National Pride and International Dreams Guide Solbach on Baseball Diamond
Native of Germany aims to become the first German-developed player to pitch in MLB
Baseball has taken Markus Solbach around the world with his sights set on the sport’s biggest stage.
The native of Germany has played in his home country, as well as in Australia, Italy and the United States.
He spent the majority of the 2021 season in Oklahoma with the Triple-A Oklahoma City Dodgers, making 17 appearances, and pitched one game for Double-A Tulsa as well.
Solbach carries a big personal dream as he represents his country more than 7,000 miles away, aiming to become the first German-developed player to pitch in Major League Baseball and the third overall player with such credentials to advance to the Majors.
While more than 40 German-born players have played in MLB, only two players who grew up playing baseball and training for the sport in the country have previously made it to “The Show.”
“I would be the first German born and raised player to pitch in the Major Leagues, so it is kind of a big deal,” Solbach said. “There were a bunch of (players) born in Germany on (military) bases, but there has never been anybody who has signed out of Germany, learning baseball in Germany, to (pitch) in the big leagues, so that is a little bit of a big weight on my shoulders, but also a dream come true if that day ever happens.”
The 2021 season was Solbach’s 11th professional season since the native of Dormagen, Germany signed with the Minnesota Twins in February 2011 as a right-handed pitcher.
He finished 2021 tied for fourth among OKC pitchers with nine starts and tied for seventh with 47.2 innings pitched.
He wants to follow in the footsteps of outfielder Donald Lutz who made his debut with the Cincinnati Reds in 2013 and outfielder Max Kepler who debuted with the Minnesota Twins in 2015 — both who learned the sport, trained and developed in Germany. That distinction sets them apart from dozens of other native Germans and German-Americans who also signed professional baseball contracts, but either did not develop in the sport in Germany or did not advance past the minor leagues.
The now-30-year-old Solbach grew up in Pulheim, Germany, located in the western part of the country just outside of Cologne, and described how youth sports differ from those in the United States.
“We don’t have school sports,” Solbach said. “We don’t have a baseball team that is played for the school. Every city has a big sporting club and they have all sports represented. The city I lived in Pulheim, they had a baseball team, a basketball team, a soccer team, all Olympic sports and basically after school you go home do your homework and have practice for the city you live in. When I started, I was very fortunate to be honest, because now we have no more baseball in my town.”
His first exposure to the sport of baseball actually came live, in person, in the United States.
His father worked for Ford Motor Co., and had the opportunity to travel to the automobile maker’s hometown of Dearborn, Mich., with his family. Solbach would go on to live in the Detroit area from the ages of four to six, learning English along the way.
Two weeks before his family left the United States to return to Germany, the family attended a game at Tiger Stadium.
“We were sitting as high as you could possibly get and I had binoculars,” he recalled. “One of the friends of my parents, he took us to the game. My mom said that for three straight hours I was looking through those things. I just apparently loved it.”
The family returned to Germany in March 1997 and soon after, Solbach started playing baseball when he learned a classmate played.
“I was connected to baseball in that moment and I went to practice,” he said. “My mom said she has never seen me like that ever before or after that first practice. I loved it and I never stopped. I tried everything out, basketball, hockey, soccer, but baseball was always priority and it still is obviously.”
The pitcher also played third base, shortstop and second base early in his career and debuted for Baseball-Bundesliga — the elite level of baseball in Germany — in 2009.
He signed a minor league contract with the Minnesota Twins in 2011 and also played in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization before signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers in January 2019.
Between those stops in the U.S., he played for Germany’s national team in international play, in Baseball-Bundesliga, made stops in U.S. independent ball and also played in the Australian Baseball League.
He was named a Midseason All-Star with the Kane County Cougars in 2015. He won a championship with the Bonn Capitals in 2018 in Germany and won the league’s ERA title (0.38). He said that was his favorite time playing so far in his career — winning a championship at home after being away for nine years.
“It’s tough to explain this to other people, but if you play baseball in Germany you absolutely love the sport, you die for that sport, you give up everything — your relationships, your work, you’re fully invested in baseball even if you don’t get paid or get anything for it,” Solbach said. “Seeing people cry that I used to play with after the championship; winning it, that emotion, that atmosphere was unbelievable…(It was the) first time in the history of the club to win a championship, so to help out and be a part of that was awesome.”
His individual success continued as he played the 2018–19 winter season in the Australian Baseball League for the Adelaide Bite, being named the starting pitcher in the league all-star game and tying for the league’s Helms Award, given to the league’s most valuable player. He became the first pitcher to be named ABL MVP since 1991–92, according to Baseball Reference.
In 2019 in the Dodgers organization, he was named Texas League Pitcher of the Week for Sept. 2 while with the Tulsa Drillers. He won both of his starts that week and did not allow an earned run over 13.1 innings with two walks and 11 strikeouts during his first season of Double-A baseball.
He attended minor league spring training with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020 and was supposed to play for Germany in a World Baseball Classic Qualifier game in Tucson, Ariz., around the same time, but both events would eventually be canceled due to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Solbach remained in Arizona for about a month before traveling to Minnesota where he stayed with a friend’s family as the pandemic evolved and unfolded not knowing if he would be able to travel to Germany or be able to return to the U.S. if he did leave.
Once the Minor League Baseball season was canceled and MLB Summer Camp ramped up in preparation for the delayed start of the 2020 MLB season, Solbach searched for a European team he could join to play and build up innings on the mound. He said the Dodgers assured him throughout that he would remain with the organization for the 2021 season, which helped ease his mind during a time filled with uncertainty.
“I really appreciated that,” Solbach said. “It is an honor to be in an organization like (that).”
He ended up going to Italy to play for San Marino in the Italian Baseball League, going 3–0 with a 0.30 ERA.
“It was the greatest experience ever because with COVID nobody knew if we’d have baseball again (that) year,” he said.
Following the Italian season, he returned to Germany to train with his country’s national team in small groups due to COVID restrictions before eventually returning to Arizona.
He began the 2021 season in Extended Spring Training while recovering from an injury he suffered at the end of the Italian season and joined the OKC Dodgers for his first Triple-A action May 24.
He would make 17 appearances, including nine starts, posting 40 strikeouts with OKC. He allowed the fewest homers (three) among OKC pitchers with nine or more starts. He made 14 appearances through mid-August until he was placed on the injured list. He went on to make a September appearance with Tulsa before closing out the season with the OKC Dodgers, which had nine different countries represented on its roster throughout the year.
Solbach elected free agency after the 2021 season and signed a minor league contract with the Detroit Tigers Nov. 24.
Now he is with the organization that helped stoke his love of the sport when he attended that first game as a child. His focus remains set on the Majors and playing with, or against, his friend Kepler. They first met while growing up and playing baseball in Germany.
“The absolute dream would be to play with him on the same team at some point or play against him and face him because we’re good friends,” Solbach said. “We’ve been friends for so long, to have that battle would be so sick.
”Don’t ask me who would win.”
