After a lustrous career as an international import player and coach, Owen Reid decided to go to work for himself as an International Baseball Consultant and Mobile baseball coach. Now settled and based in Singapore, Owen has now traveled to five different continents and 21 countries as a baseball coach including some very unknown baseball markets such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, and Kyrgyzstan.
His international baseball story began back in 2009, when fresh out of college, Owen signed on with the Vienna Wanderers in Austria as an import player. This led to his first gig as a youth coach the following winter in New Zealand, then in 2010 as a player-coach with another team in Austria, eventually settling in Australia from 2010 through 2014. It is in Australia where Owen’s international coaching career really began to take shape after playing and coaching with three different teams, assuming a role with the Perth Heat in player development and then as their operations and marketing manager. It was also in Australia where Owen met his wife, who continues to fully support his international baseball endeavours to-date.
The couple moved to Singapore in 2014 when Owen landed an Operations job at a major training facility, where he led a staff of coaches and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Albert Pujols and Augie Garrido.
In 2016 Owen found that his passions were no longer in line with his role at the facility, and this is where he found himself at a crossroads in his career, unsure what he wanted to do next, but knew it was in coaching. This is when Owen decided to take a risk and start Reid Baseball and market himself to the baseball world as a mobile coach and international baseball consultant. This role encompasses a number of different services including one-on-one coaching, coaching small groups, running specialized clinics, working with and creating training programs and curriculums for teams or leagues, coach education, building academies and mental conditioning.
The highlights of his international baseball endeavours include coaching in Dhaka, Bangladesh where he had to take a rickshaw from where he was staying through the dirty, crowded and polluted streets to the school where he was coaching or when he went to Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia to coach a group of kids on a small soccer field tucked in between two enormous rock formations which as he described “looked like out of a movie.”
Some of the takeaways for baseball people from all different aspects of the game including how to:
- Open these doors and build your resume
- Build your own baseball brand and found his own post-playing career baseball path
- Connect with organizations around the globe
- Work with kids of various groups sizes who don’t speak English
You can follow Owen and Reid baseball on his Instagram account or Facebook page @thereidbaseball.
Travel the world using baseball or softball as your ticket
Our baseball and softball members get paid to play or coach overseas year-round, mostly in Europe and Australia.
There are a variety of levels overseas which present opportunities for both the college grad and the established professional.
After signing up for a membership I received several offers within as little as two weeks. The entire process was extremely easy due to the hands-on assistance of CEO David Burns who seemed to take a personal interest in my success. Signing up was quite literally one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life.
It has been nothing short of amazing. Everyone has been so welcoming. Although the softball has been great and I’ve made wonderful friends, I think learning about the Kiwi and Maori culture has been my favorite part of the experience. I could mever have imagined that softball could open so many doors and roads for me.
The BBJO website was the best thing that has happened to me in my baseball career. In a matter of two weeks after creating an account I was playing my first game in Australia. David and his team work quickly and efficiently.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank you and appreciate everything you, Jimmy, and everyone with
I have loved my experience with BBJO. You guys offer so much support I felt so comfortable and confident throughout the process. You can tell you care about players. There seems to be endless opportunities and the various offers made it a tough decision.