Courtesy photo Todd Parker’s Curve clubhouse job is getting him a chance to see the world.

Until recently, Altoona native Todd Parker’s only tie to the country of Australia was his favorite food at Outback Steakhouse, kookaburra wings.

That will change when he heads to Japan to join team Australia at the World Baseball Classic where he will be their clubhouse manager.

Parker has been the visiting clubhouse manager for the Altoona Curve since 2021 where he’s in charge of making sure the visitors are well taken care of while at Peoples’ Natural Gas Field.

The relationships he’s built with those opponents helped connect Parker with representatives from team Australia.

“Last year when Erie was in town, their manager Andrew Graham, who is Australia’s third base coach and I got to talking about working for the team in the WBC,” Parker said. “We had a rain delay and we were talking and joking to the point where I replied well if Australia needs one, keep me in mind.”

Graham took Parker’s statement to heart and in August, Parker heard from the president of Australian Baseball about the position and the ball started rolling for him.

“In the middle of August I got an email from the president of Australia Baseball telling me that Graham suggested me for the position,” Parker said. “From there I got emails from Major League Baseball about the position and I reached out to Guardians top prospect Travis Bazzana and talked with him and he said he would push for me also.”

With support from Bazzana and Graham in the fold, Parker had to send MLB a list of references much like any other position, but these had to be from players, managers and umpires who have worked with him.

After those were sent along, Parker went months without hearing a thing from MLB until a timely text came his way just before the holidays.

“The week before Christmas I got a text from Travis asking me if I got it and I told him I hadn’t heard anything,” Parker said. “He said ‘you’re in’ which was really cool to get that from him.”

MLB reached out the following day that he’d be joining the team in Tokyo to work with team Australia putting his mind at ease after months of waiting and nearly losing hope.

“I honestly had given up hope on it but my wife, Claudine was always telling me it was mine, just give it time, she has been my biggest supporter with this,” Parker said.

Parker will be in charge of the setup and teardown of the Australian clubhouse daily. Prior to the team arriving, he will be handling the preparations of equipment and distribution once players arrive in Miyazaki, Japan for training.

There will be quite a few familiar faces for Parker on team Australia outside of Graham and Bazzana as former Curve players Robbie Glendinning and Blake Townsend are also on the squad.

This is a once-in-lifetime experience for Parker who is excited for both the experience and the opportunity to be around a lot of faces in MLB.

“I’m looking forward to the experience, not just going to Japan, but working with MLB personnel,” Parker said. “I’m one of the few minor league guys working this event. I can’t wait to see Shohei Ohtani play in Japan. Everything that I hear about the crowds are just insane over there.”

He will get to experience many of those things with his family who will be joining him when the WBC starts on Thursday, March 5.

Should team Australia do well, they could find themselves stateside for the opportunity to play for the WBC title at Loan Depot Park in Miami.

“I’m hoping we can finish 1 or 2 in that group and then make the trip to play the teams out of that group,” Parker said. “This is truly an opportunity of a lifetime and I’m so thankful for it.”