Once a year, coaches and scouts from around Europe swarm like locust and gather at Major League Baseball’s Elite Camp for the top young prospects on the continent. This year, camp was in Hoofddorp, Holland, at the new Hoofddorp Pioneers complex. Dutifully, I, King of All Jewish Baseball, made an appearance. That’s right, Ladies and Geetles, it’s true, I went to Amsterdam for camp, and to allow the Dutch people to see me in person, from my balcony, of course.
I fly home to Israel tonight and do not have much time to write, so I will let the magical new artform known as photography tell the story for me. So sit back, relax, and be transported through the lens of my iphone into to a slightly over-crowded fantasy land called Amsterdam, where the streets are liquid, the fairies fly, and the bicycles never stop.
Coach Finley going over the finer points of base running and post WWII European economics.
It’s Dave Bush! Used to play aginst him in college when he was at Wake Forrest. Sad story. I went on to become the King of Jewish Baseball and he just dissapeared into oblivion, pitching 10 years in the Major Leagues for the Blue Jays and Brewers. Pathetic!
My Cincinnati brother (and the 2nd best short stop at camp) Barry Larkin, and the King of Irish Baseball, Steve Finley, talk to the guys before lunch. Practice in the morning. Games in the afternoon. Meetings at night.
This is the life for me.
Get me the hell out of that baseball prison. I require culture, and house boats. Take me to Amsterdam.
What a dump.
Don’t jump little dude! OK. Now you can jump.
Take me to the people. Show me how they live.
Amsterdam, Amsterdam. Man o Man. Amsterdam, Amsterdam. I’m lost in Amsterdam.
We came up short, again. It’s the cycle. Try, fail, try again, fail again, try again. Failure is the rule, success is the exception, in baseball, at least. Pain is the rule, health is the exception. It goes like this…
Prepare. Practice. Play.
Focus. Fixate. Fantasize.
Nothing else matters. Put everything on hold. Do it after the tournament. No calls. No emails. Stay with the guys, the team, the group. Eyes on the prize. No distractions. No pain. Ignore the hip. Nothing hurts. Play hard. Put it on the line. Don’t leave the hotel. Don’t waste energy. Rest. There’s another game tomorrow. Good vibes.
We win the first 3. Beat Belarus big. Barely beat Poland. Beat Austria big. We’re rolling. Eitan hits a walk-off slam against Poland. We can’t lose…
Then, we do lose, it goes wrong, against Lithuania, a team we should beat, every time. The nightmare. 7 errors. Day game after a night game. Try to rally. Get it together. Get the energy up. Can’t do it. These tournaments are not normal. Everyone wants to win. We’re playing for our countries. Every game is game 7. The night before, the Austrian fans were still in the stands going crazy after 3 hours in the rain in the 9th inning with their team losing 10-1, cheering, drinking, singing. It’s intense.
We lose again the next day to Sweden, barely. Dean starts the game. Deano. Best pitcher there. I like our chances. It’s a good game. Back and Forth. We’re winning 5-4 in the top of the 9th. Dean throws 140 pitches. Go to Shlo. Definitely Shlo. Big Shlo. The Magic man. Shlo already has 2 wins in the tournament including a complete game 2 days earlier against Austria. But Sweden scores 5 runs in the 9th, 9-5, them. Shit.
We can still do it. One guy at a time.
We score 3 runs to make it 8-9. Single, single, single, passed ball, single, passed ball, single. They’re nervous. Simon is on 1st, the tying run. I am up, the winning run. 2 outs. I can hit one out to win it, hit one in the gap to score Simon from 1st, or at least get on base and keep the rally alive. It’s perfect. I am the one, the King of Jewish Baseball, the captain, couldn’t script it better. I want to be up there, and I think the guys want me to be up there too. I feel good, already have 2 hits in the game. Ball 1. Ball 2. Take a strike. Strike 1. 2 and 1, perfect, fastball count, my pitch, see it, hit it. Ground ball to short, shit, in the hole, at least, maybe it will get through. But he makes the play. That’s it. It’s over.
