Gift Ngoepe’s baseball dream .
Gift Ngoepe is living his dream: from growing up in Africa to playing in America’s biggest baseball league
HE WAS so nervous he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. And then stepping out onto the baseball pitch came the moment he’ll never forget. “Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed the announcer’s voice over the public address system in the crowded stadium in America, “Now coming in for second base for Pittsburgh Pirates – Gift Ngoepe . . .” The South African could feel the tears welling up as he stood in PNC Park, his team’s home stadium in Pennsylvania, nearly 14 000 km from Limpopo where he was born, listening to the deafening cheers of the more than 30 000 spectators. This was it. His big moment – he’d been waiting nine years for this chance to prove himself and now here it was. He was making history. It was time to claim the sporting glory for which he and his family had worked so hard. Not only was he the first South African to play for an American major league baseball team, but also the first African.
Aware of the weight of the occasion, his teammate Francisco Cervelli gave him a bear hug and whispered in his ear: “Go for it, brother. This is your chance.”
Inspired by those words Mpho “Gift” Ngoepe (27) stepped up to the batting plate and hit a comfortable single off a delivery from Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Jon Lester.
And by the end of the match he’d helped his team to a 6-5 victory, proving he has what it takes to play against the best in the game.
Speaking to us a few days later, he’s still amazed by his achievement.
“It was like, you know what, I’m in a big league now and I must prove I’m one of the best in the game. It’s a dream come true because it has been my dream since I was a little boy, but it also means so much for the people of South Africa and baseball in Africa,” he says.
HIS big dream began in 1991 in the clubhouse at Randburg Mets Baseball Club in Joburg. After his father had walked out on them, his mother, Maureen, left Gift and his eldest brother, Christopher, with her parents in Ga-Matlala, Limpopo, to head for the big city in search of a job and a better life.
She eventually found work in the clubhouse as a cook and cleaner. Because the club operated on a shoestring budget, it couldn’t afford to pay her so she was offered accommodation instead.
Gift, then two years old, came to live with Maureen while Christopher remained in Limpopo with their grandparents. Maureen gave birth to a third son, Victor, while in Joburg and he too lived at the club.
“When we lived together for all those years in that clubhouse – from the time I was two until I left to play baseball in the States at 18 – we developed the most incredible bond.
“It was me, mom and my younger brother, Victor,” Gift wrote in a poignant piece for American website theplayerstribune.com recently.
“The room was very small – almost like the size of a big closet in America – but it was home. The kitchen was in that room. As was the living room.
“It wasn’t big enough to divide up into separate living spaces. It was all just one room, and we had a mattress on the floor. But it didn’t matter to us.
“We made it work. We more than made it work actually; we were so happy together. We were genuinely happy. We had love. And we made everything fun. We laughed together and played games, and we ate dinner together as a family every night.”
Christopher (now 31), who came to live with his mother and brothers when he was a teenager, shows us around the clubhouse, pointing out some of the trophies Gift won when he was playing in SA.
Living at a baseball club, Gift grew up around the game and came to love it.
“Gift was five when he started playing baseball,” Christopher says. At 10 he was picked to play for the national side.
Glen Gillman, coach and chairman of the Randburg Mets Baseball Club, says he knew from the start Gift was special.
Gillman says what sets the player apart is that he’s fast and his feet and arms are strong.
He can also read the game and position himself well in the field.
Off the field, Gillman says, Gift is a likeable fellow, humble and easy to talk to, and always smiling or laughing.
EAGER to help get his career off the ground, the club raised money to allow him to travel, including trips to Europe for Major League Baseball (MLB) annual European academies in Italy.
It was at the 2008 MLB academy that Gift, then 18, impressed Pittsburgh Pirates scouts and was offered a contract.
Gift steadily climbed the ranks of the US minor leagues, playing more than 700 games before getting the call to the majors.
But he admits moving to America was a big adjustment.
“People are a little bit different; they didn’t quite understand me because I spoke with slang I had from South Africa,” he said in another interview.
Keen to fit in, he decided to go by the name Gift, rather than Mpho, as it’s easier for Americans to pronounce.
These days living in a comfortable apartment in Pittsburgh he’s still bowled over by how much space he has compared to the cramped room he grew up in.
But he doesn’t spend much time at home because he’s on the road most of the time.
During the baseball season he travels all over the US, sometimes playing three to four games a week. “It’s hectic, man. We are very busy here. Always on the road, always playing.”
This probably explains why he’s single at the moment. Now that he’s been selected to play in the major league he’s determined not to rest on his laurels.
“I can’t relax and tell myself I’ve made it. I must always look behind me because there are always guys who are hungry and also want to topple you and get to the top.” The only thing he regrets is that his mother isn’t around to witness what he’s achieved. Maureen died of double pneumonia in 2013.
He says he owes everything to her. “Even when I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to make it to where I am today, she never wavered in her belief. I miss her a lot.”
He also misses Christopher, who still lives in the cramped clubhouse room Maureen raised them in.
Victor (19) is also skilled with a baseball bat. He was signed to Pittsburgh Pirates two years ago and plays in the minor league, but his brother has high hopes for him. “Can you imagine if Victor also cracks major league baseball in the US?” Gift says. “Whoa! That would be great, man.”
‘It’s a dream come true because it has been my dream since I was a little boy’