The future of baseball in Poland rests inside of one Aggie’s computer.
The spreadsheet itself is a marathon of over 1,500 names, ranging from the most obscure Division III athlete to stars of Major League Baseball, all with one thing in common: enough Polish blood to — in theory — represent the nation on an international level.
“Anyone that has Polish heritage that I’ve been able to discover, they’re on that list,” economics graduate student and assistant general manager of the Polish national baseball team Markos Romo ‘26 said. “A lot of my work is trying to get in contact with them personally, or contacting their teams, PR, media offices — someone that can put me in touch with them — and basically show them that Poland does have a national team, and that we’re working on growing something big.”
Poland on the rise
According to Polish baseball lore, the first baseball glove in Poland was purchased from Czechoslovakia in the early 1970s in exchange for a bottle of vodka.
Of course, the game has come a long way since then. Gone are the days when equipment was largely imported from Cuba, when Poland was behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.
In recent years, the nation has become competitive on the European level, and this summer, with Markos and his brother Tomas both playing, Poland finished as runner-up in the European Baseball Championship B Pool qualifier — a tournament played on Polish soil — after losing the final to Slovakia in extra innings.
“This year, for the first time ever, there was a buzz around the Polish team, where there was almost an expectation that they were going to be great at the B-Pool level,” Gabriel Fidler, Mister-Baseball.com’s managing editor, said. “ … There was an expectation that Poland ought to be one of the best teams in those pools. That’s never happened before, and there’s never really been a time when even those of us who are more aware of things on the ground would have considered Poland a big favorite.”
Fidler, who grew up a baseball fan in England, has covered European and African baseball for just shy of 20 years. He had a front-row seat to Poland’s development, he said, through a stint as coach of Hungary’s U18 national team, where he faced off against the neighboring Poles.
“There’s just a lot of interesting talent coming out of Poland,” Fidler said. “They have a very strong league system that seems to reward young players, and those young players are now looking at college scholarships in the [United States]. And a few have gotten signed, and a few have played abroad in higher-caliber leagues than the Polish league.”
Tomas Romo (9) celebrates with members of the Polish national baseball team.
Fidler said a large part of that growth has come from a — comparatively — strong Little League program and other domestic development initiatives.
But Poland has another secret weapon in Markos. Fidler said that Markos’ role with the federation could set a precedent across Europe for similar nations looking to grow their baseball infrastructure and national team recruitment.
“I think that Poland has actually done something really interesting with giving Markos the reins as much as they have,” Fidler said. “The way to move your young developing core who are U15, U18, to the next level is partly through great coaching. … But it’s also having someone on the ground in the U.S. who is a similar age to the younger group of players, but is connected to the American and maybe the global scene in a way that in this case, Polish players could never possibly be.”
Brothers in baseball
Like so many kids growing up in the Houston area, baseball was a massive part of both Markos’ and Tomas’ lives, they said.
Both could have had opportunities to play at a collegiate level, but they opted to attend Texas A&M for academic reasons and continue their playing careers with A&M’s club baseball program instead.
It was Tomas who first had the idea to play the sport abroad when he graduated with All-American honors from the National Club Baseball Association, he said. Poland was a natural choice given the family’s Polish heritage. The brothers are half Polish by way of their grandparents, who emigrated from the country.
“The World Baseball Classic was going on, and I was seeing these guys play for Nicaragua or smaller countries’ teams throwing like 85, 86 miles an hour,” Tomas Romo ‘23 said. “I’m like, ‘Man, I see this, and I can throw this fast. There’s got to be a team that Poland is putting together.’”
That initial spark led to a meeting with John Dobkowski, president of the Polish American Baseball & Softball Foundation and a leader within the nation’s official baseball federation, who advised Tomas on how to acquire the Polish citizenship needed to represent the nation on an international level.
As Tomas arrived in Poland in 2024 and began his playing journey, Markos began getting involved with the federation on a behind-the-scenes level. That included working with the program’s leadership to recruit players, secure sponsorships, handle the teams’ social media presence and a plethora of other duties as assigned.
Brothers Markos Romo (11) and Tomas Romo (9) greet each other on the field while playing for the Polish national baseball team in July 2026 in Wroclaw, Poland.
“Really, just sending out a lot of messages, a lot of phone calls,” Markos said. “ … Not a lot of people know that Poland has a baseball team. If you’re really into the sport, you might, but the majority of Polish-Americans, they didn’t know, right? And so our job is to go out there and be an ambassador for the team, the program, collect donations [and] find ways to connect with people in the Polish community that would be interested in helping grow our program, which is really fun.”
Fortunately for Markos — who plans to pursue a business career, he said — the brothers’ journey to the Polish national team coincided with the arrival of Paul Bragiel.
