For Josh Zeid, a pitcher for Israel\u2019s World Baseball Classic team (shown here when he played for the Houston Astros), \u201cthere\u2019s a little bit of excitement to get back and try to win it this time.\u201d (Hillel Kuttler)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In fact, the only Jewish club likely to match up would be one consisting of current major leaguers. But with Major League Baseball\u2019s regular season not concluding until Oct. 2, they are otherwise occupied and unable to participate in this round of the WBC.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Team Israel will be playing in a New York City borough with plenty of Jews who might take in the Sept. 22 opener vs. Great Britain and other games at the oceanfront MCU Park on iconic Coney Island.<\/p>\n
Day school and yeshiva groups, synagogue members and individual metropolitan-area Jews can be expected to help fill the 7,000 seats and snag the 2,500 standing-room tickets in the stadium that the New York Mets\u2019 A affiliate, the Brooklyn Cyclones, call home.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s just what Connecticut native Josh Zeid anticipates. In 2012, Zeid played for the Israel squad that fell to Spain in extra innings of the deciding game in Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeedless to say, there\u2019s a little bit of excitement to get back and try to win it this time,\u201d said Zeid, who pitched for the Houston Astros in 2013 and 2014 and now plays for the Mets\u2019 AA club in Binghamton, New York. \u201cThe community in Brooklyn, and New York as a whole, we\u2019re hoping will bring a home-field advantage for us … and play to our benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n
In polyglot New York, Britain and the two other teams in the bracket, Brazil and Pakistan, should draw plenty of their partisans, too.<\/p>\n
Officials with the Israel Association of Baseball, the nonprofit organization sponsoring the WBC entry, believe that the expected $360,000 in the winner\u2019s prize money and the prestige of advancing to the next round would boost baseball\u2019s profile back home. Nearly 800 players in five age groups, including adults, compete in IAB leagues.<\/p>\n
The association\u2019s outgoing executive director, Nate Fish, said the funds could be invested in coaching- and player-development programs and to build more fields.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we get out of the qualifiers, there\u2019ll be way more of a buzz and press [coverage] in Israel, which will bring more attention to baseball, and there\u2019s a better chance that kids will go and sign up with their local clubs,\u201d said Fish, who will coach first base in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Like for Israel\u2019s WBC debut in 2012, this edition is overwhelmingly Jewish American. Only the oldest and youngest players \u2013 pitchers Shlomo Lipetz, 37, who grew up in Israel and lives in New York, and Dean Kremer, 20, a California native born to Israeli expatriates \u2013 have strong ties to Israel.<\/p>\n
Kremer, in fact, is the first player with deep roots in Israel to be drafted by a major league team \u2013 he pitches in the Los Angeles Dodgers\u2019 farm system and has competed for Israel\u2019s national team for several years.<\/p>\n
The bullpen catcher, Tal Erel, is the sole person in uniform to come up through the Israeli baseball system.<\/p>\n
Fans in Israel are paying attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe I speak for most Jews \u2013 we idolize American Jewish baseball players,\u201d said Lenny Solomon, a musician raised in Queens, New York, who has lived in Beit Shemesh the past 20 years. \u201cThe fact that Israel has a team is a tremendous accomplishment, and I look forward to one day the team being all Israelis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team Israel manager Jerry Weinstein is looking in that direction, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of people who don\u2019t know what baseball is in Israel,\u201d said Weinstein, a coach in the Colorado Rockies system. \u201cParticularly if we win the qualifier, it can help move baseball forward [and be] a tremendous stimulus. That\u2019s one of the purposes of the WBC: to generate more participation globally.\u201d<\/p>\n
MLB and other baseball federations worldwide launched the WBC in 2006. Japan (twice) and the Dominican Republic won the first three tournaments. The Brooklyn winner would advance to the second round, in South Korea in February.<\/p>\n
While hardly a hardball hotbed, Israel has made huge strides over the past decade.<\/p>\n
The six-team Israel Baseball League arrived (and folded) in 2007, there was the WBC appearance four years ago and a European League championship in 2014 — the same year that Major League Baseball officially recognized a baseball academy established in Israel. Earlier this summer, Tel Aviv hosted a European League championship series.<\/p>\n
Israel is \u201creally starting to make their mark on the international scene,\u201d said Jason Holowaty, the London-based director of MLB\u2019s Europe, Middle East and Africa operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very, very proactive, creative federation that\u2019s developing at the grass-roots level,” he said. “We\u2019re starting to see real growth for them in terms of participation numbers and the quality of player they\u2019re producing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holowaty cited Noam Calisar, a teenage shortstop from Binyamina, as Exhibit A. Major League Baseball invited Calisar to elite camps in Europe the past two years and he played in an MLB-sponsored tournament of top regional prospects.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see a player like that, homegrown, come up through their development system is very promising,\u201d he added. \u201cHopefully it can inspire a new generation of athletes like Noam to go out and give baseball a try.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taken together, Holowaty said, \u201cthese are all indicators of a sport that\u2019s healthy and growing.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"josh](\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/josh-zeid.jpg\")