Ryan Flynn is turning New Zealand into a budding international baseball power.
As Baseball New Zealand’s Chief Executive Officer, the Bethlehem Central High School graduate built a national team which finished second to fourth-ranked Taiwan in a World Baseball Classic qualifier.
“I was thrilled with the performance of our national team and the performance of our players, coaches and my staff,” said Flynn via email.
New Zealand played Taiwan close through the first five innings of the qualifier final before losing 9-0. That followed a similar effort when the Kiwis met Taiwan in the first game of round-robin play. In between, New Zealand defeated Thailand 12-2 and the Philippines 10-6 to advance to the final.
“We were the only unranked nation that was allowed to participate in the event, after months and months of lobbying and paperwork,” said Flynn. “And it’s fair to say that no one expected us to have fielded a team, much less put such a strong team and coaching staff on the field in Taiwan.”
Flynn has had the task of turning around New Zealand’s baseball program since 2009, and he said the process was slow at first.
“The biggest challenge is the fact that the sport is a viewed as a ‘minority’ sport in this country, falling well below rugby, cricket, netball and many ‘commonwealth’ sports, or sports popular in the United Kingdom and its former territories,” said Flynn. “Men’s softball has been much more popular than baseball, with many people not realizing how many opportunities exist in the sport of baseball in North America and across the globe.
“Due to this low profile, the funding to run a true national program has been very limited, and this is my biggest challenge: running a sport with minimal resources compared to the larger codes. This is beginning to change for the better due to our recent successes, but it’s not an initiative that happens overnight.”
To help him turn things around, Flynn brought in some major league help in the form of former Major League Baseball players Darrell Evans, Jay Bell and Steve Kline, as well as current Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Chris Woodward.
“(It was) a world class coaching staff, and one that rivaled any of the other 27 national teams in the World Baseball Classic,” said Flynn.
Flynn knows how to turn countries on to the sport he grew up playing in Delmar. He did the same thing for Guam at the start of the millennium.
“Guam was a huge training ground for me in terms of real world knowledge,” said Flynn. “I started by playing on the island in what was a surprisingly strong local league. We played in an old stadium right on the ocean, waves crashing not far from the outfield wall every night. (It was a) beautiful place to play.
“When I saw how strong the talent was there and when I knew I’d be there for a while, I took over the (national) program and we actually came within three wins of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. We wound up losing three heartbreaking games in South Africa in 1999, but those years of experience in building a very competitive baseball program on a national level taught me many of the lessons that have assisted me elsewhere and now in New Zealand,” he added.
Guam was one of many stops for Flynn after graduating from The College of Saint Rose in 1993. He estimates that he’s lived in or visited more than 80 countries over the last two decades, with the last four years being spent in New Zealand.
“New Zealand is a beautiful country — one of the most beautiful,” said Flynn. “We are very happy here and feel fortunate to be doing well in a nation with such a high standard of living and quality of life. My wife (a native of Palau) misses her family a great deal, but I’m so vested in my work that I rarely think of Delmar or my past. Perhaps that’s not always a good thing, but it’s who I am; once I’m hooked into something, I have to be dragged away, kicking and screaming.”
Flynn’s current goal is to continue raising baseball’s profile in New Zealand.
“We have grown from 900 players to more than 6,000 in the past few years … and I sincerely believe we could hit the six figure mark over the course of the next decade if resources begin to open up for us,” said Flynn. “With success comes more money and resources, though now it’s the old chicken and the egg scenario. You have to prove yourself to receive additional funding and support, both from a domestic standpoint as well as from foreign sources. But our profile has grown a great deal in the country, and we have a lot of key people on our side.”