Top Jewish former baseball players join Israel’s bid for World Baseball Classic - ESPN
Three Jewish former major leaguers have joined Israel’s bid for the 2013 World Baseball Classic, a move that could transform the baseball backwater into a legitimate contender.
Shawn Green, Brad Ausmus and Gabe Kapler met this week in Los Angeles with Israeli baseball officials and committed to helping Israel field a competitive team in next year’s WBC qualifying round, the three players told The Associated Press.
Actually, it may not be such a stretch for Israel to field a decent team, in about 40 years.
There’s a beach game played in Israel. Little black ball, like a handball, and you hit it with a paddle, back and forth with a partner. I was watching this for a while, because guys would hit it quite hard, and returning it took quite a bit of skill.
It finally occurred to me that this was the Israeli version of playing catch. So the athleticism is there. The problem is having the proper throwing mechanics become second nature, as in, the first time a kid picks up a glove, the mechanics are there, no instruction required. I grew up in a serious baseball town, this is how it goes. It’s in the air we breathed. Along with choking heat and humidity that we somehow ignored.