The guys. Damn.
Let go. Let the pain set in. Be tired. See how bad the hip is. It’s bad. Don’t fight it anymore. Get a drink. Stay up all night. Get sick. Fly home. Go back to work. Life. Reality. Tell everyone you lost, 3rd place out of 6. They tell you it’s OK with a hint of pity. It is not. Think about the games. Write a blog post. The 2-1 fastball. How did that happen? How did I not hit it out of the park, or in a gap somewhere, at least? Was Sweden the better team?
If we played badly, it would be easier to understand. But we didn’t. We were good. We averaged 8 runs a game. Our pitchers did a good job. The top 5 hitters in our line-up all hit over .400 with on base percentages over .600. Our 3, 4 hitters had 20 RBIs in 5 games. Our pitchers had the lowest ERA in the tournament. Austria and Sweden were good, but we were just as good, maybe better.
Usually writing about it makes it feel better. Not this time. The hip hurts. Maybe we just need time. Next European Championship is in 2 years. I’ll be 37. Damn. The cycle. The disappointment. The hope. We did good. People know us now. They know we’re good. We were close. We can do it. The young guys can do it. It’ll be their turn next time.
Brothers. The 2015 Israel National Team. I love you guys.
What do Bill Withers, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Gil Scott Heron, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Isaac Hayes, Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, and Marvin Gaye all have in common? Quite a lot, actually.
The Israel National Team, aka the Greatest Jewish Baseball Show on Earth, is coming to a town near you, if you live in Austria, that is. Meet the team…
That’s right, Ladies and Geetles, the planets are aligned, the birds and dogs have taken refuge high on the mountain top in anticipation, it’s finally time for the inter-dimensional natural phenomenon known as the European Championships of Baseball. We leave tonight, traveling by a raft of Diet Coke bottles, lead only by the light of the North Star and our own wits, and a GPS, of course, the hope of victory gleaming in our eyes like the flickering ambers of an ancient fire rising to heaven.
Monday – Belarus
Tuesday – Poland
Wednesday – Austria
Thursday – Lithuania
Friday – Sweden
Saturday, top two teams play for the ‘chip. Winner moves up to the A-Pool.
Greece is melting, so we thought it would be a good time to go there. That’s right, Ladies and Geetles, just last week, the same week, in fact, that the country defaulted on its loans t0 the European Union, the Israel Under 21 National Team won the Acropolis Cup in Athens with a perfect record of 6 and 0. Only 3 teams attended. Team Israel, Team Australia (made up completely of players from Germany), and the Alimos Lions, the local club team and our hosts. We duked it out for SUPREME INTERGALACTIC CONTROL of the Under-21 Baseball Universe as economies collapsed like sundowns in the background, and in the end, Team Israel stood alone.
2015 Israel U21 National Team. Acropolis Cup champs.
Originally, there were supposed to be 8 teams, 2 divisions, sponsors, groupies, mascot races, an event worthy of its own name. Then, 6 weeks before the tournament, the Greek Baseball Federation dissolved and combined with the gymnastics federation. That is not a joke. And only 3 of us were crazy enough to continue on, head first, into the economic and baseball wasteland known as Greece. There were 2 ways to look at the tournament, and maybe at the country, as an amazing failure because it was not as big or as good as we hoped, or as an amazing success because the fact that it even existed was a small miracle.
The games were played at one of the old practice fields from the 2004 Athens Olympics that has not been touched in 11 years, a modern ruin, a recent relic, frozen in time like the Acropolis itself, without the crowd, grass growing over the dugouts and around turtle screens left on the field. There was no running water or electricity at the stadium. There were buckets of water in the clubhouse to rinse the toilets with and Spyros, who you will meet shortly, bought a generator and a wireless microphone so we could have walk-up songs and to announce the starting line-ups before slipping down his mask to umpire the games.
A practice field from the 2004 Olympics.
