 2009 tournament (Canada,
Chinese Taipei, Panama and South Africa). These 16 teams have been split into four qualification groups,
each of which have played or will play a modified double-elimination format. Spain and Canada have
already advanced respectively from the Florida and Germany qualifying pools in September. The other
remaining pool between Brazil, Panama, Nicaragua and Columbia takes place in Panama at the same
time New Zealand begins play in Taipei.

The New Zealand team will stay in Auckland, New Zealand for a 9-day training camp from 26 October to
3 November before travelling to Australia on Sunday, 4 November to participate in a number of warm-
up games against professional Australian Baseball League teams the Sydney Blue Sox and Canberra
Cavalry. The team will then fly out to Taiwan in preparation for their opening game of the World
Baseball Classic Qualifier against Chinese Taipei on Thursday, 15 November 2012. All New Zealand
games will be shown both live and on repeat broadcasts on SKY Television in New Zealand during the
tournament, as well as broadcast live around the world online at www.worldbaseballclassic.com.
Further details about the trial venues and times are available at www.baseballnewzealand.com, with
further tournament details available at www.worldbaseballclassic.com.

About the World Baseball Classic

The World Baseball Classic is the premier international baseball tournament, sanctioned by the International
Baseball Federation, and features the best players in the world competing for their home countries and territories.
More than 1.5 million fans from all over the world have attended the tournament games, held in March 2006 and
2009. Team Japan is the reigning World Baseball Classic Champion, taking home both the inaugural and 2009
titles. The upcoming World Baseball Classic will be played in March 2013 and will again feature the greatest
baseball-playing nations in the world. The tournament will be held every four years thereafter.

About World Baseball Classic, Inc.

World Baseball Classic, Inc. is a company created at the direction of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Major
League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) to operate the World Baseball Classic tournament. The tournament,
which is sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF), is supported by MLB, the MLBPA, Nippon
Professional Baseball (NPB), the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), their respective players associations and other
leagues and players from around the world.

2012 New Zealand World Baseball Classic Provisional Roster

www.baseballnewzealand.com

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