Meet the Matteo

[Edgy MD]

The Mets are preparing to sign Matteo Marelli, a teen-aged pitcher from Rovigo, Italy. If and when this comes to fruition, he will be the first ever Mets prospect signed out of The Beautiful Country.



Anthony DiComo is reporting him as "the first European amateur signing in Mets history," but that can't be right. I think they've signed a German kid and a Czech in the past — both catchers, I am pretty sure. The Czech guy may even still be in the system.



Still, congratulazioni ai Metropoliti as they expand their global footprint — or bootprint, in this case.



[FIMG=500]https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/upload/t_16x9/t_w1536/mlb/juw4i66fn7mjus7n7myj.jpg[/FIMG]



Rovigo is, historically, mostly a rugby town, but they are also the first Italian city to have a Gaelic football club and, hopefully, soon they will be the first to have their very own Met.

[Edgy MD]

Turns out that I was only part-right. The Czech catcher was https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=cerven000marMartin Červenka, and he only joined the Mets organization for one season in 2021, after previously spending several seasons grinding it out on Cleveland and Baltimore farm teams.



https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=gronau001kaiKai Gronauer, the German catcher, was indeed signed as an amateur, spending six years in the Mets system.

[metirish]

Didn't the Mets sign an Indian kid ? Or was that a movie?

[Edgy MD]

There was a movie about the Pirates signing a pair of Indian pitchers. True story, but bad film.

[MFS62]

IIRC, wasn't Kumar Rocker Indian or part Indian? We drafted him #1, then didn't sign him.

Later

[Edgy MD]

We are all part-something, but what DiComo was trying to speak to was the idea of foreign native-born players signed out of a new country.



But yes, Rocker is believed to be the first MLB player of Indian descent. That probably isn't so, but he is the first so-known.