David Matoma is chasing his baseball dreams further than any pro player in America.
On a Friday at noon in Southwest Florida, temperatures at LECOM Park have already touched 90 degrees. The spring home of MLB’s Pittsburgh Pirates doubles as a seasonal home base for the club’s Class-A Bradenton Marauders’ affiliate in the Florida State League. This park, 50 miles south of Tampa, first swung open its gates in 1923. Some of baseball’s greatest took their first professional steps on this very same diamond that Matoma works from.
Still a half dozen hours prior to this evening’s road game in Dunedin, Florida—home to the Toronto Blue Jays’ affiliate at TD Stadium in nearby Pinellas County—Matoma, dressed in a white T-shirt and black pants, is ready for a day’s work. In an empty concourse along the first base side of the ballpark, Matoma exits the clubhouse and selects an umbrella-covered chair. With just the intermittent sound of the grounds crew mowing the outfield grass fading in our background, the 19-year-old from the central African nation of Uganda shares his amazing travel itinerary that has taken him more than 7,000 miles from home.
Imagine being discovered by an MLB scout in Africa, at 16-years-old, and then suddenly, at an age when many boys are playing in a travel ball league or American Legion Baseball, you are rushed into being a man halfway around the globe? Armed with a $20,000 signing bonus, the 6 foot, 180-pound teenager from Kasana, Uganda, enthusiastically accepted the unknown.
“Where I come from, we play soccer. I didn’t know much about baseball,” Matoma told The Epoch Times. “I lived near a soccer field where both sports were played. The first time I saw people playing baseball, I just watched. This is when I was 10 years old. So, I kept coming back, and watched how the game was played. Then, I wanted to join.”
Baseball games in Kasana-Luweero Province, 45 miles south of Uganda’s Capital of Kampala, is becoming more popular since he first picked up a bat and glove, Matoma said. With three universities in the area, although soccer remains the sport of choice, baseball is making measurable inroads in popularity.
So, just how did Matoma beat overwhelming odds in growing his natural athletic talents and love of a game oceans away from a country that celebrates 30 MLB franchises? And how was he discovered and deemed worth the risk of being offered a professional contract?
Matoma remembers hearing that a scout was looking to sign players. No specific name was given but it was known that the Pittsburgh Pirates was the name of the club. Word spread quickly that opportunity was knocking. After years of playing in regional tournaments, and giving his best to earn scholarships, there was an inkling of light at the end of his baseball tunnel.
This is where, according to Matoma, his near-impossible journey to being discovered gets even more thrilling. He misses the tryout session. Thanks to social media and cell phones being available anywhere, Matoma sends videos to Pirates scouting supervisor Tom Gillespie, whose international territory includes the Pacific Rim, Central America, Australia, Europe, and Africa.
“After I sent [Gillespie] the video, I hear back that they have interest in me,” says Matoma, who passed his phone over to me and displays the videos that changed his life.
Going from using taxis to transport him and his baseball teammates for tournaments in Uganda to making a more than 25-hour flight to the Pirates’ Dominican Republic home base for rookies, Matoma was ready to pursue his dream. The army of coaches and trainers at Matoma’s disposal began transforming him into a professional pitcher.
“I pushed myself like I never had,” said Matoma, who along with his Marauders’ teammates finished up a weeklong, six-game series with Dunedin on Sunday. “I knew that I could throw hard, but I didn’t know how hard. The confidence I was getting at the Dominican Academy [near Santo Domingo] made me a better player.”
After an encouraging performance during the 2023 season in rookie ball last season, Matoma earned a promotion to the next rung in the Pirates’ developmental system—the Florida Coast League. Games are played at Pittsburgh’s complex in Bradenton known as “Pirate City.” Fifteen appearances and 22 innings of work impressed the coaching staff enough to have Matoma move up yet another step in the affiliate chain at the end of training this past spring. For the 2025 season, Matoma is assigned to the Marauders. Someone with a slight build like Motoma’s throwing balls routinely in the mid-90s and occasionally breaking 100 mph is reminiscent of former New York Yankees’ hurler Ron Guidry.
Between this coming week’s homestead with the Tampa Tarpons and the season finale on September 7, Matoma will have plenty of latitude during his relief appearances to up his value to the Pirates. His off-season plans remain in limbo. Aside from spending time away from the game with a friend he’s made in North Carolina, Matoma can see himself being invited back to the Dominican Republic for a couple of weeks to work on his throwing before taking a flight back to Uganda. His message to those who know him in Kasana-Luweero and the fans he’s playing for in Bradenton for seven weeks is that Matoma cares about them. He understands they are emotionally invested in him, and he says the feeling is mutual.
A Ugandan with a ball, a glove, and a dream making it half-way around the world to Florida, Matoma quickly becomes someone you want to stand up and cheer for. He’s a hero to many who is beating odds that even a casino would have to think twice about betting against.
