KING OF JEWISH BASEBALL

7/3/2012

Went to the park this morning to do my throwing program and hit off the tee then went to Richie’s for a lift.  It’s funny, I am 32 years old, and I’m just now learning how to hit, hit the right way at least. I know I keep making outrageous claims saying I am a baseball genius and calling myself the King of All Jewish Baseball – both of which are true – but I realize at some point I am going to have to do something to prove it, so allow me, quickly, to explain what I mean when I say I am learning how to hit “the right way”.

My entire generation of players, from what I can tell, has been taught to hit the wrong way.  We were taught a style of hitting that revolves mainly around two points.  First, to get your stride foot down early.  And second, to keep your weight back, or “stay back” as it’s said.  And it just so happens both are points are wrong.  Hitting is not about getting “set early”.  And it’s definitely not about “staying back”.  It’s about timing!  Allow me to explain.

A hitter has three timing mechanisms; load, stride, hands.

1) Load.  When the pitcher spearates his hands to throw the ball, hitters do something called “loading”, meaning they rock back mirroring the rhythym of the pitcher.  Hitters, like boxers, and like pitchers for that matter, are turned sideways in their stance, so they have two sides, a front side and a back side.  If you were to cut the hitters body in half down the middle, two halves serve different functions. His front side is for direction.  And his backside is for power.  So, by loading, or shifting their weight back, hitters are getting their weight to their back side, their power side, before delivering that power to the baseball.  And loading sets the hitter’s timing in motion.

2) Stride.  Anthropologists call walking a “controlled fall” forward, meaning instead of putting “one foot in front of the other” as it’s commonly said, we actually fall forward and stride out catching ourselves.  If at any point we did not stride, we would fall flat on our faces.  Striding in hitting is the same thing, a controlled fall forward, which is maybe why we use the same word to describe both.  And this is where my generation went wrong as hitters.  A hitter should stride roughly as the pitcher is arriving to his release point and get that mass of weight which is the hitters body moving towards the ball.  We were taught, instead of using forward motion to generate power, to keep our weight back.  We will talk more about that in a moment, but let’s get back to this pitch.  So, the ball is in flight towards the hitter, and the the hitter’s foot is off the ground and he is gliding forward towards the baseball.  Now, you cannot swing until that front foot lands.  So what most defines the timing of contact is the timing of that foot landing.  To go back to front side and back side.  Besides direction (what i mean by direction is this.  If the hitters front side is moving towards home plate, that is the direction the barrell pof his bat is going to follow.  If it’s moving out towards third base, that is the direction the barrel will follow.  Their is a directional relationship between a hitter’s front side – his front foot, hip, and shoulder, and his bat), hitters front sides serves another function, it “contains” the swing.  So, again, the hitter’s foot is off the ground, he is gliding forward, as soon as that foot lands, guess what happens? – That’s right.  Front side stops, back side starts, and the actual swing is set in motion.  It’s like this.  Imagine a car crash.  The front of the car hits a wall let’s say.  What happens to anything in the back of the car? It’s projected forward.  And that abrupt stop in front provides a lot of power from the back side.  The reason we were not all taught to hit like this is that is is hard.  You actually have to be good to do it, a good athlete, good “dynamic balance”.  You have to be strong and quick and coordinated.  This is how Major League hitters hit.  The problem is, we’re not all Major League hitters.  So our coaches came up with a style of hitting that would give everyone a chance – the lowest common denominator style of hitting if you will.  Like a said before, hitting is about timing, and this style of hitting in particular is ALL about timing.  If the hitter’s foot touches down early, the barrell arrives early, ground out.  If the hitter’s foot touches down late, barrel is late – it’s called”striding past the ball”.  So coaches, after getting sick of seeing kids either reach for the ball, or swing late, just told us all to step early, stop, keep our weight back, and then just use our hands essentially to punch at the ball.  It is true that if I stride early it will give me a chance of hitting the ball, but it will not give me a chance of hitting the ball hard, which, afterall, is the idea.

3) The last timing mechanism are the hitter’s hands.  No matter how far a hitter strides forward, as long as his hands are back, he can hit the ball.  That period of time when the ball is in flight and the the hitter’s front foot is off the ground is called “hang time”, or “read time”.  It is the fraction of a second where the hitter is identifying ball or strike, fast or slow, inside or outside, swing or no swing.  And all that info has to be processed in the first 20 feet the ball is in flight, or it’s too late.  It all takes roughly half a second – the exact amount of time it takes to separate good hitters from bad ones.  And something else is happening during read time.  That is, a hitter’s front side is moving forward, and his back side is moving back.  If we were to cut the hitter in half again, this time at the waist, he has a lower half and an upper half, and those halves are doing two different things.  His lower half and torso are moving forward, and his upper half and hands are moving back, or staying back at least.  That separation between front and back, lower body and upper body, creates something called torque, and torque provides power.  It’s like stretching a rubber band in opposite directions, then letting it go.  You see big leaguers do it all the time in the on-deck circle and when they step out of the box between pitches.  The stride forward, and keep their hands back to work on that separation.  No matter if a hitter gets a little fooled during read time on an off-speed pitch, if his hands stay back until the ball is in the hitting zone, he’s good.  So hands are the third timing mechanism.

