New York Mets Pitcher Steven Matz Keeps Getting Asked the ‘J Question’
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(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.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