International baseball is carried on the shoulders of individuals who, for whatever reason, make superhuman efforts to play the game, in Greece, in Moldova, in Israel. With no baseball federation and no support, one man made the tournament happen, our friend Spyros, the announcer and ump, founder and head coach of the Alimos Lions, tournament organizer and janitor who spent his precious euros on bus rides and water bottles for us, despite everything, held a barbeque for the teams at the stadium, traditional Greek food called Souvlaki, traditional Greek dance also called Souvlaki, if I remember correctly, shooting fireworks off in center field, lighting the dark Greek sky for a moment.
Spyros.
But the crisis in Greece hasn’t hit anyone, not the banks, not even Spyros, as hard as it’s hit the non-human community. That’s right, Ladies and Geetles, I, King of Jewish Baseball, sadly report, there seem to be abandoned, depressed, bear-sized dogs all over Athens, and by “seem to be”, I mean that there are definitely without a doubt gigantic dogs laying around the streets of the capitol, panting, people stepping over them, hardly noticing they’re there. So, as is my habit, using the new technology known as a camera, I sprung into action and started photographing these pets turned punks. Apparently, in Greece, when faced with tough times, kick your dog out of the house, first thing, then, once that ungrateful beast is gone, try to figure out how to find gainful employment and rebuild the country. Meet them, the Bear Dogs of Athens.
Hey Buddies. What you doin’ out here?
Hey. What’s going on? Why are there so many dogs around here?
No really, what’s going on? Why are there so many dogs.
OK. This is not cool. What the hell is going on?
Is anyone else seeing this?
Don’t worry about me, Guys. I’m fine.
Help me!
I blame this dog for everything.
The last dog in Greece with the courage to stand on his own four paws. The Spyros of the dog world.
A happy dog. Thank god.
And now, after a strange week in Greece, we’re back in Israel, working summer camp every day, and preparing for the B-Pool European Championships, July 27-August 3 in Vienna, Austria. That’s right, Israel Baseball fans, it’s almost time for the Greatest Jewish Baseball Show on Earth, the Israel Senior National Team, to pack our bags and hit the roads of Europe, again, this time for our biggest, baddest tournament yet, winner moves up to the A-Pool next year. So get your blue and white face paint and your games face on and check #roadtovienna on all social media to follow the team on our journey.
Allow me, King of Jewish Baseball, to dutifully tell the tale of last week and an Ancient and Holy Tradition, the 2nd Annual Israel Baseball Summer Classic, the under 21 National Team versus the Senior National Team, 5 games in 5 days, a very short marathon, the Puppies vs. the Old Dogs, blood sport, war, Great and Sad Theater of Humanity, acted out on the nearly flat surface of a parallel dimension, the baseball field at Baptist Village, Israel.
Old Dogs win the first two games of the series. Enter Sandman. Mariano Rivera is in Israel! We get this picture of him holding his stylish new Israel Baseball sweatshirt and ask him if he wants to throw out the first pitch at the final game of the Classic.
New closer for the Israel National Team.
Of course he does. He is, after all, the Greatest Closer of All Time and we, the IAB, are The Most Powerful Clandestine Jewish Baseball Organization in the World. It only makes sense. He would love to throw out the first pitch and meet the kids who play baseball in Israel.
Mariano is coming. Tell Everyone. Bring him in through gate in left field. Play Enter Sandman when he walks in. Rent a sound system, hire a photographer, security, invite the press.
Meanwhile, the series rages on. The Youngs battle back, using their switchblades, mainly, and easily win the next two games, tying the series, and setting the scene for a 5th and final showdown, a rubber match for all the shekels, and, as assumed, eternal life. In the backgound, Mariano. Will he come? Or won’t he?
No phone calls, no meetings, no confirmation, looking like no Mo. These guys are hard to nail down. I once sat up memorizing Doc Gooden’s career statistics, 1984 Rookie of the Year, 1985 Cy Young Award winner, 1986 World Champion with the New York Mets, 1996 no hitter with the New York Yankees, 2000 World Champion also with the New York Yankees – only to have him no show the next day. It’s not easy accepting the love of so many adoring fans, I know, Dr. K, Mo, the King of Jewish Baseball, it gets tiresome. Exit Sandman. Cancel. Tell everyone, contact the press, he isn’t coming.
