A Baseball Odyssey: Kaleb Bowman’s baseball world tour

BILOXI, Miss. (WLOX) - Right-handed Shuckers reliever Kaleb Bowman started his professional baseball journey in 2019. After finishing up his career at Appalachian State and going undrafted, he started looking for other ways to pursue his baseball dreams.

“I had a buddy that talked to me about Prague and the Czech Republic, and told me about the website Baseball Jobs Overseas,” he explained. “Within a month it just took off running.”

His first stop? The East Coast of Canada, as he set out to play in the New Brunswick Summer League.

“We played all over Nova Scotia, Halifax area,” he said. “It was awesome to be able to see some places up there and you’re just like ‘Wow, this is some beauty.’ And I’m a traveler, so I knew there was some traveling to do with baseball, and I was like ‘This is cool.’”

And travel he did.

Bowman says he started his journey with Australia in mind, and that’s exactly where he ended up next, playing for the Greater Brisbane Winter League in a town called Surfer’s Paradise that he says lived up to the name.

“If I’m only going to play two games a week, you think ‘Where do I want to live, where do I want to work?’ Because part of it is you get a job, so I was settled and Surfer’s Paradise it was,” he said. “It’s still my favorite place in the world. I’m in the process of getting permanent residency there. Eventually, after baseball, I want to be able to go back and forth without worrying about visas.”

From there, Bowman returned home to Virginia and rode out the COVID pandemic, all the while working to get better.

In March of 2021, he was headed to Germany to join the Bundesliga in Regensburg Germany.

“I have everything I needed to continue to get better and better,” he said. “It was such a God thing to end up in place where my goal is to get back to the States and this team was that stepping stone to get me here in a sense.”

After the season Bowman came back to the U.S. with Pitcher of the Year honors. Even without an offer from any stateside teams, he wasn’t deterred in the slightest and had his eyes set on a second season in Germany.

“Life was still good. I was healthy and 24, what was wrong with my life? Nothing,” he said. “Let’s go have fun again. Went back for a second year and was blessed to win pitcher of the year and MVP this past year.”

After his second stint in Germany, he finally got the call from the Atlantic Independent League to play with the Gastonia Honey Hunters in North Carolina.

Not long after that, he got the call from the Brewers to join affiliated baseball.

“It was kind of that, ‘Look where I’m at, the Lord has blessed me so much, how is this even possible? I’m a kid from a farm town in Virginia,’” he said. “I could not be more blessed from everyone in this organization and everyone that’s impacted me on this ride being able to be here. I’m going to keep doing everything I can for this team in the year coming and it’s nothing more than a blessing.”

If you’re wondering about the total mileage from all his trips back and forth, it clocks in at more than 40,000 miles.

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