Head to the Outback, mate

Want to make an Australian-born minor league baseball player laugh? Ask him about Outback Steakhouse. Turns out we Americans have been duped. The Aussies will tell you there is nothing like Outback in the Land Down Under.

What makes it even stranger for the Aussies is that there always seems to be an Outback near a ballpark or hotel. Unwitting fans often comment to the Aussie players that if they get homesick, they can head across the street to the Outback.

They mostly smile. The players seem to like the food, even if Outback doesn't remind them of home. Here's what a few of them said about the restaurant:

There's nothing like it mate. You come over to Outback and none of the food they serve there is Australian. We don't have any cheese fries with bacon on it. I don't know where that came from. – Minnesota farmhand and Perth native Luke Hughes, who is featured in the currrent lead story on MinorLeagueDugout.com.

I like it. It's a bit of a corny gimmick. I like them even more now that they have Coopers beer. That's the beer from my home state in south Australian. – Florida's Paul Mildren, who also referred to Fosters as a “sell out beer.”

I love Outback. I think it's the greatest marketing idea ever made. But it has nothing to do with Australia, except for the maps on the walls, what they call certain burgers and "Blokes" and "Sheilas" on the bathroom doors. We have no steak. We have no blooming onions. We have no cheese fries. We have nothing like that. – Pittsburgh's Brett Roneberg, as quoted in The Funniest Thing I’ve Ever Seen: More than 100 crazy stories from minor league baseball.