“It means a lot to people back home,” he added. “I’ve been getting messages all day from my friends and family, people that always supported me back home, people that play baseball. So I’ve had a tremendous crowd that’s been cheering me on and being very happy for me.

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“It means that it doesn’t matter where you come from, no matter where you are or who you are, you can still make it.”

Ngoepe, who was born in South Africa, was raised by a mother who worked for an amateur baseball team in the Johannesburg area and who died in 2013 of pneumonia. He was spotted by a Pirates scout at an MLB academy in Italy, and the organization signed him in 2008.

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Ngoepe’s rise to the majors has been slow, as he has had to make cultural adjustments along with improvements to his game. Widely viewed as the organization’s most talented defensive player, he changed in 2015 from being a switch-hitter to only batting from his natural right side, and he showed a better approach at the plate in the spring.

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“It was a long journey,” Ngoepe said (via MLB.com). “I kept with it. There were a few times I wanted to stop. It’s the people that are behind you that keeps you going every single day. That kind of kept my fight. My ninth year, and I made it to the big leagues.”

“It’s a fabulous organizational win for everybody,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “I would love for him to have $1 for everybody who’s looked at him and said he’ll never make it. … He’s just continued to press on and play and probably many times believed when not a whole lot of other people did.”

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Ngoepe goes by “Gift,” which is what his first name means in his native language, Sotho. Last year, the Pirates signed his younger brother, Victor, and assigned him to their Gulf Coast League squad.