By Jim Caple
Page 2 columnist
A.J. Brack is a 26-year-old New Jersey soil engineer who spent four seasons pitching in the independent minor leagues -- a very, very long bus ride from the majors.
He once pitched for a team that played every game on the road. He once found out he had been released by walking into the clubhouse and seeing another player wearing his number. He once played for a team that arranged for him to spend the season living in a trailer park with someone nicknamed "Cat Woman," because she kept so many pets. (Annie Savoy, she wasn't.)
Brack was a Bluesman, a Pioneer, a Jackal, a Canary and a Road Warrior during his minor-league career. Now, he'll be a Greek. This Sunday he will board a plane for Athens to play in a pre-Olympic test tournament. And this summer the New Jersey resident will pitch for the Greek Olympic baseball team.
That's right. The Greek Olympic baseball team. The U.S. won't have a baseball team in Athens, but by God, the Greeks will. And they just might be good enough to win a medal.
The Greeks may not know hard cheese from feta but as host country for the Olympics, they get an automatic berth in every sport they choose. Taking advantage of a little-known codicil in the Olympic constitution, they are stocking their baseball roster with the American and Canadian children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Greek emigrants. Among those on the current roster are former big leaguers Eric Pappas and Clint Zavaras, plus World Series vet Clay Bellinger and top prospects Pete Sikaris and Aaron Miles (who is good enough that he may have to pass up the Olympics if he's in the majors with the Rockies).
The uniforms may read "Hellas" (the Greek word for Greece) but the labels ought to read "Made in America."
You can compete in the Olympics for a country other than your own as long as you can trace a recent ancestry (generally a grandparent but in some cases a great-grandparent) to it, which is easier said than done. Particularly when you're talking about a great-grandparent who emigrated to the U.S. more than a century ago from a town in Greece that no longer exists. Pascual Perez thought it was difficult getting his Visa in order each spring? Brack has spent the past year compiling documentation tracing his ancestry back to his great-grandfather and he still doesn't have all the documentation he needs.
"Every time you think you finally have everything you need, there are two more things they want," Brack says. "I was almost like, 'Do you want my great-grandfather's finger as proof?' The first couple times I wanted to strangle someone."
This baptismal certificate is completely inadequate. The village priest forgot to sign his middle name. You'll have to come back next week. And bring your great-grandfather's umbilical cord with you.
"I had to do a lot of research," Brack said. "Everywhere you go, they say, 'No, you need to go there instead.' 'Go there,' 'Go there,' 'Go there.' I went to Ellis Island a lot. I started looking through old yellow pages to find old addresses. It wasn't easy. They would change names like they were sneezing. When my mother's grandparents got here, their name was Venechianokus, then Venechianos, then Venech."
At least the Greek consulates generally know about the team now. "Our names are in a matrix," Brack says, "so when we call up they don't say, 'The Greek Olympic baseball team? Don't blow smoke up my ass.'"
The Greek tryouts were held last November, though manager Rob Derksen is still looking for players to add to the roster. The players will play with their regular organizations this season and those who aren't on a 25-man major-league roster in August will play a couple exhibition games in Toronto and Baltimore. Then they'll fly to Athens and try to win a medal for Greece. With the U.S. and Korea out, they just might.
If it seems a little strange that players who may never even have stepped foot in Greece will represent that country in the Olympics, well, you don't understand how important Greek-Americans take their heritage. "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" isn't that much of an exaggeration.
Over the past century or so, many thousands of Greeks emigrated from their home to seek their fortune in a foreign land where they couldn't even speak the language. One of those was John Angelos, who came to America with $5 in his pocket. He labored in the mills of western Pennsylvania, opened a Greek diner in Baltimore and saved enough money to send his son, Peter, to law school. And now Peter not only is one of the most powerful lawyers in the country and the owner of the Baltimore Orioles, he is the man who has almost single-handedly funded the Greek baseball venture.
Angelos says this team is his way of giving a little something back to the country of his ancestry and he is so proud of the Greek-American connection that he wants the team to wear the U.S. flag on their shoulder patches.
So while the U.S. officially won't have a baseball team in the Olympics, we will have one to cheer anyway. As Brack says, "I feel like I'll be representing the country I was born in, as well as Greece."
Please note the above article was found at espn.com.
CASIGKAP your malicious comments were not only insulting to those of ethnic Greek descent such as myself and greeklawgirl.
But you maligned the journalistic integrity of major sports magazines with your racist comments.
"Temporary Greek"and "knowledge of their culture only came from movies such as 'Zorba the Greek' and 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding'." are the your words. Why are you so xenophobic? Unless your ancestors are Native Americans, you are also the descendant of immigrants. The result of assimilation to America sometimes means that traditions and knowledge of the mother tongue are sometimes lost.
And not all athletes of Greek-American descent chose to tryout and earn a spot on the Greek Olympic team of their specialty. For example Tom Pappas is a member of U.S. Track & Field Team. The following weblink will educate you to his accomplishments.
http://www.usatf.org/athletes/bios/Pappas_Tom.asp
Regardless of the country being represented these athletes have trained and earned their positions. For me it's a win-win situation to be able to root for both American and Greece during the Olympic games.
In honor of my ancestors who founded the games, I'd like to return the thread to its true purpose. To provide some background of certain traditions as had been done by AlphaSigOU(sp?) as well as comment about America's teams and athletes, and observations during the Games themselves.