Alex Liddi and the Greatest European Players Ever
Yesterday, Alex Liddi hit a grand slam, which the AP noted was “the first major league grand slam by an Italian-born player in half-century.” That actually understates the true rarity of Liddi’s accomplishment: as a matter of fact, Liddi is only the second Italian-born player of all time to homer in the big leagues, since utility infielder Reno Bertoia retired in 1962 with 27 homers and one grand slam on May 7, 1958.
Liddi and Bertoia are among seven Italian-born major leaguers, and Liddi already has the third-most games played and the second-most Wins Above Replacement. (It won’t be long before he passes Bertoia, who amassed 1.1 WAR in 1,957 PA despite not really being able to hit or field.) Liddi is prominent as one of the only major leaguers born outside the Americas or East Asia.
Major leaguers have come from all six inhabited continents*, though in the past half-century, the vast majority have come from the Americas, East Asia, and a couple of dozen from Australia. Nearly 100 players were born in the UK and Ireland, though they got the majority of their emigration done in the late 19th and early 20th century. (As a sign of how much has changed since then, Irish ballplayers faced racist discrimination back in the late 19th century.) There has been one player from Africa, Al Cabrera, who hailed from the Spanish-controlled archipelago of the Canary Islands, which are off the coast of Morocco and Western Sahara.
* One player, Ed Porray, was born at sea, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. One hopes that he pronounced his last name with a gutteral growl, as “PORRRRay,” and that occasionally he would add, “me hearties,” while pausing to gaze wistfully at the horizon and imagine the untold riches and Spanish doubloons that awaited him if he could ever find the shipwreck the mermaid had told him about in his dreams.
Major league players have come from something like 54 countries. The precise number depends on how you choose to consider regions controlled by larger countries, like the Canary Islands (Spain); Panama Canal Zone, Guam, and Puerto Rico (United States); England, Scotland, and Wales (United Kingdom), and so on. It also depends on how you want to allocate players born in the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russian Empire. There are also several dozen 19th-century players whose birthplace is unknown.
The greatest player born outside the Americas is almost certainly Bert Blyleven, the pride of Zeist, Netherlands. As I wrote a year ago, there are only seven major league players in the Hall of Fame who were born outside the United States and Puerto Rico, and each comes from a different country: Harry Wright (Great Britain), Rod Carew (Panama Canal Zone), Luis Aparicio (Venezuela), Tony Perez (Cuba), Ferguson Jenkins (Canada), Juan Marichal (Dominican Republic), and Blyleven. Wright was primarily known as a manager, and he was born in 1835, so Blyleven is one of the only European-born players of note in the past century. But not the only one.
The composition of the major leagues has generally matched American immigration trends. A hundred years ago, many of the greatest baseball players were first- and second-generation Europeans, people with names like Delahanty, DiMaggio, and Gehringer. Now, many of the best baseball players are Hispanic and East Asian. But there have been a few other Europeans who have eked out fine careers in the majors.
One of the best Europeans who isn’t in the Hall of Fame is spitballer Jack Quinn. Nowadays he’s best known for being one of the oldest pitchers and hitters ever — a few years ago, Julio Franco broke his record for being the oldest man to hit a home run in a major league game. Quinn’s true age and birthplace were unknown until a few years ago, when a historian discovered that his true name was Johannes Pajkos and that he was born in what is now Slovakia, and that he arrived in the United States when he was around a year old. He didn’t pitch an inning in the majors until he was 25, and then he pitched for another quarter-century, winning 247 games and amassing 53.5 rWAR, finally retiring in 1933. Quinn is one of four players born in Austria-Hungary, and unless the empire reconstitutes itself, he will assuredly be the last.
