Jacob Steinmetz is breaking new ground for Orthodox Jewish athletes.
“Jacob Steinmetz’s blazing fastball helped make him a baseball draft trailblazer,” reported the Associated Press on Tuesday.
The 17-year-old New Yorker is the first known practicing Orthodox Jewish player drafted by a team in Major League Baseball.
Steinmetz is 6-foot-5, 220-pounds, and hurls “a fastball that sits in the mid- to upper-90s,” boasting a “knee-buckling curveball” as well.