But people will do what they want to do, or, at least, in this case, will still do what they had planned on doing, so they came anyways, some of them, at least, from Jerusalem, from Raanana, from Modiin. They came for the food, but stayed for the music, as they say, came for Mariano, but stayed for us, the Greatest Jewish Baseball Show on Earth, give them what they want, the rabid, viscous fans, a close game, stand-up doubles, an autograph, and chocolate, by god, give them chocolate.
Game 5 was tied in the bottom of the 9th inning, 5 to 5, coincidentally, or not, when the black sky opened and owls with the bodies of rabbits filled the horizon, Snake Birds and Horse Men vomited Earth and Sea, and the Old Dogs scored a fatal and final death blow, a 6th run, ending the game and tournament, both teams exhausted. It was a good game, in a weird way, thanks to Mariano Rivera. We will tell people he is coming to every game from now on.
Tomorrow, we have the IAB Annual General Meeting, a thrilling event, no doubt, like the White House Corresponence Dinner, just like it. We will gather around a fire and and join hands and ask the Great Mother for visions of the past and future and drink bottled water as our ancestors did. And then, after the meeting, it’s off to Greece, that’s right, Ladies and Geetles, put on your gold chains, your leather jock strap, and your white batting glove, because the Under-21 National Team is coming to Greece! We are playing in the Baseball World Cup in Athens. Anything could happen. We could win, the economy could collapse, again. I will magically switch from Fish to Coach Fish, from short stop to the 3rd base coaches box, and we will, we know this much, at least, as always, play baseball.
Check #roadtoathens on social media to keep up with our quest for glory and ultimate victory.
It is I, King of All Jewish Baseball, once again, with the financial opportunity of a lifetime. Finally, your chance to do something good, GIVE US YOUR MONEY, to make right all the wrong, to be born anew, fresh and clean. All it takes is a small donation, an offering, if you will, something symbolic, a seared lamb shank, some sage, a few thousand here, a million there, a sacrificial Visa or Master Card number offered at the sacred alter of crowd funding, where self-anointed modern-day saints kneel before friends and family and accept the wealth they assuredly deserve. How can I do this, you ask? Allow me to explain.
Many months ago, my man Tom, aka Dizzy, Gillespie, King of All International Scouting for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Executive Director of Play Global (http://www.play-global.org/), called me and said he had an idea, “Let’s set up a series of fraudulent crowd funding campaigns,” he said, “then disappear forever into Mexico City.” Kidding, kidding. He said, “Fish, I have an idea, let’s start a program in Israel for Jewish and Arab kids to play baseball together. I am, after all, the King of All International Scouting for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Executive Director of Play Global, and you are the King of All Jewish Baseball and the Executive Director of the Israel Association of Baseball. Together, we could surely accomplish this.” To which I said, without thought, “That is a horrible idea, Tom. But let’s do it anyways.” And thus was born BASEBALL LE’KULAM, or, for those of you not fluent in transliteration, BASEBALL FOR ALL.
After much preparation and convincing of parents to loan us their children, on March 5th and 6th of the Great and Nearly Perfect year of 2015, 30 sixth graders, boys and girls, 15 Jewish kids, and 15 Arab kids, who would have never met despite living so close, the Jewish kids from Modiin, the Arab kids from Ramle, just a few miles apart, came together for Baseball Le’Kulam. None of them had ever played baseball before. But we played together. Some of them had never shared a dinner table with a member of the other group. But we ate together. And a few had never spent a night away from home. But we slept together– wait, that didn’t sound right.We slept over, in the same building, that is, the coaches staying up all night chasing the kids back into their rooms when they tried to escape to bond over junk food and air guitar bands.
