From Fife to the Phillies – Gabriel Rincones Jr hopes to make MLB impact

Scotland is hardly a hotbed of baseball stars but Gabriel Rincones Jr is hoping to make an impact after being selected in the top 100 of Major League Baseball’s draft by the Philadelphia Phillies.

The now 21-year-old was six when his father, former pro pitcher Gabriel Rincones Sr, announced he was uprooting the family from Venezuela to Glenrothes, where he had found work as an offshore safety adviser in the oil industry.

Rincones Jr had been playing the sport since he was a toddler but saw no cause for concern when it came to the impact of the move on his big-league dreams.

“I was told I was going on vacation,” he told the PA news agency about the original move.

“But it’s great, because my makeup, all the relationships I’ve built over there, are irreplaceable.

“I didn’t play baseball (in Scotland) but I picked up swimming, judo, I got to call myself a Scot. Obviously I get to talk (with an American accent) now, but that’s not how I originally learned to speak English. Now it’s just to fit in here.”

To prove his point, Rincones Jr, whose passport also allows him to compete for Great Britain’s national team, switched his accent, something he says is easy for him to turn on and off.

Occasionally echoes of his six boyhood years in Fife even slip naturally into Rincones Jr’s speech, and he consciously switches words like “rubber” and “rubbish” for their American equivalents depending on his location.

The 6ft 4in left-handed hitter was the Phillies’ second pick of the MLB draft, going 93rd overall in the third round to put him in line for a 659,800 US dollar (£549,979) signing bonus.

His mum, dad and two sisters are still based in Scotland and his parents, who he has not seen in three years, were playing in a local softball