First African Born MLB Player Debuts for Bucs

[jose melendez]

I love this story

He's a South African, but he's a native sesotho speaker (the language spoken here in Lesotho and by 3 million South Africans). Yeah, he's an all field, no hit shortstop and his upside is Cesar Crespo, but still, Africa!!!

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

He's a real present to the folks of that continent!

 

[InstaFace]

He's apparently a real natural athletic talent and hadn't had much experience facing professional-grade pitchers so he hadn't developed much as a batter - but now with top-level coaching he's actually making strides. Got his first hit yesterday.

I bet the Uganda little league is stoked. Unless they don't like South Africans and I had no idea about that, or something.

 

[SumnerH]

I believe Gift is the second MLBer born in Africa, but the first born on the mainland. Al Cabrera played 1 game (2 PA) in the MLB, for St. Louis in 1913. He was born on the Canary Islands, which are part of Spain politically but are in Africa.

Al also played for 20+ years and then managed in the Cuban League, and is in the Cuban baseball Hall of Fame.

 

[jose melendez]

He's apparently a real natural athletic talent and hadn't had much experience facing professional-grade pitchers so he hadn't developed much as a batter - but now with top-level coaching he's actually making strides. Got his first hit yesterday.

I bet the Uganda little league is stoked. Unless they don't like South Africans and I had no idea about that, or something.

Nah, they're cool. Though Trevor Noah does make a lot of Uganda jokes.

 

[jose melendez]

I believe Gift is the second MLBer born in Africa, but the first born on the mainland. Al Cabrera played 1 game (2 PA) in the MLB, for St. Louis in 1913. He was born on the Canary Islands, which are part of Spain politically but are in Africa.

Al also played for 20+ years and then managed in the Cuban League, and is in the Cuban baseball Hall of Fame.

That's really interesting. How to count the canaries is a funny question.

 

[SumnerH]

That's really interesting. How to count the canaries is a funny question.

Yeah. I view them as akin to French Guiana, which is politically a full part of France but is in South America. And I'd definitely say that Xander and Sidney Ponson weren't born in Europe; if you're assigning them to a continent it's got to be North America.

The Canaries are certainly closer to Europe than the Caribbean Islands are, but they seem pretty obviously African by geography to me. It's a weird case, though, made stranger by the fact that it's pretty skin of the teeth both by geography and because he barely played in the majors (1 game, 2 PA).

 

[SumnerH]

Location for reference:

 

[jose melendez]

He's almost Moonlight Graham too. 1 game 0-2

 

[charlieoscar]

Canary Islands: Africa? Europe? You can't just go by how close they are to Africa because Gibraltar is much closer to Morocco than the Canarys are to the coast of Africa as is Yemen. However, the Canarys were formed by volcanic eruption and according to Wikipedia, "The islands are considered as a distinct physiographic section of the Atlas Mountains province, which in turn is part of the larger African Alpine System division."

Also, Sergio Rodríguez, born in San Cristóbal de La Laguna [on Tenerife] in 1986, played point guard for the Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings, and New York Knicks.

 

[jose melendez]

A story today about Ngoepe in the Times with more detail. Sounds like he's swung the bat ok so far.

Only 24 AB but an OPS of .850. There's a zero percent chance he'll keep it up, but maybe he can hit well enough to hand on as a slick fielding backup.