A venture capitalist of Polish descent himself, Bragiel has been involved in sports ventures varying from an attempt to qualify for the Olympic Games as a cross-country skier to a long-term investment in Poland’s baseball program, including time as a bench coach.
“I’ve been working for him the last three years, baseball and other non-baseball related things,” Markos said. “ … He’s a Silicon Valley guy from Chicago, and he’s just always been passionate about Polish sports and Polish baseball being one of them.”
Markos said that Bragiel has given him opportunities to be involved in both his venture capital exploits and further his role with the Polish federation.
He also said that Bragiel played a role in one of Poland’s biggest off-the-field accomplishments yet by helping facilitate the hiring of former Seattle Mariners manager — and international baseball journeyman — John McLaren to lead the program.
McLaren, who described himself as an “international-guru type” to MLB.com’s Michael Clair this summer before Poland’s latest tournament, has coached baseball in 30 countries over a 50-year coaching career.
Poland starts its bid to get to the top level of Euro baseball today and looks to baseball lifer John McLaren to lead them. After 50 yrs and 30 countries, McLaren knows this is his last stop.
“This is giving back to the game that’s given me everything.” https://t.co/EmQf39vbHX
— Michael Clair (@michaelsclair) July 27, 2026
For Markos, the opportunity to work with — and play for, after a tryout that Tomas said impressed the federation that “had no expectations for him” as a pitcher — McLaren has been invaluable.
“He’s a baseball lifer, a true brainiac of the game,” Markos said. “Having someone like that in our corner is great for our fans in the program and everyone watching from outside. They see that we have high-level coaching. … He’s coached at the highest levels, and he’s willing to come out here and spend time with our team and make us better.”
That’s helped Poland’s players stay motivated throughout the year, Markos said.
“When the players realize that and recognize that, I think it turns them to another level,” Markos said. “They want to go out there. They want to be the best in the offseason. They know John McLaren is going to be coming back. So what are they doing? You know, they’re working their butts off, 9-10 months out of the year playing baseball.”
Other European nations that have made their mark on the international stage — Italy’s run to this year’s World Baseball Classic semifinals and Czechia’s history of home-grown development come to mind — have helped provide a template for Poland’s success.
In the Italians’ case, the federation recruited plenty of American players of Italian heritage, such as Kansas City Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino. And the Czechs have provided their Polish neighbors with a textbook model of how to grow the sport on a domestic level, Markos said.
But like so many other nations that are in the process of growing the game, the Poles are in need of resources and consistent coaching on a national scale.
“There are good baseball players everywhere — and I mean everywhere,” Markos said. “And these guys, they’re not taught the same way that I was taught baseball. … You look at their fields, and they don’t really have a field. They don’t have the bleachers. They don’t have an official batting cage. They don’t have some of the resources, but you go out there and you watch them play and you’re like, ‘Man, I wonder what their level of play could be like if they were given the same access to resources.’”
Family and roots
But as much as Markos and Tomas — and their sister, who competes for Poland’s youth softball team — care about the future of the sport in Poland, their enjoyment has come from off of the field just as much as on it.
Sure, both brothers had to acquire their Polish citizenship in order to represent the nation. But as other members of the family also got their citizenship, it became a way to reconnect with their family roots.
Markos Romo throws a pitch while playing for the Polish national baseball team in July 2026 in Wroclaw, Poland.
Especially those of their grandmother, who Tomas said referred to emigrating from Poland as “one of the hardest things she ever did.”
“She was able to watch us wear a Polish baseball uniform [in Poland], which made her emotional,” Markos said. “Which I completely understand. It’s been one of those things that we’ve slowly grown to appreciate. We were always in touch with our Polish roots, but now more than ever.”
For Tomas, the baseball odyssey the family has found itself on has given him a new family of native Polish ballplayers as well, particularly catcher Dominik Grzecicha and pitcher Kuba Szymura.
“They might live on the other side of the world, but one day when I get married, they’re going to come to my wedding and I’m going to go to theirs,” Tomas said. “And I think that’s the coolest thing that playing baseball in Poland has brought me is just the type of people, the guys, the relationships.”
Just as Tomas has formed a brotherhood with his teammates, playing for Poland has brought him so much closer to his own brother, he said. For the first time since their high school days, they got to share a playing field this summer while playing for the national team.
But even as they wear the same jersey, Tomas says he’s most proud of his brother’s sheer tenacity in helping turn Poland into a baseball power, both on and off the field.
“Everyone that’s been a part of that journey with him — friends, family, you name it — he’s doing all of this for everybody,” Tomas said. “It’s not for him. He’s doing this for the big picture of everyone in Poland, our family, everyone who’s given him the opportunity, who believed in him and even who has doubted him, and he’s doing it for that reason. I know in his heart, he cares so much.”