Elmer Valo was another of the greatest Slovak players ever. Though he was born just 200 miles from Quinn’s birthplace, by the time his mother gave birth the area was in Czechoslovakia. A long-suffering Philadelphia Athletic, he spent two years serving in the army during World War II, and spent most of his prime playing for Connie Mack‘s hopeless basement-dwellers in the 1940s and 1950s. He didn’t have much power, but he had a terrific batting eye, amassing 32.7 fWAR as a hitter. His career walk-to-strikeout ratio of 3.32 is actually the fifth-best of history among batters with at least 900 walks, just behind Hall of Famers Arky Vaughn and Rick Ferrell, and ahead of Hall of Famers Eddie Collins and Charlie Gehringer.
Quite a few German-born players were born to American military parents who were stationed in that country, like Edwin Jackson, Will Ohman, and Glenn Hubbard. Until Max Kepler makes his big move, the greatest German in major league history may be Charlie “Pretzels” Getzien, who won 145 games (16.5 rWAR) playing mostly for National League franchises that no longer exist: the Detroit Wolverines, the Indianapolis Hoosiers, and the Cleveland Spiders, in the 1880s and late 1890s. Only the Boston Beaneaters (now the Atlanta Braves) and St. Louis Browns (now the Cardinals) managed to survive into the 20th, let alone 21st, century.
Swiss Otto Hess, the only man born in that country to play in the majors, won 70 games as a pitcher in the oughts and teens; he had a FIP of 2.87, amassed 5.7 rWAR, and collected a World Series ring with the 1914 Miracle Braves. He also served in both the Spanish-American War and in World War I, where he contracted the tuberculosis that later took his life in 1926.
The best Norwegian player of all time — actually, the best player born in Scandinavia — is “Honest John” Anderson, who played 14 seasons from 1894 to 1908. The son of a Swedish mother and an American a Norwegian father, Anderson was something of a power hitter, leading the league in slugging in 1898. He was one of the best hitters on the 1890s Brooklyn Bridegrooms, before they merged with the Orioles and became the Superbas, and played on the 1901 Milwaukee Brewers — the team that later became the modern Orioles. They would be the last major league team in Milwaukee until the Braves moved there in 1953. So Honest John was very probably the best major leaguer in Wisconsin till Eddie Mathews and Warren Spahn.
If Liddi can hang around the majors for anotfergieher another decade, he has a realistic chance to be the greatest European position player from continental Europe since World War I. The Seattle Mariner offense certainly wouldn’t mind.
I am surprised you make no mention of Blue Jay , the first Brazilian born player to ever play in the major leagues. His major league debut was just last week.
Because Brazil is in Europe, right?
Everything not in America is… wait, everyone stopped caring. It’s all the same.
Right next to Portugal, down ole South America way.
I am surprised you make no mention of Blue Jay Yan Gomes, the first Brazilian born player to ever play in the major leagues. His major league debut was just last week.
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=9627&position=1B/3B
I’m also surprised at the number of mentions you made. :-)
Gomes is a really cool story, but… Brazil isn’t in Europe.
Al Cabrerea, from Africa, is also not from Europe. Harry Wright (Great Britain), Rod Carew (Panama Canal Zone), Luis Aparicio (Venezuela), Tony Perez (Cuba), Ferguson Jenkins (Canada), Juan Marichal (Dominican Republic), all not from Europe.
You were saying?
@BMAC: Great Britain actually happens to be part of Europe………
They are also all in the hall of fame besides Al Cabrerea which is why they were mentioned, did you even read the article?
Right. Brazil is in South America, right next to Portugal.
Technically, Andruw Jones has/had a Ducth passport. So he’s probably the greatest European position player of all time :)
Hah. No, I’m afraid not. Al Cabrera, the Canary Islander, is from a Spanish autonomous community located in Africa. So he isn’t a European even though he is a Spaniard. Similarly, Andruw Jones (like the Aruban Sidney Ponson) is from a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, so he could be described as Dutch, but he could not be described as European. He’s from the Caribbean.
I’ve yet to meet someone from the Canary Islands who considers themselves Africans. And I know a few. Same with Madeira.
Ceuta and Mellila on the other hand…
That’s their prerogative, of course.
But you wouldn’t describe someone from Guam as North American, either.
What would you call an Hawaiian then?
Hawaiians are Americans as in USA but not Americans as in North America.
