Top Foreign Players in ML History by Country

Written by: Jerry Milani on 27th June 2009

Top Foreign Players in ML History by Country | read this item

More than 1,800 of the nearly 17,000 players to appear in a Major League game, dating back to 1871, were born outside of the United States. BaseballReference.com identifies 56 foreign countries and territories from which those players hailed. Roughly half of the foreign-born players are natives of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico or Venezuela.

In this five-part series, we’ll look at the three best players from each of those countries, from Afghanistan to Wales. For our purposes, we’ll combine entities like West Germany and Germany that are now part of the same nation. There’s even a player with a unique place of birth; he’ll make our list as well.

For Part One, we’ll look, alphabetically, from Afghanistan to Belize.

Agree or disagree with our picks? Leave a comment.

Afghanistan (1) – just one, Jeff Bronkey, who was born in Kabul and pitched in relief for the Rangers and Brewers in the mid-1990s, compiling a 2-2 mark, 4.04 ERA with two saves in 45 games over three years.

American Samoa (1) – again a singleton, but a pretty good player in Tony Solaita, who played seven seasons, mostly in the American League as a first baseman-designated hitter with Kansas City and California, hitting .255 with 50 home runs and 203 RBI. His best year was probably 1975, when he had 16 home runs and a .260 average in 93 games for the Royals.

Aruba (4) – His recently-released failed drug test notwithstanding, Sidney Ponson takes top honors from Aruba. He has posted a 91-111 record and 5.00 ERA and was briefly the ace of the Baltimore Orioles staff. Second best from beautiful Aruba is Gene Kingsale, who played seven seasons with four teams from 1996-2003. He played in a high of 91 games in 2002, most of that with the Padres, hitting .283 with 28 RBI and nine stolen bases. Calvin Maduro (10-19, 5.78 in 68 games over five years) gets the third spot by default over Radhamas Dykhoff, who had a single appearance for the O’s in 1998. For some reason, all four Arubans were members of the Orioles for all or part of their respective careers.

Australia (23) – OK, finally, some choices to make here… Right now, I think it comes down to the threesome of Graeme Lloyd, Dave Nilsson and Craig Shipley, although 19th-Century journeyman Joe Quinn and his 19-year career deserves some mention. Let’s start with my top choice, Lloyd, who pitched for 10 years in the bigs, earning 30 wins and 17 saves in 568 games of pure relief, from 1993-2003. Nilsson was a productive catcher for the Brewers for eight seasons in the 1990s, the club’s primary backstop for seven of them. He hit 105 career home runs and drove in 470 runs, hitting at a fine .284 clip with an .817 OPS and 110 OPS+. He gains the edge over Shipley, who played 11 years around the same time, as a reserve and sometimes-starter all over the infield for five clubs. Quinn was the first Aussie in the bigs, and it would be 85 years after he played his last game in 1901 that another would make it, when Shipley joined the Dodgers. Quinn saw significant time at every position but pitcher and catcher, hitting .261 in nearly 1800 games in the deadball era. If he can recapture his 2008 success, Grant Balfour may end up cracking the top three by the time his career is over.

Austria and Austria-Hungary (4) – Jack Quinn was born in Stefurov in 1883, then part of Austria-Hungary and now a city in Slovakia. He was a 247-game winner over 23 years and nearly 4,000 innings, and is one of the few pitchers to win 20 or more games in one season (26 in 1914) and lose 20 the next (22 in 1915). Though he toiled mostly on second-division clubs, he did win 11 games for the World Series Champion 1929 Philadelphia A’s and pitched on two other pennant winners. Frank Rooney (.200 in 35 AB in 1914), Kurt Krieger (5 IP from 1949-51) and Joe Koukalik (0-1 in one complete game loss for Brooklyn in 1904) round out the Austro-Hungarian contribution to baseball to date.

Bahamas (5) – Career National Leaguer Andre Rogers, who hit .249 with 45 home runs over 11 years, three as a starting shortstop, with the Giants, Cubs and Pirates in the 1950s and 1960s, gets the nod over Big Red Machine reserve outfielder Ed Armbrister (.245 in 265 AB in five seasons), best known for the infamous pivotal play in the 1975 World Series in which he was not called for interference on a bunt. Third place here goes, narrowly, to Tony Curry, an outfielder who hit .261 in his only season as a regular for the also-ran Phillies in 1960. All five native Bahaman Major Leaguers were born in Nassau.

Belgium (1) – Brian Lesher, born in Wilrijk, made it to the majors as a 25th-round pick out of the University of Delaware. He hit .224 over five seasons in the 1990s with three American League teams, principally Oakland.

British Honduras/Belize (1) – Chito Martinez, born in Belize City, played three years with the Orioles, hitting .259. He hit 13 homers as a rookie in 1991 but was less productive in 1992 and out of the game a year later. His son Drew was the leading hitter for Memphis Univ. as a freshman this year.

A Ship on Atlantic Ocean (1) – Federal League pitcher Ed Porray listed “A Ship in the Atlantic” as his birthplace, so he gets a special mention here. He went 0-1 in three starts for the Buffalo Buffeds in 1914.

Next up: Part Two, Canada through England.

Resources:
Baseball Reference http://www.baseball-reference.com/bio/
Baseball Almanac http://www.baseball-almanac.com/firsts/first13.shtml

Topics: International, MLB, nations

Best foreign born players in each country – Part 2 of 4 : Baseball Digest says:

July 23, 2009 at 11:24 pm

[...] To see the first installment, Afghanistan to Belize, click here. [...]
Riz says:

August 21, 2009 at 10:52 am

Nilsson over Lloyd for Oz. If you’re going for longevity over production, then you would have to put Joe Quinn ahead of Lloyd, also.