New York Mets Pitcher Steven Matz Keeps Getting Asked the ‘J Question’
(JTA) —
It was a question fans were asking themselves last season during the team’s run to the World Series.
Despite his surname, which is a syllable away from the word for unleavened Passover bread, the answer is no.
But it turns out Matz gets the question all the time.
So much so that when he met a fellow Matz — ESPN reporter Eddie Matz, no relation — the first thing he did was pop the question, according to the article that occasioned the meeting, published Wednesday.
Clarifying the reason for his inquiry, the 24-year-old ace said: “I’m not, but it’s the first question people ask when they meet me.”
Matz the reporter wrote that the only time he’d ever encountered Matzes in the past was at family seders. Why, he asked Matz the pitcher, who helped power the Mets’ 2015 playoff run as a rookie, do you think you get the question so often?
“Because I’m from Long Island and it sounds like Katz,” Steven Matz said of his last name.
Jewish or not, Matz has New Yorkers kvelling. In eight starts this season, he has a 7-1 record, a stellar 2.36 earned run average and 50 strikeouts. He was born in Stony Brook, New York, and went to high school in East Setauket on Long Island’s North Shore-area.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