And like that, magically, Baseball Le’Kulam went from a nice idea, a theory, to a real thing. The kids turned from names on a piece of paper into real human beings with real faces and real lives and real families. Just two weeks ago, all the kids and their parents and siblings were eating pizza and playing catch for Baseball Le’Kulam Family Nightas the sun set at Kibbutz Gezer. We have 2 more sessions, June 4th and 5th, and October 15th and 16th. But all this real pizza and real coaches for these real people costs real money. Which is where you come in.
Watch the video. Read the campaign page. And donate. If you can. We need it to continue the program. We will not go to Mexico City and put it all on black. Promise.
I have bad news. After years of fighting for good, opposing all that is unjust, I have finally turned to the dark side, I have given up, I have been broken, literally, physically, and I have succumb to the evil spirits of the underworld, that’s right, Ladies and Geetles, I, King of All Jewish Baseball, began experimenting with the black magic commonly known as YOGA, or stretching and breathing, as I, in the name of accuracy, like to call it. I have officially outsourced my health and control of my own body to a beautiful twenty-four year old Israeli Yogi/Witchdoctor/Shaman named Roni. Roni and I meet once a week on her rooftop studio under the crushing Middle Eastern sun, the finest honks and Hebrew of Yafo echoing up from the street to our spiritually elevated position above.
We had our first session yesterday. I thought yoga was supposed to be relaxing. But today I feel like I caught 18 innings. This could not be right. The Gods of the Sun and the Moon are punishing me. Yoga is where bad people go to hide, I said, Yoga is not for me. I have my own superior spiritual practice, you know, it is called BASEBALL. It takes place outdoors, under the sun that giveth life, in the dirt of the earth herself. We breathe, we focus, we have rituals, we live in the present and block everything else out, in touch with our minds and our bodies.
But, it turns out, playing baseball 10 hours a day 7 days a week for 20 years is not good for you. Who would have thunk it? So, in a final act of desperation, after trying all the classics– Haitian Voodoo, several elaborate Viking ceremonies involving animal sacrifice, and ancient Rastafarian twerking, as a last resort, I pray to the Eight Armed Serpent Goddess Yoga, Great Native Witch Methusala Shakshuka, to please, I beg of you, bless me with your smoking sage stick, give me health and prosperity. I will do anything. I will drink the blood of lambs, as you command. I will wear a mask over my face as to not inhale and unintentionally harm or kill any holy microorganisms. I will stop showering, promise. Anything you say. Just one or two more seasons under the sun.
Winners of the Bonei Zion Prize were announced today. The prize is awarded by an organization called Nefesh B’Nefesh to immigrants in Israel who have made an impact on Israeli society within their field, the organization that helped me and every other immigrant from North America move to Israel. And now they’ve turned their back on me, on their own boy, for, to everyone’s suprise, I, Supreme Leader of the Most Powerful and Only Jewish Baseball Organization in the World, despite being nominated, did not win the $10,000 prize money. The streets wept. The wind whispered Mary. How, I know, Ladies and Geetles, you ask, could this have happened? Clearly Beyonce deserved the award. The prize committee simply does not recognize great artistry when they see it. Furthermore, who– what man, what god, could have possibly had a greater impact in Israel than the King of All Jewish Baseball? To which I say… good question.
The answer is Asher Weill. Isn’t it always? I would like to apologize to Asher before I set out to destroy him. For it is not his fault this mistake was made. And I know nothing of the man besides that he has my $10,000. He surely was, like me, an unknowing, hopeful nominee, who probably deserves the award, but is now the unfortunate focus of my Literary Laser Beam of Considerable Force and Strength, as I like to call it. Asher and I were both nominated in the category of Arts, Culture, and Sports, three things that have been forced together through the Natural Powers of Stupidity that govern the universe, and in which sports will always lose, lacking the exact, specific, how do I say, particular brand of bourgeois appeal a committee of this ilk is looking for.
