Alexander Soria Cremidan (born January 15, 1981) is a former professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

. Cremidan played in the Arizona Diamondbacks

minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...

system from 2003 to 2005. He participated in the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

as a member of

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

's baseball team.

Baseball career

While playing

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional pl ...

at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

in 2002, Cremidan, the grandson of four

natives, joined the

Greece national baseball team The Greece national baseball team represents Greece in international baseball play. The team are a member of the World Baseball Softball Confederation and WBSC Europe. 2004 Olympics The first time that Greece put together a national team that g ...

. He pitched a

no-hitter In baseball, a no-hitter is a game in which a team was not able to record a hit. Major League Baseball (MLB) officially defines a no-hitter as a completed game in which a team that batted in at least nine innings recorded no hits. A pitcher wh ...

over

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

in the European pool B championship as the team prepared for the

as the host country. During his junior year, he finished with a 7-2

win-loss record In sports, a winning percentage is the fraction of games or matches a team or individual has won. The statistic is commonly used in standings or rankings to compare teams or individuals. It is defined as wins divided by the total number of match ...

and was named to the All- California Collegiate Athletic Association second team. He struggled with injuries in his senior season, posting a 6.21

earned run average In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the average of earned runs allowed by a pitcher per nine innings pitched (i.e. the traditional length of a game). It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number ...

in 11 games. In June 2003, he was drafted in the 35th round of the Major League Baseball Draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks. During his first

season in 2003, he pitched in 24 games in

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

for the Missoula Osprey of the Pioneer League, ending the year with 15 saves and a 1.40 ERA. Cremidan was pitching with the

Midwest League The Midwest League is a Minor League Baseball league established in 1947 and based in the Midwestern United States. A Class A league for most of its history, the league was promoted to High-A as part of Major League Baseball's 2021 reorganizat ...

South Bend Silver Hawks South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz' ...

in 2004 before rejoining the Greece national team in early August for the Olympics. He pitched in four games during the tournament, as Greece failed to medal, finishing in seventh place. Following the Olympics, Cremidan returned to South Bend for the remainder of the season, ending the year with seven saves and a 3.27 ERA in 32 games. He spent the 2005 season with the Lancaster JetHawks of the

California League The California League is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in California. Having been classified at various levels throughout its existence, it operated at Class A-Advanced from 1990 until its demotion to Single-A following Major Leag ...

, appearing in 44 games in relief in what was his final professional season.

References

External links

* * 1969 births American people of Greek descent Baseball players at the 2004 Summer Olympics Olympic baseball players of Greece Greek baseball players Living people Missoula Osprey players South Bend Silver Hawks players Lancaster JetHawks players Baseball players from San Diego {{US-baseball-pitcher-1980s-stub