According to NBC News, Longtime minor league pitcher Matt Pobereyko, who had recently become a top hurler in Mexico, died suddenly near Chicago, officials and shocked loved ones said Monday.
He was 31. Pobereyko was in his apartment, in a west Chicago-area suburb when he collapsed Friday and was later discovered by his girlfriend, the pitcher’s brother, Daniel Pobereyko, said Monday.
“He just dropped and that’s all we know,” the grieving brother said. “We don’t know. There’s nothing outstanding on the autopsy. But from what I understand, he would have gotten a clean bill of health if he had a pulse.”
The 6-foot-3, 220-pound player was found “unresponsive on his kitchen floor” and “pronounced dead on the scene,” according to a statement by Warrenville Police Chief Sam Bonilla.
“There were no suspicious circumstances to report, and an autopsy conducted the following day did not reveal anything further,” Bonilla added.
A cause of death is “pending further investigation,” a spokesman for the DuPage County Coroner’s Office said. It’ll likely take another 7 1/2 weeks for a formal cause to be determined, the spokesman added.
The pitcher’s death came as a shock to loved ones, Daniel Pobereyko said. Pobereyko’s parents visited him earlier in the week and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
“For what we know now, there’s really no leads,” Daniel Pobereyko said. “They saw him earlier in the week, and he seemed to be perfectly fine.”
Pobereyko played two winter seasons, 2021-22 and 2022-23, for Algodoneros de Guasave and the team placed a wreath on the pitcher’s mound at Kuroda Park in Guasave and wrote the number 56 in chalk. The memorial included a handwritten message: “Thanks for giving so much joy.”
