Jews in Sports: Holy Land Baseball

After many years of conflict with its neighbors, and the disparaging discontent it has garnered within the international community, Israel is about to set out for another battle, of sorts, in the forthcoming months.

This fight won’t be waged in a courtroom. It won’t be settled at the UN General Assembly either. This undertaken task will culminate on the baseball diamond.

Say what you want about Israel as a country, one thing you cannot ignore is that its National Baseball Team is a short time away from the biggest tournament it has ever participated in: The qualifying round for the World Baseball Classic, in Jupiter, Florida, the exact dates still to be determined.

Israel has come a long way to this point in its hardball history. There was the one-year wonder Israel Baseball League, which closed shop after its inaugural 2007 season.

Though the sport is not new for the Holy Land – the first baseball game was played here under the British Mandate in 1927 – it certainly hasn’t taken on in the same manner as soccer and other international sports.

“The World Baseball Classic exposure won’t change the mentality here for baseball overnight,” explained Team Israel manager, and former MLB All-Star, Brad Ausmus. “It’s a chipping-away process.”

The idea that Israel has been able to draw local interest at all in this ‘niche sport,’ is nothing to throw to the wayside.

“The reaction here has been nothing short of phenomenal,” Israel Association of Baseball president, Haim Katz, wrote in an e-mail. “Both the Hebrew and English press are regularly reporting on Team Israel and giving us prime time coverage.

“Brad recently came for a short visit and met with Shimon Peres and the US Ambassador, Dan Shapiro. That Mr. Peres met Israel’s national baseball coach is almost the equivalent of Barack Obama meeting the US national dominos team manager; all this for a team without a roster.”

Ausmus shared a similar sentiment, but offered a different take.

“Ideally, the WBC will help baseball grow in Israel, where the sport is in its infancy,” noted the former catcher.

However, all of the positive energy and vibes I gathered while talking to Ausmus doesn’t come without its difficulties.

“Putting the team together is my biggest challenge,” admitted the Team Israel manager. “I’m choosing players based essentially upon scouting reports and statistics. There’s only a short time for the players I’m putting together to prepare before going into the five-day double-elimination tournament. We’re going to have to learn how to click on all cylinders right out of the gate.”

That will certainly be a tall task for a team of varied personalities from all different backgrounds, who have never played together as a cohesive unit.

However, win or lose, the qualifying tournament bodes well for the exposure of Jewish athletes to youngsters worldwide. Jewish youths will now have the ability to look up to athletes to whom they can relate.

“Jews and baseball are well connected dating back to the days of [Hank] Greenberg and [Sandy] Koufax,” explained Andrew Gershman, author of the forthcoming book Modern Day Maccabees. “Today, players such as Kevin Youkilis, and Ike Davis, among others, are proving that you can combine brains and brawn on the baseball field.”

The tournament invitation itself will likely prove positive to the worldview of Israel; a nation that’s had its fair share of bloodshed since its inception as a modern state. This competition will show the world public that Israel is just another Western democracy.

“Playing baseball for Israel has more to do with promoting Israel as a ‘normal’ country with western values than anything else,” said Gershman. “It’s a nation where sports are a part of life just like everywhere else in the world.”

‘Mum’ is the word when it comes to verbalizing player commitments. And who could be blamed for not wanting to talk. After all, it’s like being caught between a rock and a hard place for a Jewish athlete to decide between representing his birth country or, his country of heritage, Israel.

The reason for such silence varies.

It could be that a current professional player doesn’t want to face ridicule for – possibly – turning down the opportunity to play for Joe Torre, Team USA’s manager, by publicly stating his commitment to the Israeli squad and Ausmus.

“A player will only play for Israel if playing for the US is not an option,” Gershman postulated. “Players such as Ian Kinsler, who has played for the US in the past, are waiting to make their decision based on Team USA.”

Or, the reason could simply be due to the timing of the tournament games.

“The qualifying round was originally scheduled for November,” stated Ausmus. “However, there is talk that the tournament will take place in September, which would preclude major leaguers, as they still have MLB team commitments. As such, I’m going to keep the names to myself at this point in time.”