Shane Victorino – Oceania’s Top Player?
Who are the other 5 Italian born ML players ?
The full list, beyond Liddi and Bertoia:
Rugger Ardizoia (2 innings in 1947)
Hank Biasetti (33 PA in 1949)
Julio Bonetti (pitched 173 innings from 1937-1940)
Marino Pieretti (pitched 673 2/3 innings from 1945-1950)
Lou Polli (pitched 42 1/3 innings, the first 6 2/3 in 1932 and the rest in 1944).
Liddi, Bertoia, and Pieretti are the only real ballplayers in the bunch, and Bertoia and Pieretti were basically replacement-level for several years.
“The greatest player born outside the Americas is almost certainly Bert Blyleven”
Since you didn’t specify MLB, what about Ichiro! for that title? Give him an average of 4 fWAR per season he spent in Japan [he averaged over 5 in his first three years in MLB] and the two are pretty close… and Ichiro is still [slowly] accruing…
I’m talking about MLB, not NPB.
Which isn’t a statement of Bert>Ichiro! :)
As baseball players, not MLBers, would Ichiro take the number one spot among players not from the Americas… or is it still Blyleven?
I don’t know if there is a concensus, but is Ichiro even considered the greatest Japanesse baseball player (Is Oh considered the best, I don’t know anything about Japanese baseball historical figures)? Certainly the greatest career in MLB, but leaving in non-MLB leagues opens up a can of worms – Mexican leagues, Cuban players, Japanese leagues – there are a lot of non-MLB players to choose from, and Japan hasn’t always had the best non-MLB league in the world.
The comment: “The greatest player born outside the Americas is almost certainly Bert Blyleven, the pride of Zeist, Netherlands.”
I thought the same thing about Ichiro and I do think considering what he’s done since he arrived in the big leagues, it is fair to say he is the greatest MLB player from outside of the Americas. I’m not equating Japan/USA baseball with the color barrier, but they are similar in the Ichiro was kept outside of MLB because of reasons beyond his control.
I think the best comparison in this regard I can think of is Roy Campanella. While I have no doubt that there are several great black players who were supremely talented that never even got a belated shot at MLB, Campanella removed any doubt about his ability to dominate in MLB despite making his MLB debut at age 26. I don’t think anyone would rank the greatest catchers of all time without taking this into consideration.
Similarly, I think it is fair to take Ichiro’s late start in MLB into account as well. Do we have any doubts that he would have been a good to very great MLB player for years prior to his “rookie” year?
What really distinguishes Liddi from all of those other Europeans, is that he actually grew up in Europe. I am pretty sure every other 20th century Major Leaguer born in Europe spent most of his childhood in North America. Bertoia, for example, grew up across the river from Detroit in Windsor, Ontario. There may have been a few British cricket stars who adapted well enough to baseball in its earliest years to make the top leagues, but no one since.
Coincidentally, the final part of my series on the Oldest Players Ever in Bill James Online, which will probably come out tomorrow, is on foreign born players. It really has little to do with the rest of the series, except that I was fascinated by some of the “foreigners” who were among the oldest ever: Quinn, Welchman Jimmy Austin, Cubans Dolf Luque and Connie Merrero, and Dominican Diomedes Olivo. The latter two were huge stars in their home country, but didn’t get a shot in the Majors until they were 39 and 41 respectively. That was in 1950 and 1960.
Woops. How did my name become Alex Liddi?
Agreed 100% that’s why I didn’t care as much about Yan Gomes as he is US trained.
I think there some are legit prospects similar to Liddi that are EU (Australia also) raised. They’re much more interesting to me.
Yan Gomes came over to the US when he was 12, trained in Brazil under a Cuban coach. Liddi’s case is definitely cool, though, since he actually trained in the inaugural Major League Baseball European Academy program.
Maybe they should start a Major League Baseball Academy in Brazil…
I stand corrected, then I thought he was introduced to the sport in America. That’s pretty cool.
