PETAH TIKVA, Israel — On the mound, Dean Kremer looks just like any other top-rated baseball prospect, whipping 90 mph fastballs and snapping nasty curves.
When the 19-year-old pitcher greets his teammates in the dugout after striking out the side, however, he sounds different. Kremer is speaking Hebrew, not English.
The 6-foot-2 Kremer is the golden boy of Israeli baseball, the first citizen to be selected in the major league draft and the country's greatest hope of lifting the sport from its decades-long second-class status.
Though he was born and raised in Stockton, California, and is also an American citizen, the son of Israeli parents identifies strongly as Israeli himself, spends his summers in the Jewish State and is fluent in Hebrew.