Adam Macko, seen here in preseason play with the Toronto Blue Jays last month, is with Team Canada at the World Baseball Classic. The Slovakian-Canadian was drafted in 2019 by Seattle and traded to the Blue Jays organization in 2022.Mark Taylor/Getty Images
Adam Macko had been nervous for months ahead of the 2019 Major League Baseball draft. When a call finally came in the seventh round from the Seattle Mariners, he was so happy that he wept.
“It was one of the most rewarding feelings I’ve ever had,” Macko said on Friday from San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he is pitching for Team Canada in the World Baseball Classic.
“I knew I needed someone to give me a shot. When I got off the phone it felt like so much weight had been lifted off my shoulders. You never want to let your parents, family and friends down.”
Macko was traded by Seattle to the Toronto Blue Jays in 2022. He was impressive in three spring outings and is destined to start the 2026 season with the AAA-level Buffalo Bisons.
If he gets promoted from there, he will become the first modern-day major leaguer from Slovakia. There have been two others, including Jack Quinn, a Slovak-American who won 247 games from 1909 to 1933 for eight teams. Elmer Valo is the other player. He spent 20 seasons in MLB, primarily with Philadelphia, between 1940 and 1961.
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“If I achieve that, it would be an honour to represent Slovakia and Canada well,” Macko said.
Macko was born in Bratislava 25 years ago and was introduced to baseball in first grade. He played shortstop, even though he throws with his left arm. He couldn’t hit a lick and eventually was turned into a pitcher.
He advanced to a higher level but languished for six months due to a heel problem.
“Once I got back you couldn’t tear me away,” he said. ”I loved it. I had missed it so much.”
Macko attended a baseball academy in Vauxhall, Alta. before being drafted by the Mariners. He said the Mariners and Blue Jays were his two favourite teams as a child.Mark Taylor/Getty Images
His family moved to Ireland when he was 12.
Until then he hadn’t even known there was such a thing as the major leagues.
“I dreamed about being drafted by a team as soon as I learned that,” he said.
At 14 his family moved to Stony Plain, Alta., a suburb of Edmonton.
“My parents always dreamed about moving to Canada,” he said. “For my dad, it was kind of like the promised land.”
Macko attended a baseball academy in Vauxhall, Alta., a small town about 450 kilometres southeast of Stony Plain that calls itself the “potato capital of the west.” In Vauxhall, he lived in a dorm, attended classes five days a week until 1 p.m. and after that would practice for four to five hours.
As he polished his craft he began to get noticed and ended up in the Mariners’ organization. After his trade, he spent the entire year as a starter in Buffalo and in 2024 pitched for both AA New Hampshire and the AAA Bisons.
“When you get drafted you imagine you will always be with that one organization,” Macko said. “When the Mariners called me and told me I had been traded I asked to whom. When they told me it was the Blue Jays, I said, ‘Sweet!’
“Seattle and Toronto were my two favourite teams.”
He threw four shutout innings this spring, including one against Toronto in an exhibition before Team Canada left for San Juan.
The Canadians won their opening game on Saturday at the World Baseball Classic with an 8-2 win over Colombia. They were to play Panama on Sunday night and against Puerto Rico on Tuesday and Cuba on Wednesday. Canada is attempting to advance past the knockout stage of the WBC for the first time ever.
“It’s amazing here,” Macko said of the team’s time in Puerto Rico. “I was excited for this before I got selected and I am so much more excited now. The group of guys are great and they welcomed me right in.”