Israel Baseball League

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Israel Baseball League
Current season, competition or edition:
Current sports event 2007 Israel Baseball League season
SportBaseball
Founded2007
No. of teams6
Country Israel
Most recent
champion(s)		N/A
Official websiteIsraelBaseballLeague.com

The Israel Baseball League (IBL) is a new professional baseball league in Israel. The first game was played on June 24, 2007.

Players

The original logo of the Israel Baseball League

Players will be Jewish and non-Jewish, Israeli and non-Israeli.

The League held tryouts in Los Angeles, Massachusetts, Miami, Israel, and The Dominican Republic. [1]

Those already selected are current and former U.S. minor leaguers, professional baseball players from other countries, and starting college players. It is expected that the quality of play will be that of Class A ball in the U.S.

Draft

The IBL drafted players from nine nations and signed players from eight countries, including the Dominican Republic, Australia, Venezuela, and the United States. About a dozen of the 120 players will be Israeli[1]. The league hopes to be made up of at least 25% Israelis by its fifth year. A majority of the players are Jewish.[2]

The first pick in the draft was infielder Aaron Levin, 21, from San Luis Obispo, California, who played for Cuesta College. He was selected by Modi'in.

Another example of a player for the IBL is former Midwood High School and Binghamton University baseball player Dan Rootenberg, a 4-year standout and 1994 graduate of Binghamton. He was the first player signed by the IBL. A prolific left-handed hitting outfielder, Rootenberg played at Binghamton from 1990-94. During his senior season, he led the team in nearly every major offensive category, including a .407 batting average, garnering both All-SUNYAC and All-State honors. Rootenberg has played professionally for the Chillicothe Paints of the independent Frontier League (whom he signed with in 1994), and coached and played in Europe in the Swiss professional league.[3][4][5][6] He played for four years as an outfielder and first baseman for the Pleasantville Red Sox, and in 2006 he batted .351 for the Fordham Red Sox of the Westchester Rockland Wood Bat League.[2][7]

Another projected standout in the league is right-handed pitcher Leon Feingold. Also among the group of four players first signed, Feingold pitched in the Cleveland Indians system from 1994-95, and was signed by the independent Atlantic League in 1999. A graduate of State University of New York at Albany, Feingold has also pitched with the Pleasantville Red Sox as a teammate of Rootenberg's, and in 2006 recorded an ERA of 1.03 in limited action.

Finally, 41 years after he retired from baseball, Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax was the last player chosen in the draft. Koufax, 71, was picked by the Modi'in Miracle. "His selection is a tribute to the esteem with which he is held by everyone associated with this league," said Art Shamsky, who will manage the Miracle. "It's been 41 years between starts for him. If he's rested and ready to take the mound again, we want him on our team." He'll be working on 14,875 days rest, as has been pointed out.[8] Koufax wouldn't pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series for Los Angeles, so that he could observe the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. In his career with the Dodgers he threw four no-hitters, including one perfect game.[9]

Teams

Originally, the six teams slated for the inaugural season were: the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox, Jerusalem Lions, Haifa Stingrays, Netanya Tigers, Petach Tikva Pioneers, and Tel Aviv Lightning.[3] The Jerusalem and Haifa teams were replaced in 2007 by the Modi'in Miracle and Ra'anana Express.

The teams will play games at three ball parks. The Yarkon Sports Complex, seating 15,000, in the Baptist Village in Petach Tikva, just outside of Tel Aviv, will be home to the Ra’anana Express and the Petach Tikva Pioneers. Gezer Field, about 25 minutes from Jerusalem, approximately halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, sits on Kibbutz Gezer, in one of Israel’s wine districts. It will be home to the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox and the Modi’in Miracle. And Sportek Baseball Field, in the southern end of Tel Aviv’s largest outdoor public park, a 10-minute walk from seaside Tel Aviv hotels, will be shared by the Tel Aviv Lightning and the Netanya Tigers. [10][11][12]

