{"id":687872,"date":"2026-05-22T18:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/687872\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T18:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:38:12","slug":"23605-days-between-2-rare-players-plus-when-the-padres-danced-for-mcdonalds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/687872\/","title":{"rendered":"23,605 days between 2 rare players. Plus: When the Padres danced for McDonald\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Windup Newsletter \u26be | This is The Athletic\u2019s MLB<\/a> newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> to receive The Windup directly in your inbox.<\/p>\n

The first item in my Sliders column today is a conversation with former Orioles All-Star Al Bumbry, a Vietnam veteran who\u2019s being honored at the MLB alumni game in Cooperstown ahead of Memorial Day this weekend, but\u00a0it needs more space than we have here<\/a>. So, we\u2019ve got the quick-hitters up now.<\/p>\n

Levi will be back after the holiday. I\u2019m Tyler Kepner, welcome to The Windup!<\/p>\n

3 Questions With: Toronto\u2019s rookie lefty from Slovakia<\/p>\n

Elmer Valo \u2014 born in Rybnik, Slovakia, in 1921 \u2014 played his final game on Oct. 1, 1961, ending a two-decade career spent mostly with the Philadelphia A\u2019s. It would be 23,605 days until another player born in Slovakia \u2014 as classified by Baseball Reference \u2014 appeared in the major leagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhiladelphia A\u2019s?\u201d Adam Macko said Tuesday. \u201cTo be honest, I didn\u2019t know that was a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s understandable; when Valo played, Macko\u2019s team wasn\u2019t around, either. Macko, a left-hander for the Toronto Blue Jays, was born in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 2000, and made his major-league debut Monday at Yankee Stadium. He faced three hitters and retired them all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was super nervous from when I threw my last pitch in the bullpen to running out here getting on the mound,\u201d Macko said. \u201cThat\u2019s when everything started racing, speeding up on me. And then when I started throwing my warm-up pitches, that\u2019s when things kind of started to come back to me: \u2018OK, I know this game.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He knows the game because he fell in love with it halfway around the world. Macko\u2019s family moved from Slovakia to Ireland when he was 11, and then to Canada soon after. In 2019, the Seattle Mariners drafted him in the seventh round from Vauxhall (Alberta) High School and traded him to Canada\u2019s team three years later in a deal for Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez.<\/p>\n

Macko \u2014 who played for Canada at the WBC this year \u2014 is the fourth player born in Slovakia to reach the majors after Valo, Jack Quinn, who pitched from 1909 to 1933, and Carl Linhart, who had two at-bats for the 1952 Detroit Tigers.<\/p>\n

None of the others lived there as long as Macko, who happily talked about his improbable journey to the top.<\/p>\n

Why did you want to play baseball?<\/p>\n

\u201cI started at 7, but it was more like T-ball. Initially at the tryouts it was just ball-pit balls that we were hitting into a net. So it was very loose, just a little extracurricular activity after school. As I started to get better at it, they sent me up a level (where) it was actually like a team, and then I played there for a little bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were only two teams in my area that we were playing. Another team, I believe, was on the other side of the country. So we just played that one team and it was a lot of fun. It was competitive; we got to know the guys on the other team. We were just kind of playing for bragging rights and medals. There\u2019s a lot of medals that I have from those times playing in Slovakia, because we were always either first or second. Gold or silver. (Laughs.)\u201d<\/p>\n

What was your first awareness of Major League Baseball?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we moved to Ireland (at age 11), we were walking down a street and there was a bar that had TVs on. It was the Orioles versus I don\u2019t remember who, but that was the first time that I saw a baseball game on TV. I was like, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s interesting,\u2019 so I did some research. I was like, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s this Major League Baseball league \u2014 well, who\u2019s the best pitcher?\u2019 And this is 2012 when I was looking it up, and Justin Verlander had won the Cy Young, MVP, Triple Crown in 2011. So he was the best pitcher, and I said, \u2018OK, I want to be like him.\u2019 He was very smooth, and I loved how he started the game throwing 93, 94, and ended the game throwing 101, 102 (mph). I thought that was so cool. Later on, I started finding some lefties and I landed on David Price, so I had some good role models.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you think of yourself as Slovakian, Irish or Canadian?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m kind of a global citizen. It\u2019s interesting, my roots are Slovakian, I am Slovakian, born and raised, and my family and I speak Slovak all the time, so that\u2019s very close to home, that\u2019s kind of where I\u2019m from, those are my roots. But most of my adult life I spent in Canada, so I have love for both countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out my Sliders column, with Macko\u2019s full Q&A\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Off the Grid: Every player\u2019s story is interesting<\/p>\n

