Your wish is my command, dear readers. So when a longtime follower like William requests a card of Ntema Ndungidi, I jump at the chance to actually show off this card. Sure, there's a chance that William was just being a smartass. Or maybe he saw this card in his own collection and thought he had a funny name; seriously, how many of those letters are silent? Perhaps he knew that Ntema was the first African-born player in professional baseball, having been born in the former Zaire (now the Congo), and thought it would be a neat tie-in to the World Cup. There's even a chance that William knew that the O's actually used a first-round "sandwich pick" (36th overall) to draft a guy who hadn't even played high school baseball and wouldn't end up making it beyond AA Bowie in six seasons in the organization. When you look at a decision like that, you can't help but feel a little more optimistic about more recent personnel choices in Birdland.Any way you slice it, Ntema Ndungidi is a conversation starter.