Arts? Culture? Sports? Despite having nothing to do with one another, could there be a more perfect combination of things for me? Writer, painter, poet, fashion icon, player, coach, the list goes on. I should not only have only won this award, but all three should they have been different categories. Yes, that’s right, I seek not only the $10,000 owed to me, but $30,000 in reparations. Again, let me repeat, I know nothing of Asher, and care not to investigate, as is the way of my generation, I simply know, generally speaking, the editor of a magazine cannot have the same impact as a coach, if impact is in fact what we are looking for, and that comes from a person who believes there is nothing more important in this world than the sharing of ideas in the form of written words, clearly. I ask, about Asher, how many children does he speak to each day? How many high fives does he give out? How many smiles? How many poor people know him? How many young people? How many days a week does he leave work covered in dirt and blood? Israel is ranked twenty-first in the world in baseball. What is Asher ranked? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?
Joking aside, congrats to the winners, especially Asher. And thank you to Nefesh B’Nefesh for recognizing to contributions of paltry immigrants like ourselves. I have no idea who he is or what miracles he has performed to win this prize, but I am sure he deserves it, maybe, kind of, on some level, he has to have done something, one thing, maybe two, at some point in his life to have earned it, possibly.
Enjoy your loot, Asher! And mazal tov. Dinner on you.
I start too often, I know, by apologizing for not writing lately. I am like an absent father who shows up and apologizes for disappearing before disappearing again. But sometimes a King of Jewish Baseball must leave his blog behind and venture out into the world to coach baseball. Ah yes, the call of the wild, the triumph of the spirit, the open sea, youth sports.
I must tell you, dearest idiotic reader, the Senior National Team aka the Greatest Jewish Baseball Show on Earth, began practice last week. We got the dates for our tournament, July 27 – August 3rd, in Vienna, Austria. We will play Austria, Poland, Sweden, Lithuania, and Belarus. Winner goes up to the A-Pool in 2016. And so, as the weather changes and spring approaches, in Israel, at least, after a grueling 6-week winter where temperatures plummeted to nearly 60 degrees Fahrenheit, we begin again, a new season, a new mission, Vienna, this time, the dawn of a new era, the natural cycles of the universe.
Another experiment yesterday with the new technology called “radio”, where thoughts and the voices that express them are broadcast through the air using complex formations of female astronauts, I’ve been told, and magic. Every time I do an interview I think, this is it, this is the time I hit them with the real stuff, the poetry, like Mohammed did it. People ask me who my favorite baseball player is, and I tell them, that’s easy, Mohammed Ali. But when the interview starts, it’s not Ali, it’s just me, and I sound more like Derek Jeter than Mohammed Ali. I may not have sung it on the radio, but the great thing about writing is… you always get the last word. So as we prepare for our greatest challenge yet, as we set out on the long hard ROAD TO VIENNA, as we train, every week, road work, sparring, jumping rope, I say here and now…
Howie Osterer died Tuesday night at Kibbutz Gezer during a Junior League game between Jerusalem and Bet Shemesh. He was 59 years old. This blog post is for Howie and his family.
Howie Osterer was the regional director for baseball in Jerusalem. And he was my friend.
I met Howie when I moved to Israel a year and a half ago. I was the new National Director, and he was the new Regional Director for Baseball in Jerusalem. You’re my boss, he would say, I report to you, but I never thought of it that way. Howie was older than me. He had been a National Director for Scouts Canada before he moved to Israel and had run a chain of camping goods stores.
Howie was a big guy. He dressed like an archaeologist, or a fly fisherman, everything was khaki and waterproof with lots of pockets and zippers. He also always had his camera on him and was studying to become a tour guide. He was at war with the committee that issues guide licenses. He would study for months for the tests. He had an apartment in Jerusalem overlooking the old city. The walls were covered with maps of Israel and notes about the different historical eras of the region. It looked like Russel Crowe’s office from “A Beautiful Mind”. Howie was a Herodian expert. He would take me into the West Bank for an afternoon at King Herod’s mountain palace, taking pictures and pointing out details of the engravings in the stones, practicing on me. The test day would finally come, and he would fail, inevitably, never sure why, he had aced it, he thought. He would then appeal the decision, and the cycle would start over, reading books and studying the notes on his wall at home.