The Immaculate Grid is a pathway to all sorts of fascinating baseball connections. Last Sunday, when a friend of mine used the name Bud Metheny, I had to find out more about him. After doing some research, I mentioned Metheny to New York Yankees pitcher Ryan Yarbrough, who instantly recognized the name.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the field\u2019s name,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Bud!\u201d<\/p>\n

Bud Metheny Ballpark at the Ellmer Family Baseball Complex is the home of the baseball team at Old Dominion University, where\u00a0Yarbrough played<\/a>\u00a0before embarking on a long professional career. It honors Metheny, who helped the Yankees win a title in 1943 and hit 14 home runs the next season.<\/p>\n

Metheny went on to coach the ODU baseball team for 32 years, and also served as the school\u2019s basketball coach and athletic director. He played all four of his MLB seasons with the Yankees, and that\u2019s why Old Dominion wears navy pinstripes.<\/p>\n

The program has sent 17 players to the majors, including Justin Verlander, Daniel Hudson and Vinnie Pasquantino, but Yarbrough is the only one who has worn both Yankee pinstripes and the college pinstripes they inspired.<\/p>\n

\u201cPinstripes, they\u2019re all about it,\u201d Yarbrough said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I ever actually put that together, but it actually makes a lot of sense now that you bring it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Classic Clip: The Padres dance for McDonald\u2019s<\/p>\n

The sale of the San Diego Padres, for a record $3.9 billion valuation, could be approved as soon as next month at the quarterly MLB owners\u2019 meetings. Jos\u00e9 E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones, the lead investors,\u00a0would own up to 40 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the franchise and take control from the Seidler family.<\/p>\n

The first time the team was sold, by owner C. Arnholt Smith in 1974, the price was $12 million, which is now roughly the annual salary of infielder Jake Cronenworth. The buyer was Ray Kroc, the chairman of McDonald\u2019s, who had tried to buy his boyhood team, the Chicago Cubs, the day before.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuying the Padres was strictly an afterthought on the rebound at the end of a lifetime romance,\u201d read a 1974 UPI profile. \u201cWhen Kroc told his wife what he was up to, she thought he was talking about taking over some California mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Ronald McDonald was Kroc\u2019s red-headed child, the Padres were \u2014 ahem \u2014 his red-headed \u201cstepchild.\u201d (His words, more or less.)<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first love outside of my personal life is McDonald\u2019s and always will be,\u201d Kroc said in that UPI story.\u00a0\u201cThe Padres will always be like a stepchild to my one and only child, McDonald\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that case, consider this clip a home movie. In 1985, the year after Kroc\u2019s death, Kurt Bevacqua, Tim Flannery, Tony Gwynn and an impressive Carmelo Mart\u00ednez hammed it up in a local commercial for the restaurant chain.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Handshakes and High Fives<\/p>\n

In the pitch clock era,\u00a0everybody\u2019s a base stealer now<\/a>, as Chad Jennings explains.<\/p>\n

The Pirates are leaning into \u201cYinzerpalooza Weekend\u201d by giving away\u00a0bobbleheads of Noah Wyle\u2019s character, Dr. Robby<\/a>, from the hit Pittsburgh-based medical show, \u201cThe Pitt.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Yasiel Puig card just sold for $6,000, but the value was actually driven by\u00a0a Kobe Bryant cameo<\/a>\u00a0in the background of the photo.<\/p>\n

Jim Bowden took a look at some underperforming veteran star players and tried to decipher whether they\u2019re just slumping or on the true downslope of their careers.\u00a0See the full group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mets closer Devin Williams is dominant again after\u00a0ditching a \u201cfix\u201d in his delivery<\/a>\u00a0and returning to the more comfortable movement that made him an elite closer.<\/p>\n

Most-clicked yesterday:\u00a0Don Mattingly\u00a0making history<\/a>\u00a0with the Phillies\u2019 turnaround.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udceb Love The Windup? Check out\u00a0The Athletic\u2019s other newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Windup Newsletter \u26be | This is The Athletic\u2019s MLB newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Windup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-687872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}