Pro Baseball in Israel

 On Sunday night, I took the boys to see the first-ever professional baseball game in Israel.  The “league” has six teams and three fields and they’ll play 45 games each in the next couple of months.  The atmosphere was decidedly American – even the announcer was calling it in English.  Most Israelis don’t understand baseball and they don’t care for its slow pace.  Soccer is the national sport, followed by basketball.  Most of the players are not Israeli (20 of 120 are), and not all are good.  For example, in the third inning, one team got two singles but five runs.  They get $2,000 for the season, which seems to me like a fair pay rate for MLB players in the U.S. as well.

You can read more about the game at Haaretz and Arutz-7.  I’ll just add that our tickets were paid for by the guy with the World Series ring, a close friend had the best seat in the winning team’s dugout and I sat next to an Israeli journalist.  Does it sound like I am connected or what?

 

Guess where we were sitting…