Btw, the Rays are already working in Brazil, I think they’re the 1st ones. Hopefully we see results within this decade.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2011/news/story?id=6263757
Missed your post when I posted at the bottom, but I agree 100%. Outside of Robert Eenhoorn and the recent guys, there has been next to no one that actually grew up in Europe to play in the major leagues since maybe some of those English cricketers at the turn of the century.
That article on the pioneering foreign born players is up in Bill James Online:http://www.billjamesonline.com/the_first_players_from_each_baseball-playing_nation/ It was written before the Jays called up Gomes.
Good article. You’ve done more research than I have, but have you come across anyone besides Robert Eenhoorn who grew-up and played baseball in a non-baseball playing, non-Latin American country (so excluding the Aussies, Dennis Martinez, US military base kids etc) and made their major league debut prior to the recent guys like Liddi, Vandenhurk etc?
I’ve done a bit of research and legitimately all I can find is Eenhoorn. There must be more though…
Oh, you’re asking me? Well, Netherlands and Italy are the two European countries that do play some baseball. I know Italy has a professional league, and I believe Holland does, too. There is a European baseball competition every other year that is dominated by Netherlands and Italy. Almost every year one of those two countries wins it and the other is the runner-up. The only exceptions have been when one team didn’t make the quarter-finals – I don’t know if that is because they didn’t have a team that year.
Liddi has already passed Eenhoorn in career Major League games, so it looks like he’s our man. There was an Italian pitcher Mariano Pieretti who got a shot in 1945 and pitched for another 5 years accumulating 674 innings, but I don’t know where he spent most of his childhood.
Hi John, yes was asking you directly. I was curious if you came across anyone besides Eenhoorn who actually grew up in a European country and learned to play baseball there.
These leagues have been a pet interest of mine since first being approached to potentially play for the national team of my ancestral country, a European non-powerhouse. I’ve yet to find anyone but Eenhoorn outside of the recent Dutch guys and Liddi.
FYI, from a news article I saw, Pieretti grew up in San Fran
anotfergieher?
It seems to have inserted a “fergie” in the middle of the word “another.” That’s odd.
. . . because Fergie Jenkins is a Hall of Famer from outside the U.S.?
Harry Wright (Great Britain).
GB sounds familiar. Is that somewhere between England, Scotland and the UK?
It’s so difficult to keep track of one’s possessions after sixty years.
Pour me another Pimm’s, Philip.
I may catch some heat for this, but for the purposes of this article, Harry Wright and Bobby Thomson are both from the same country: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I didn’t look at players from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales because there are so many of them. For the purposes of this piece, I was interested in continental Europe.
fair enough, but best amend the penultimate sentence in your story then, because britain is still a part of europe.
I should have said continental, and have added that. But I think Liddi has at least a nonzero chance of being better than Thomson, too.
E II R, I thumbs-upped you for excellence in username and allusion to Pimm’s.
Allusions to Pimm’s mean an automatic thumbs-up from me on this website, at all times.
Wait a minute, I just had a thought, do they have Pimm’s in North America? I’ve never seen it there. If so what on earth do you drink while floating on your punt in summer?
Wait a minute, I just had a thought, do they have Pimm’s in North America? I’ve never seen it there. If not what on earth do you drink while floating on your punt in summer?
Pimm’s is available, at least here in Virginia!
When I lived in San Francisco, I drank all 6 Pimms Cups in more than one bar.
bobby thomson?
anotfergieher?
My guess is that Bruce Bochy is the best/most prolific *manager* born in Europe in the 20th c.
He’s probably top-5 outside the US given the dearth of LatAm managers not named Ozzie.
Don’t forget Felipe Alou.
I’ll have to mention that whenever somebody tells me how great Europe is.
Where is a good resource that groups players by nationality? I’m curious now about a similar list of African players.
I put together this article mainly using baseball-reference’s place of birth reports (http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/placeofbirth.shtml) and Baseball Almanac’s “Major League Players by Birthplace” page (http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/birthplace.php).
I’m not aware of any resource that groups players by ethnic origin or ancestral home.
