Mets' Jonah Tong has stories to tell with his complicated name

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — The Mets know him as Jonah Tong, a righthander with a sneaky fastball and wicked curveball, part of the next wave of pitching prospects filtering through the farm system.

The Canadian government — and some autograph-seekers — knows him by another, longer name: Jonah Reid Tin Chee Matthew Tong.

“So my parents are just cruel and they decided to give me the longest name possible,” he said. “No, I’m just kidding.”

Tong, 21, has a sense of humor about, and love for, his full name, which is listed for all to see on his MLB.com and Baseball-Reference pages. He once asked a clubhouse attendant if he could get the whole thing on the back of his jersey — instead of a mere “Tong” — because maybe it would make a full circle. When there is room on the balls fans hand him with such a request, he obliges by signing all 27 characters, “from one end of the baseball and wrapped all the way around,” he said.

With help from an expert on the subject — his mom, Karen Matthew Tong — these are the stories behind his name(s), tales of hardcore sports fandom, family history and culture across continents.

“When he was drafted, the first thing we saw [on social media] was ‘Hope this kid lasts longer than his name,’ ” Karen Matthew Tong said. “We looked at each other and thought . . . that’s interesting. We do too.”

Jonah

When Karen Matthew Tong was a young Toronto native watching American football, she was a Cowboys fan — until the fall of 1979, when she said she took note of a “very good-looking” rookie quarterback named Joe Montana. And so she became an ardent 49ers fan.

Fast-forward a couple of decades. When she and her husband, Alex Tong, were expecting their first child, a girl, Karen knew just the name: Montana.

When their third was on the way, a boy this time, Karen had another idea: Joe.

“It’s not that we couldn’t name him Joseph, but I knew my husband kind of gave me side-eye when I mentioned it,” Karen said with a laugh in a phone interview. “I thought, OK, we won’t name him Joe at all. We won’t. We’ll name him Jonah. Is that OK?

“He was about 3 months old when my sister said, “So how is Jo-Jo doing today?’ And my husband looked at me and said, ‘How did I miss that?’ ”

Karen snuck it through.

“My mom calls me Joe every once in a while,” Jonah said with the tone of a recent former teenager. “I’m like, OK.”

Karen said: “We’re just crazy people.”

Reid

Jonah Tong was born in June 2003 amid the SARS outbreak, which hit not just his hometown but the very hospital where Karen worked.

Extremely pregnant, Karen wound up needing to go into isolation to make sure she didn’t have the virus. Her first day alone was May 24, the anniversary of her grandmother’s death. Her last day alone was June 3, that grandmother’s birthday.

That is why Jonah drew one of his middle names from his maternal great-grandmother, Reid.

“I was really feeling her and thinking about her,” Karen said. “There was a lot of time I was isolated from my family . . . There was a lot of stuff going on there — in my mind, in my emotions, with the pregnant hormones. I thought, you know what, we wanted to involve her. If Jonah had been born in October, Reid would not have been part of the equation.”

Tin Chee

These syllables form one portion of the name, another middle name, for Jonah Tong. It comes from the Chinese custom of allowing the grandparents to choose a name.

Jonah’s paternal grandparents — both born in Enping, China, a city known for its hot springs — chose Tin Chee, which means “Gift from God,” Karen said.

“Being the boy of the first-born son in a Chinese family was very important to my father-in-law,” Karen explained. “He was so excited. They were so thrilled and said, ‘God has provided us this gift, and it is Jonah.’ ”

Jonah’s parents encourage him and his siblings to stay in touch with their Chinese culture, and he fully intends to uphold this tradition.

“My parents will name my kids,” he said, “and I will name their kids.”

Matthew

Karen kept her maiden name as part of her last name upon getting married, then gave it to each of her children. For Jonah, Montana and their middle sister Morgan, it is a middle name — but there is a catch.

“When the kids were born, I joked, ‘Oh, if one of them makes it to the Olympic podium, take that last name out of their back pocket and stick it on the back, please,’ ” Karen said. “It was kind of interesting. I said to [Jonah], ‘When am I going to see Matthew Tong on the back of your jersey, buddy?’ ”

Jonah’s Matthew side is a mix of Irish, German and Scottish, he said.

His other half? All Chinese.

Tong

The first Tongs came to Canada three generations ago, when Jonah’s great-grandfather arrived and helped build the railroad.

These days, the Tongs are entrenched Ontarians, except for their summer trips to Disney World during Jonah’s childhood. After Jonah graduated from high school, he did a postgrad year at Georgia Premier Academy, which afforded him the opportunity to pursue baseball outside the cold of Canada. That, in turn, earned him an invitation to the MLB Draft League, where the Mets took notice.

Jonah decided to turn pro instead of attending Division I North Dakota State. And now people want his autograph.

“I was there when somebody said, ‘Sign your whole name,’ ” Karen said. “I thought to myself: I’m glad I taught him cursive before he left.”

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.