Template:Israel Baseball League

Managers

Among the first managers of the IBL will be three of the best-known Jewish former major leaguers: Ken Holtzman will manage Petach Tikva, a sister city of Chicago (his 174 career victories are the most in the major leagues by a Jewish pitcher), Art Shamsky will manage Modi’in (he hit .300 for the '69 World Champion New York Mets), and Ron Blomberg will manage Bet Shemesh (he is a former New York Yankee, and the first DH in the major leagues). In addition, Steve Hertz will manage Tel Aviv, Australian Shaun Smith will manage Ra'anana, and Ami Baran, an Israeli originally from Chicago, will manage Netanya.

Management

The League is the brainchild of Larry Baras, a businessman from Boston.

The Commissioner is Dan Kurtzer, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Egypt. Martin Berger is President and Chief Operating Officer; a Miami trial attorney, Berger has been involved with selecting the inaugural season players along with Duquette. The league's Director of Baseball Operations is Dan Duquette, former General Manager of the Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos. Bob Ruxin is Director of Business Operations; Ruxin has served as vice president of a sports products and management business. Leon Klarfeld is Director of Israeli Operations; he is a resident of Even-Yehuda and has been involved in Israeli Baseball for over 20 years, was the president of the Israel Association of Baseball (IAB) between 1994 and 2002, and is a certified umpire for the Confederation of European Baseball. Jeremy Baras is the Director of Game (fan) Experience.

The league's Board of Advisors includes, among others: Professor Andrew Zimbalist (baseball economist), Bud Selig (Major League Baseball Commissioner), Wendy Selig-Prieb (former Milwaukee Brewers owner), Marvin Goldklang (minority owner of the New York Yankees, and principal owner of four minor league teams), Randy Levine (President of the Yankees), Marshall Glickman (former president of the NBA Portland Trailblazers, and former president of a minor league baseball team), and Marty Appel (former NY Yankees public relations director).

Miscellaneous

  • PBS will air the opening game on a one-week delay (scheduled for July 1, 2007), in Boston, New York, Chicago, Washington DC, Los Angeles, and Miami.
  • Tickets are $10 and $6 at all locations for regular season games.
  • Half the umpires will come from Israel, and the rest will be international umpires. There will be two umpires per game, with three on Sunday nights.
  • Games will be seven innings, with a home run hitting contest (a "home run derby") to decide a tie.
  • Games are expected to take approximately two hours to play.

Baseball in Israel

Baseball was first played in Israel on July 4, 1927. The first field in Israel was built in Kibbutz Gezer in 1979, and Israel now has a first-class baseball field at the Yarkon Sports Complex in Petach Tikva. Israel sends National teams of various age groups to international baseball tournaments each year. Between 2,000 and 3,000 Israelis regularly play baseball in amateur league play. Baseball is growing at an accelerated pace, with much greater baseball identity associated with the country.

World Baseball Classic

Israel has applied to participate in the next World Baseball Classic. Jewish-American established major league baseball players (such as Brad Ausmus, Mike Lieberthal, Kevin Youkilis, Ian Kinsler, Ryan Braun, Shawn Green, David Newhan, Jason Marquis, Jason Hirsh, John Grabow, Scott Schoeneweis, Mike Koplove, and Scott Feldman would be eligible for the team, making it highly competitive from the start. Also eligible would be recently retired Gabe Kapler as well as players such as Adam Greenberg, Craig Breslow, Adam Stern, Brian Horwitz, Sam Fuld, Justin Wayne, Tony Cogan, Frank Charles, and Matt Ford, and retired players Andrew Lorraine and Brian Rose.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Berkman, Jacob. "Israel Baseball League starts in June". Jewish Telegraph Agency. Retrieved 2007-04-30.
  2. ^ "Baseball Report" (PDF). The WRWBL Intelligencer. Retrieved 2007-05-02.
  3. ^ Edelstein, Nathaniel (2006-12-26). "Israel Baseball League locks in three ballfields for six teams" (HTML). Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2007-04-29.

External links


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