Fascinating research, Alex.
There couldn’t possibly be only 1 HOF player born in the Dominican Republic, could there???
The explosion of baseball in DR and Venezuela was a 90s thing even if both countries had excellent players before that.
Marichal is the only one in so far. He was a rookie the same year as 41 year old Dominican superstar Olivo – the first year any pitcher from the D.R. pitched in a “Major League”: 1960. Felipe Alou was a rookie a few years before, and, yes, I think he was a great manager. Ozzie Virgil Sr. was the first Dominican Major Leaguer. I remember his baseball card.
The thing is, Dominicans came in during the ’60s and ’70s like a babbling brook. That was opened into a steady stream in the ’80s thanks to recruitment efforts by some innovative teams such as the Blue Jays. Teams followed that success so that there has been a flood of Dominicans reaching the Majors since about 1992. Thus many of the greatest Dominicans such as Pedro Martinez just haven’t been eligible yet.
I’d say it is safe to assume Albert Pujols is a Hall of Famer.Vladimir Guerrero will probably get in, too. No? Manny will make it some day, if public opinion forgives him for his steroid use, which it probably will – but it might take a century. Sammy Sosa my be harder to forgive, because his use was more blatant? Miguel Tejada will eventually get some consideration. David Ortiz is still in the running. Is Aramis Ramirez? Possibly, but Adrian Beltre seems to be going stronger – his career is having a more tremendous 2nd half. Robinson Cano and Hanley Ramirez are certainly legitimate candidates. I wonder if Jose Bautista started his great years too late to make it.
Some Dominican pitchers seemed well on their way, but burned out too quickly: Joaquin Andujar, Jose Rijo, and Mario Soto. It will be interesting to see how that Rangers pair: Neftali Perez and Alexi Ogando pan out. Michael Pineda has the goods to be a Hall of Famer.
Sosa’s steroid use was more blatant? Manny got suspended for it, Sammy was never caught.
And it is Neftali Feliz, not Perez
In my eyes, Sosa and Manny were similarly blatant. Manny tested positive, but Sosa either did steroids or went through a *very* late puberty.
Apologies for the name slip up, but my opinion regarding Sosa’s steroid use before MLB cracked down and started suspending players for it, remains as I described.
And don’t forget the greatest Dominican player of all time – Pedro Martinez.
No article about European baseball players is complete without a heavy hearted hat tip to Greg Halman.
For those who don’t know the story, Mike Mussina was supposedly approached to play on Italy’s team in the WBC, because his name sounds quasi-Italian—even though he doesn’t actually have any Italian ancestry. So I guess if we relax our standards enough, we can find another contender for greatest European ballplayer. :)
In all seriousness though, Ichiro probably enters the argument for greatest ballplayer born outside the Americas.
You forgot to mention both Martin Dihigo and Minnie Minnoso (Cuba) who I am fairly sure are in the Hall of Fame.
Minoso is not in the Hall of Fame, though there’s certainly a case to be made that he should be.
Dihigo is in the Hall of Fame, but tragically, he never played in the major leagues. Neither did his compatriots Cristobal Torriente or Jose Mendez, the three Cuban Hall of Famers inducted for their play in the Negro Leagues. I specifically said “there are only seven major league players in the Hall of Fame who were born outside the United States and Puerto Rico” to exclude players from the Negro Leagues. Due to baseball’s racist past, they never got the chance to play Major League Baseball.
Shit, I should not comment on articles after 2am, apparently my reading comprehension skills take a bit of a dive. And I can’t believe that was wrong on Minoso. I was sure that he was put in last year by the Vet committee.
@Trevor good call on a hat tip to Greg Halman. For those who don’t know he was a Dutch (actually from the Netherlands) player that was killed by his own brother last year, and another Mariner.
@Peter 2, yeah the use of “Italian” was used extremely liberally to form an Italian team. I think if there is another World Baseball Classic that MLB should have a European team (plus explore the idea of an African team), that way they can legitimately fill a roster and it encourages the growth of the sport from countries that only have one or two players.
