Players Who Broke the Country Barrier

If you’re like me, you’re sitting there thinking about the players who were the first to make the major leagues from the country where they were born. Well friend, your search is complete. Below you will find exactly that, along with what year they debuted, what position they primarily played and their total career bWAR. If you click on the name, it will take you to their baseball-reference page. This information comes from b-r’s wonderful place of birth page.

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Country	Player	Year	Position	WAR
Afghanistan	Jeff Bronkey	1993	RP	0.2
American Samoa	Tony Solaita	1968	1B	7.8
Aruba	Gene Kingsale	1996	CF	-0.6
Atlantic Ocean	Ed Porray	1914	SP	-0.4
Australia	Joe Quinn	1884	2B	1.6
Austria	Kurt Krieger	1949	RP	-0.4
Austria-Hungary	Joe Koukalik	1904	SP	0.1
Bahamas	Andre Rodgers	1957	SS	4
Belgium	Brian Lesher	1996	LF	-1.2
British Honduras	Chito Martinez	1991	RF	1.8
Canada	Bob Addy	1871	RF	3.3
Canal Zone	Pat Scantlebury	1956	RP	-0.3
China	Harry Kingman	1914	1B	0
Colombia	Lou Castro	1902	2B	-0.6
Cuba	Steve Bellan	1871	3B	-0.7
Curacao	Hensley Meulens	1989	LF	-1.8
Czechoslovakia	John Stedronsky	1879	3B	-0.2
Denmark	Olaf Henriksen	1911	OF	2.1
Dominican Republic	Ozzie Virgil	1956	3B	-1.1
Finland	John Michaelson	1921	RP	-0.1
France	Larry Ressler	1875	RF	-0.5
Germany	George Heubel	1871	RF	-0.1
Greece	Al Campanis	1943	2B	-0.3
Guam	John Hattig	2006	3B	0.2
Honduras	Gerald Young	1987	CF	5.1
Indonesia	Tom Mastny	2006	RP	-0.5
Ireland	Andy Leonard	1871	LF	7.6
Italy	Lou Polli	1932	RP	-0.9
Jamaica	Chili Davis	1981	CF	37.2
Japan	Masanori Murakami	1964	RP	1.1
Mexico	Mel Almada	1933	CF	-1.6
Netherlands	Rynie Wolters	1871	SP	0.9
Nicaragua	Dennis Martinez	1976	SP	46.9
Norway	John Anderson	1894	OF	27.4
Panama	Humberto Robinson	1955	RP	2.3
Philippines	Bobby Chouinard	1996	RP	1.4
Poland	Henry Peploski	1929	3B	-0.1
Puerto Rico	Hi Bithorn	1942	SP	3.7
Russia	Jake Gettman	1897	RF	-0.3
Saudi Arabia	Craig Stansberry	2007	2B	0
Singapore	Robin Jennings	1996	RF	-1.5
South Korea	Chan Ho Park	1994	SP	16.3
South Vietnam	Danny Graves	1996	RP	5.8
Spain	Al Cabrera	1913	SS	0
Sweden	Charlie Hallstrom	1885	SP	-1.1
Switzerland	Otto Hess	1902	SP	5
Taiwan	Chin-Feng Chen	2002	LF	-0.2
United Kingdom	Harry Wright	1871	CF	1
Venezuela	Alex Carrasquel	1939	RP	4.5
Virgin Islands	Joe Christopher	1959	RF	-0.3
Wales	Pete Morris	1884	SS	-0.1
West Germany	Rob Belloir	1975	SS	-1.9

 

Only one major league player was born in China and none in India. I find that pretty interesting. If a team could get a lot of interest there, they might be able to find some very good athletes.

I also ran into a cool story with Charlie Hallstrom, Sweden’s representative. He pitched in only one game and his line was 9 innings, 18 hits, 16 runs, 11 earned. He walked six and struck out zero. In one game he was worth -1.1 wins and he never played in the major leagues again.

A  lot of these players are replacement-level types, but there are a few that stand out like Dennis Martinez, Chili Davis, John Anderson and Chan Ho Park.

Some of the countries like West Germany, the Atlantic Ocean and Canal Zone are not currently countries, but they are listed on b-r’s page, so I left everything that way.

As far as the first United States major league player, I’m not quite sure. The first game was on May 4, 1871 when the Fort Wayne Kekiongas hosted the Cleveland Forest Citys. Assuming the Forest Citys batted first, this would mean that the Kekiongas starting pitcher Bobby Mathews threw the first pitch and would thus be the first United States player in the history of Major League Baseball. Mathews accumulated a 16.1 career WAR.

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