SEA Games 2025: From the mound to the mix, baseballer Hans Pereira finds his beat

SINGAPORE – National baseballer Hans Pereira is the team’s pitcher and also their designated deejay.

Occasionally, the 23-year-old music creator plays one of his own tracks, but most of the time, he blasts songs from his Spotify playlist during training sessions.

His role in the locker room is a combination of his two passions – music and baseball – both of which, he feels, share many similarities.

He said: “You can get better every day, that’s why I like it. Also because no matter how long you’ve been doing it, there’s always something to learn and there’s always a way to get better.”

Pereira’s journey into music production began unexpectedly in 2018, when he watched the animated version of The Grinch.

One of the songs from the film’s soundtrack caught his ear, and when he looked it up, he discovered that it was by Tyler, The Creator – an artiste who rapped and produced his own music.

Curiosity piqued, he downloaded music production software and tried to learn on his own. It did not stick then and he stopped for nearly two years.

But the interest never went away and he eventually gave it another go.

Since deciding to take music more seriously in May 2019, Pereira made beats daily until September, when he left for Australia to play for South Perth Baseball Club in the State League.

Music has always been a part of his life. He played the violin for a few years when he was younger and the drums in band, his first co-curricular activity (CCA) in secondary school.

Pereira describes himself as a sample-based creator, an artist who builds new tracks by incorporating portions of existing sound recordings known as samples into their work.

The tracks can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 10 hours to finish, a process he likens to solving a puzzle.

On what he enjoys about it, he said: “What’s fun for me is making the beats because sometimes I work with musicians to make stuff.

“I have a friend who plays the guitar and sometimes I go to his house and he’ll play the guitar and I’ll make something with that. Those are more of the fun moments where I can join minds with someone.”

Pereira, who graduated from the Singapore Institute of Management in June, is hoping to pursue music seriously. He had initially planned to move to New York in January to kick-start his music career.

But those plans are on hold while he focuses on playing baseball in Australia, which has been an eye-opening experience.

Pereira noted that he throws about 130kmh, which is considered “quite good” in Singapore, but the average there is about 140kmh.

On top of helping him hone his fundamental abilities, the club also conduct slow-motion analysis of his form, breaking down what drills he needs to do to refine his skills.

He said: “Just being around better pitchers and hitters, taking advice from them, they help me a lot with seeing where I can be better.

“When I play against better competition, sometimes I feel like I’m pitching my best but there’s still a big skill difference, so I think of different ways of how to get them out.”

Going overseas to play was not always on the cards for Pereira, who started with softball as a CCA in Secondary 2.

He switched to baseball owing to the influence of relatives in Canada who were fans of the sport.

After attending national team try-outs and making the training squad, a year later he was selected for the 2019 SEA Games in the Philippines, where Singapore finished fourth.

With the sport returning to the biennial Games for the first time in six years, the team are now aiming for a podium finish at the Dec 9-20 event in Thailand. They will face Laos in the preliminary round on Dec 5, followed by the Philippines (Dec 7), Vietnam (Dec 8), Thailand (Dec 9) and Malaysia a day later.

To chase that goal, music has taken a backseat since he returned to Singapore in early November to prepare for the Games.

Pereira may be winding up for their baseball medal hunt, but his music ambitions have not dimmed. A New York stint is still the goal and he hopes to be able to work with artistes he admires such as Tyler, The Creator, Kanye West, Daniel Caesar and SZA.

But fame is not what drives him. He said: “It’s more of having a good catalogue of things that even when I pass away, leaving something behind is quite cool.

“Even if you’re not world famous like Michael Jackson, you can still leave a bit of a legacy behind, a piece of you will be here forever.”