Mark Gilbert

Mark David Gilbert (born August 22, 1956) is an American former outfielder in Major League Baseball who served as the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa from 2015 to 2017.

Gilbert played for the Chicago White Sox in 1985. Subsequently, he had a career as an investment banker.

In 2013, United States President Barack Obama nominated Gilbert to be United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. The U.S. Senate confirmed Gilbert on December 12, 2014.

Early and personal life Gilbert is Jewish and was born to a Jewish family in Atlanta, Georgia. His father Herbert had played professional baseball as an infielder with the Chicago White Sox organization (reaching Triple A), and his grandfather Joseph Gilbert had played semi-pro baseball as a pitcher and was offered a pro baseball contract with the 1919 Philadelphia Athletics.

He is married to Nancy Gilbert. She owns The Masorti Travel Bureau, which developed the itinerary of the first trip of Birthright Israel, an organization that arranges free trips to Israel for first-time visiting Jewish students ages 18 to 25. He was a High School All American in basketball and all-state in baseball.

Gilbert earned a bachelor's degree in finance from Florida State University. In his senior year at Florida State, he batted .322 for the Seminoles baseball team, with 48 stolen bases. He also played basketball for the Florida State Seminoles basketball team for one season.

Professional baseball career Gilbert was picked by the Chicago Cubs in the 14th round of the 1978 Major League Baseball draft and signed with the Cubs that summer. In his debut professional year, in 1978, he batted .338 (5th in the Class A- New York-Pennsylvania League), led the league with 83 runs scored, and stole 35 bases (2nd in the league) for the Geneva Cubs, while playing 65 games as a switch-hitting center fielder.

On October 12, 1979, Gilbert was traded by the Chicago Cubs to the Cincinnati Reds, completing a trade in which the Reds had traded Doug Capilla to the Cubs in exchange for a player to be named later on May 3, 1979.

Gilbert told the Chicago Tribune'''s Jerome Holtzman that during his career he endured through seven and a half years of playing in baseball's minor leagues because of his ambition to be listed in the Baseball Encyclopedia. In 1992, Gilbert reflected on his baseball career to Holtzman, saying, "I think everybody thought I would flip out after I was told I couldn't play anymore. I didn't. I had played 22 straight years of organized baseball, since I was 7. I had had enough. I would have continued playing if I hadn't hurt my knee. But I was looking forward to doing something else." In 2012, The New York Times'' reported that Gilbert had raised $1.23 million for Obama in 2011 and 2012 and a total of $3.36 million since 2007.

Ambassadorship On October 30, 2013, Obama nominated Gilbert to be United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. The United States Senate confirmed Gilbert in a voice vote on December 12, 2014.

The United States State Department has no record of any other former major league baseball player serving as an ambassador.