The two other former Major Leaguers who will participate alongside Ausmus with the Israeli team coaching duties will be former All-Star Shawn Green, and former World Series winner, Gabe Kapler.

Their roles are mostly dugout related, though each have already hit the campaign trail, trying to recruit established American professional ballplayers.

What places a first-year WBC nation like Israel into the unique position of having more than a fighting chance to advance, pardon the pun, is its ability to tap into the wide pool of soundly seasoned baseball players who are eligible to carry an Israeli passport.

According to WBC rules, a player needs only to qualify for citizenship in order to represent the specific nation. Under Israel’s Law of Return – having one Jewish grandparent or being married to someone with at least one Jewish grandparent – Team Israel not only stands a chance to be one of the four teams, out of the 16-team pool, to qualify for the WBC tournament in March, 2013, but Israel may actually give some of the traditionally strong baseball nations a run for their money.

Think Mike Piazza when he wore Italy’s colors; Andrew Jones with The Netherlands. Oh, how the worldwide Jewish population is salivating at the legitimacy of the Israeli National Team’s prospects.

“American born professionals with Jewish heritage, both at major and minor league levels will make up the largest portion of the team,” admitted Ausmus. “Every player – or his agent – at the major league level has either been contacted by Gabe, Shawn, or myself. I will say that nobody we’ve spoken to has expressly said that he ‘won’t play for Team Israel.’”

Ausmus himself has resembled a diplomat of late. Between traveling to Israel, and acting as a foreign ambassador for the sport he loves so much, there isn’t a lot that gets by the Ivy League graduate.

“My visit to Israel was wonderful. Between meeting the Israeli President and taking in a few baseball games, where I had the opportunity to see how much love there is for this game, I’m optimistic that baseball can become a popular sport in Israel.”

The state of the game of baseball has been in flux for many years. Even at the inaugural World Baseball tournament in 2005, there wasn’t a strong initial interest among the game’s elite in the United States. It seemed that for some, team allegiance was more important than representing their country.

Indeed, as time has shown, there seems to have been a similar discovery made in American baseball as there has been in basketball: The US is not the most dominant nation.

The game has spread from traditional powerhouses such as the United States, Japan, Cuba, and Venezuela, towards up-and-coming baseball nations such as Israel, Germany, Canada, and South Africa.

“What has been accomplished by the WBC, as a whole, is it has raised awareness for the game of baseball in countries where baseball is very low on the sporting totem pole,” said Ausmus. “This is only the third Classic, and countries have been added through the qualifying tournament to increase baseball’s world exposure.”

It would seem that baseball’s future goal is having players representing their nation having been born and raised in that country.

For that to become a reality there will have to be a major effort put forth for that vision to be transformed. One of Israel’s flaws in the sporting realm is that there are other, ‘faster’, sports that have captured the populace.

American tackle football, for example, has grown exponentially since the Israeli Football League was formed in 2005. However, unlike the failed baseball league, this exposure to baseball has already begun to show signs of growth.

“The city of Raanana allocated land for a national baseball stadium,” explained Katz. “We hope that this exposure will help garner support to raise the money to fulfill this dream.”

Israelis complain baseball is too slow, but the real impediment for youth baseball’s expansion in Israel is the lack of youth coaches.

“In the US there are thousands of fathers who are trying vicariously to live their failed baseball efforts through their children, thus the seemingly infinite pool of available coaches,” chimed Katz.

“There are community centers all over Israel who want to start a baseball program, but not many coaches to go around. Our hope is through the increased exposure of the WBC a larger interest for baseball coaches will be conceived.

“The growth of the Israel Football League didn’t happen by accident. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft built a nice facility in Jerusalem, which attracted many players, and from there the league was born. We’re looking for that person who will come to bat for Israeli baseball and build a facility for baseball as Mr. Kraft did for football.”

Time will tell for that dream to be actualized. But for the not-so-distant future, it may not take a miracle of biblical proportions for Team Israel to discover that it will be competing head-to-head against some of baseball’s powerhouse nations.

The desire for baseball’s growth in the Holy Land is akin to a field of dreams. If you build it, they will come.