Cameron Wood completed his triumphant return to Carlton by signing on the dotted line last week, after recently partaking in a whirlwind tour of Thailand with a 20-man playing group, then venturing to the United States for a four-week hiatus.

The travelling bone is obviously part of the big Blue, notwithstanding his healthy reputation as a football journeyman from West Adelaide to Brisbane, Collingwood, Williamstown and now Carlton.

Recently, Cameron took time out to reflect on his time away, in a series of articles for the Carlton website, the first of them from the City of Angels.

On the Friday straight after the Best and Fairest, I took off to the US. Though I used to play baseball growing up, I’d never been to a Major League game so I wanted to see a few games.

On the first night I got there I went to Anaheim to see the LA Angels versus the Texas Rangers; then I went down to San Diego the next morning to see the Padres versus the San Francisco Giants twice (the Giants ended up winning the World Series). I also saw the Padres play the Colorado Rockies twice, and then I went back to LA to see the Dodgers play the Giants.


By an absolute fluke I was in LA for one night to see the Dodgers play the Giants. The Dodgers won, which meant they won their division and Clayton Kershaw, who was pitching for the Dodgers, ended up winning the National League MVP award – the first time a pitcher has won it since 1968 (and as rare as a defender winning the Brownlow).

Kershaw is a starting pitcher and starting pitchers only play once every five days, so a lot of people have argued how he could be the MVP. But he was outstanding and it was no surprise he also won his third Cy Young Award for best National League pitcher.

It also happened that Mike Trout won the American League MVP playing for the LA Angels so I was lucky enough to see him play as well.

I saw the San Francisco Giants and World Series Champions play three times, and all up I saw seven games in eight days - and every game was different, especially in terms of the show. Americans love their military, so there were “Military Sundays” factored in where San Diego players wore military tops. There were also retro nights where players wore outfits from the 1970s and there was music, videos and giveaways.

I ended up in Toronto to see the Blue Jays versus the Baltimore Orioles on AFL Grand Final day.

Growing up I was pretty good at baseball and when my football career finishes I’d play again. I was a pitcher and got an offer to sign professionally when I was 16. But I was just starting Year 12 so I decided to finish the year and see how my footy went - and it went okay.


I’ve got a good story about Mick (Malthouse) and it’s baseball-related. I reckon it was 2009 and I was away with the Collingwood team training in Arizona on top of Mt Humphrey.

The mountain was covered in snow and we were on our way down. Everyone was covered in frost and throwing snowballs at each other. Anyway, I was fancying myself as a pitcher and launching snowballs at everyone – and I threw one which went just a little bit astray, hit Mick in the side of the ear and knocked his glasses off.

Mick turned around and said ‘”Was that you Woody?” and right there, as I hid behind a tree, I thought I might have been best served pursuing a baseball career.