He was also a taste tester for Pizza Hut. He and I would visit Pizza Huts in Jerusalem and secretly fill out the survey they had provided him. Were you seated immediately? Was the waitress wearing a name tag? How long did it take to get your drinks? He always had a couple pizzas waiting for us at our coaches meetings at his apartment.
But Howie didn’t do anything, not study, not pizza, as much as he worked on baseball. He was responsible for every kid who plays baseball in Jerusalem. He umpired in the Premier League, and nearly every Junior League game Jerusalem played. He started a T-Ball program for 6 and 7 year olds in Jerusalem, our only T-Ball program in the country. And he coached multiple teams and he and I started a program together at the Jewish American Institute in Jerusalem where he went every week to coach. He would write long, color coded newsletters about what was going on in Jerusalem Baseball, different fonts, bold letters, red, blue, highlighter. Sitting in his apartment are stacks of baseball paperwork, receipts, lists, and notes. He was either an organizational genius, or an idiot, I still can’t tell. And downstairs, in his storage unit, is all of the equipment for Jerusalem. We are going tomorrow to try and sort through it.
When someone dies, we want to praise them. We are not being dishonest, it’s just a default mode of grieving, we naturally inflate their image in our minds and to each other. I do not want to do that here. I do not have to. If a kid wanted to go to practice and did not have a ride, Howie would take the bus with them, sometimes a 2 hour ride, then take them home safely, all for a single kid to go to a single practice or one day at baseball camp. I do not need to exaggerate to make you see how special that is. But, if I am being honest, life was not easy for Howie in Israel. He was very lonely. That is one of the reasons he worked so hard on baseball, and one of the reasons why I liked him so much.
Howie called me every day to tell me about T-Ball or an idea about how we can raise money for a new field in Jerusalem. Often, I would be busy or uninterested and he would apologize for calling so much and ask if there is anything he could do to make my job easier. Even the other night, the night he died, as I pulled into Gezer, at the same time he was calling “time out” for the last time and going down to one knee, I was badmouthing him in my mind because I didn’t want to be driving out there at 9 at night just to drop off equipment. I had 120 pairs of baseball pants and 120 navy blue hats in the back seat for him to pass out to his teams in Jerusalem the next day.
He also called every Shabbat, and on every holiday to check on me. He would ask if I was lonely. I knew he was. Before we would hang up, he would tell me he loved me, and I would tell him I loved him too. I am the same age as his son back in Canada. And we were both far away from our families.
When I got to the field, there was no game being played. The coaches from both teams were standing at home plate. A few players paced around, hands over their mouths. The others stood still in the dugouts. When I saw Howie on the ground, I did not know what to do. Two of the parents at the game were doctors and began CPR. I got down on a knee and held his head. I thought he would come back. When I realized he may not, I held his hand. The ambulance arrived and we got the kids out of there. He collapsed at 9, and was pronounced dead at 10. I stayed and sat with police and a few other people from baseball until 11:30. There he was, Big Howie, under the lights, on home plate, under a white sheet, in his umpires uniform, his water bottle to the right, his chest protector on the ground to his left, shin guards still strapped to his legs. It was perfect. And I laughed at him a little.
I am not sure how to end this. I am crying. And it’s not really over. There is so much to do. He left us a real mess in Jerusalem.
We started a scholarship fund in Howie’s name for kids who want to play baseball but can’t afford it. He would have liked that. He had a soft spot for tough kids, bad kids, poor kids. I think he had been one a long time ago.
There is also a batting cage being built in Jerusalem. It was one of Howie’s projects. We will name the cage after him, “The Howie”. Maybe I will paint his name on the wall outside the cage. I don’t know.
Today is Shabbat. Howie hasn’t called. But I will say one more time anyways… Love you too.
You can donate to the Howie Osterer Scholarship Fund to help under-priveleged kids in Israel play baseball.
