Yomiuri Giants pitcher Scott Mathieson has been one of Canada’s most successful baseball players abroad, excelling in six seasons in Japan. (Toru Takahashi/AP)

For a young Canadian baseball player the template for success is, theoretically, quite simple.

A cocktail of talent and hard work gets you noticed by scouts, you get drafted and either choose college or the pros, spend a couple of years in the minors and boom you’ve got yourself a lengthy and lucrative major-league career. That, in exceedingly broad strokes, is what happened with guys like Joey Votto, Justin Morneau and Russell Martin.

However, a career in professional baseball — like virtually any other career — doesn’t necessarily have a linear progression. There are roadblocks, detours and retracing of steps. The options are more varied than just minor leagues or major leagues.

As a result, many ballplayers find themselves in far flung corners of the world plying their trade whether they’re on the way up, the way down, or adrift without an obvious trajectory. This is the story of Canadians who found themselves playing the game they love in places from Japan, to Mexico, to Sweden: how they got there, what they experienced and what they missed about the Great White North.

How you wind up overseas

View photos The 1992 Tom Selleck ‘Mr. Baseball’ did such a good job representing baseball in Japan it was used as a reference point for prospective players. (Universal/Getty Images) More

Playing abroad is never Plan A, but it can become an appealing Plan B in a hurry. For players struggling to crack the major leagues, it’s difficult to get by on paltry minor-league salaries — especially if you have a family to support.

Scott Mathieson, a star reliever with the Yomiuri Giants for the last six seasons, was first lured to Japan for just that reason.

“I realized I needed to be making some money or start figuring out what I was going to do with my life,” the Vancouver native says. “I had just got married and we were talking about having a family so I chose the money and went to Japan.”

There’s also the matter of opportunity. If you feel like you career is hitting neutral stateside, playing across the Pacific could let you blossom in a bigger role.

“For me the allure of playing in Asia was that I believed that I am an everyday player,” explains Jamie Romak, who played in Japan in 2016 and South Korea last year. “I had reached a point in the States where my opportunities in the major leagues were likely to be in a bench role.”

Sometimes it’s dumb luck that puts the idea in your head. When former Toronto Blue Jay Rob Ducey was grinding his way through the Texas Rangers’ minor-league system and all it took was seeing a movie about baseball in Japan to get the gears in his mind going.

“In 1994 I was in Triple-A with the Texas Rangers and I ended up watching that Tom Selleck movie, Mr. Baseball, and I came into the clubhouse the next day and asked one of my teammates what it was like because it looked kind of appealing — it was a neat story. He told me, ‘You should look into that, you’d enjoy it over there.'”

A year later he was lacing them up for the Nippon Ham Fighters.

Last but not least, there’s alway personal connections, whether it’s a teammate or coach you’re looking to join. T.R. Doty was just another Canadian kid playing college ball south of the border when he found himself playing in the little-known Swedish professional baseball league.

“The opportunity to play in Sweden came up because when I went to Santa Barbara City College I met someone from Sweden who plays baseball as well,” he says. “We had kept in touch over the years and I knew that he played in the professional league there and was very interested. He got me in contact with his coaches and I ended up taking the opportunity to go there.”

On-field differences

View photos Ichiro Suzuki exemplifies the differences between North American and Asian baseball with his reliance on speed, buntings, and contact hitting to be effective. (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) More

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