America’s favorite pastime found an enthusiastic audience in Israel last Sunday. The Israel Baseball League’s opening day was a success, with an estimated 3,112 fans showing up to watch the Modi’in Miracle (managed by former New York Mets player Art Shamsky) take on the Petach Tikva Pioneers at Yarkon Sports Complex in Petach Tikva. Modi’in Miracle hitters were on the offensive, and the team claimed a 9-1 victory over the Pioneers.
But despite the full stands, Ha’aretz and other publications have reported skepticism about the IBL’s long-term popularity. In a country where fast-moving spectacles like soccer and basketball dominate the sports pages, baseball might seem tedious and boring.
The IBL is the country’s first-ever professional baseball league, and the 120 players come from around the globe; only 20 are from Israel. Each of the league’s six teams will play 45 regular games. There is an All-Star game midseason and a final championship game at the end of the season.
In other baseball news, Mets right fielder Shawn Green officially announced his pledge, to UJA-Federation of New York, of $180 for each run batted in. This is good news for UJA. With a respectable .290 batting average and 27 RBIs this week, it’s fairly certain that the slugger will bring home many more runs this season.
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Apropos Brian Freeman's JPost piece about the IBL: it appears the IBL is targeted less at Israelis than Anglophone Jews [Americans]. On the league website, the team names are all Hebraicized English; most only alliterate in English. The best case is Raanana, which already spells "ekspres" in Hebrew and can easily change to "rakevet." Altho' Bet Shemesh has a nice bet shin logo, what's to be done with Blue Sox?
If the Forward has aspirations of being a National Jewish Newspaper rather than just a New York Jewish Newspaper, the article should have noted that Kenny Holtzman, famed Chicago Cub lhp === OK, in later years he won a few games for the Yankees --- manages the Petach Tikvah Pioneers (also with hebrew letters on the uniform). My son, who attended with my granddaughter, reports that it was a beautiful day, it was real baseball although not quite the same as Wrigley Field, and proved the old baseball truism that you can't win if you have a pitcher who issues a lot of walks, particularly to the leadoff men. Perhaps the biggest negative was that there was no beer available, apparently because alcohol cannot be served in the Baptist Village in which Yarkon Park is situated. Oh Yes: the game (and all the scheduled games) was played in the daytime as G-d intended baseball to be played.