I live in Slovenia and it would be really fun for me to see baseball take off here. There are a few baseball diamonds around the country so I am encouraged that there is hope for European baseball.
Does anyone remember the Nike ad – “Don’t like baseball….move to Norway?”
Good article Alex!
Excellent idea on the World Cup. I myself have felt that there should be a European all-star team, and possibly other multi-national teams, such as one for Latin American countries that don’t have their own team, one “World” team for other countries not represented, et. al.
Our next series wil feature market inefficiencies in Turkmenistan.
I’m surprised that Lou Gehrig didn’t appear in the article. Sure, he was born in the US but his parents were German immigrants. Would’ve been worth a side note imo.
Sons of immigrants – that would be a whole other article. Get started and good luck with all that research.
I meant to allude to Gehrig’s last name when I mentioned Charlie Gehringer. There were a lot of players of German descent back then — Honus Wagner also comes to mind.
This article was fun, but come on, Burt Blyleven left the Netherlands at age 2. Harry Wright left the UK at age 3. Reno Bertoia was a Canadian since he was a year old.
It’s fun to look at, but unlike Liddi, these guys are as American as apple pie. Don’t forget that for many very young European immigrants (or children of fresh European immigrants) they wanted to assimilate as fast as possible. Baseball in the early-mid 20th century was a great way to do that. If anything, this article says more about the storied role of baseball in America, than it says anything about European baseball.
If you want to talk about actual guys who at least started playing baseball in Europe (and not on US military bases), your list is a lot smaller. You’ve got Liddi, Robert Eenhoorn, the late Greg Halman, Rick Vandenhurk, a few more that I can’t think of off hand. So really, outside of the oughts, Robert Eenhoorn is the only one that comes to mind.
Wait a second, a Canadian is as American as apple pie?
Also, I’m pretty sure that apple pie was derived from European cuisine.
Clearly Dan Haren did not care for this article.
As a Giants fan, I would feel guilty if the legendary Rikkert Faneyte got no mention on this thread. I believe he only started playing ball in the US at the college level.
Not sure if your list of US territories is meant to be exhaustive, but you can add American Samoa (Tony Solaita, also of tragic demise) if so.
No, it was not meant to be exhaustive. Thanks for mentioning him.
there’s going to be a lot more dominicans in the hall soon. that astounds me that there’s only one so far.
I can’t believe I got the Max Keebles joke before even clicking the link. Also, Danny Graves was born in Saigon in 1973, making him probably the best (by being the only notable) East Asian-born player outside of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China
Yep, Graves was born in Vietnam. What I didn’t know is that there were major leaguers born in Afghanistan (Jeff Bronkey) and Saudi Arabia (Craig Stansberry).
Very late on this, but I should point out that Roger Bernadina actually developed in Europe and was signed out of the Netherlands, despite being from the Antilles, so he’s a reverse Blyleven in a certain way. Among true Dutch players, Win Remmerswaal deserves a mention, and so does Loek Van Mil who may debut this year in the Majors if he catches a break.
Didi Gregorius is arguably the top European prospect in the minors currently, ahead of Kepler and other recent signings who will take ages to develop. Kai Gronauer is a German who spent a few games in MLB Spring Training (the Mets were short on catchers). He probably won’t play in the Majors, but it’s still remarkable that he got there.
Other interesting births:
Brian Lesher was born in Belgium
Arndt Jorgens was a Norwegian with a decent career (in terms of length)
Moe Drabowski was born in Poland
Tom Mastny was born in Indonesia (not European, but pretty cool anyway!)
Al Campanis was an Italian born in Greece, which makes him doubly awesome.
Other guys born in Germany: Jeff Baker, Bob Davidson, Ron Gardenhire.
This is the go-to spot in Baseball Reference for places of birth: http://www.baseball-reference.com/bio/
Moe Drabowski? Why he was known as ‘Kid Gorgeous’ when he first came up.
(Later he was known as ‘Kid Presentable’…then ‘Kid Gruesome’…and finally, ‘Kid Moe’.)