Adopted home town?

From the Newcastle News in Newcastle, Washington:

When players report to spring training later this month, which one of the top Seattle Mariners’ pitching prospects hails from Newcastle?

Stumped?

Ryan Rowland-Smith was Seattle’s most effective starter in the second half of the 2008 season, finishing with a 3.39 ERA and a 4-3 record from his 11 starts.

Rowland-Smith, originally from Newcastle, Australia, is the first player with a hyphenated last name ever to appear in a Major League game. The 26-year-old had an auspicious debut. The left-hander made his major league debut for the Mariners on June 22, 2007, against the Cincinnati Reds at Safeco Field. He struck out the first batter he faced, Ken Griffey Jr., and pitched one and one-third scoreless innings.

And although he isn’t from this Newcastle, Rowland-Smith is no stranger to the city nestled between Renton and Bellevue. His girlfriend’s sister lives in Factoria and Rowland-Smith has been to The Golf Club at Newcastle for a fundraising benefit for cystic fibrosis.

“I had never been to Bellevue until two years ago, when I met my girlfriend,” he said. “I was driving up the 405 freeway, because I was staying down in Tacoma, and I saw a sign saying Newcastle, and I just had to call my mum to tell her there’s a suburb here called Newcastle.”

I do the same thing -- well, I don't call Rowland-Smith's mum so it's not exactly the same thing -- when I go by towns with the same name as my hometown. Oddly, that happened the last time I was in Australia. Or, was it Ireland. I'm either really mixed up or lying.

Rowland-Smith was a Timber Rattler in 2002 and 2003. Here is how he got interested in baseball:

Baseball is not as popular as cricket, rugby and surfing in Australia. Rowland-Smith saw a U.S. baseball game on late night TV in Australia and he was hooked. He also studied videotapes of the 1993 World Series and was impressed by the play of John Olerud, who he would later meet in spring training.

“I thought the game was fascinating,” he said. “My dad was upset I didn’t take up rugby.”

When he was a child, Rowland-Smith was teased about being “too soft” for playing baseball. But at 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds now, no one is teasing him about being soft.

Go read the whole thing.