Let’s use a visual aid to better understand what I am talking about.  We will use, for lack of a better model, one of my swings…

stance.

That’s me!  And that’s the Baseball Academy.  Let me first, before we proceed, apologize for my left handed friend in the background.  He is a good man.  Catching a bullpen for his daughter…  Now, back to hitting, nothin special here, just getting set-up and into my stance.  Keep in mind that the keys in the swing we’re looking for will be somewhat less apparent because I am hitting in the cage and not in a game and the cage is just a more relaxed, controlled environment and most hitters are in general less violent in the cage than in games, self included.  But will suffice.  Let’s move on to the timing mechanisms…

load.

My weight has shifted back slightly.

stride.

My foot is off the ground, the ball is in flight.  It’s hang time.  Notice my slight tilt forward.  It indicates that forward motion to the baseball I was talking about before.  It’s roughly the same angle the pitcher arrives at at the top of his leg kick.  I am beginning a glide, or a controlled fall, forwards towards the baseball.

landing point, or “launch” point.

My foot’s landed.  As soon as that front foot lands, my back foot releases and my back side starts to the ball.  You can see my lower half is moving forward, and my upper half, my hands, are back.  My direction is off a little.  I should be landing with my front hip facing the pitcher.  But I am opening up a bit to third base.  This is the battle all hitters always fight.  Staying “closed” in front until you pull the trigger.

contact.

Here I am at contact.  A little upright because the pitch is up in the zone.  And…

finish.

And finished with the sweet USA Fish jersey.

Anyways, until now, I hit the old way- set early, weight back, like Granderson.  But this year when the pitcher goes to throw me the ball, I simply lift my foot up, hang, and get my whole body moving towards the pitcher, like Josh Hamilton.  And it feels great.  I am finally free to stop thinking about staying back, and just hit.  It’s natural.  It’s athletic.  And it’s powerful.  There are A LOT of other things going on if we’re gonna seriously talk about hitting – it’s almost never ending.  But the fundamental adjustment I have made this year is using a leg kick and forward motion to generate power.  When you put it all together…  Another home run for the King of All Jewish Baseball!

7/2/2012

Had two games Saturday.  The games were with the Thunder Dogs at Manhattanville College in Westchester.  Nice little field.  Games started at 10.  My fears about taking a week off were right.  I did not feel comfortable in the first game.

We went up early, 2-0.  I walked on 4 pitches in my first at-bat.  Grounded out to third base on a fastball up and in in my second at-bat, and popped-out to second base on my first infield pop-out of the season in my second at-bat, my first O-for (ended the game 0-for-2).   We were winning by a run going into the bottom of the 7^th (playing 7 inning games), but they won.  I believe the sequence of events went something like this….

• Lead off hitter – ground ball to short, throwing error, batter/base runner winds up on second base.

• Second hitter is hit by a pitch with 2 strikes.  Runners on 1^st and 2^nd, no outs.

• Next hitter advances base runners with a bunt.  Runners on 2^nd and 3^rd, 1 out.

• We intentionally walk-their best hitter to load the bases and set-up a double play.

• Their guy hits a ground ball to short.  Short feeds to 2^nd baseman for the first out.  Base runner slides in hard taking our second baseman out.  Our second baseman proceeds to lay on the ground face down while both the runners from 3^rd base and 2^nd base score.

• Game over.  We lose.

And that folks, is how to blow a lead in the last inning.

I started feeling better in the second half of the first game and made a good play at third in the 6^th inning and even felt okay at the plate despite not hitting much.

I took ground balls between games while we waited for the umpires to show up.  It was hot.  By the time we had arrived that morning at 9am, it was 80 something degrees.  By around 1pm, it was around 100 on the field, and we were starting to microwave out there.  I am usually pretty good with the heat.  In Israel in ‘07 we played 40 games in two months in June and July and game times were 3, 5, or 7pm, and it would be well over 100 every day.  But I’m not acclimatized  yet, and two hours into game 2, after a few walks, a few visits to the mound, a few pitching changes, a few errors, and a few bizarre “time-out” calls by the home-plate ump who was clearly a degenerate neo-philistine criminal with the bad habit of calling “time” for no reason right when the pitcher was about to deliver, we were only in the third inning and my mind was slipping – I was losing track of the number of outs and the count.  I was cooked.

We finally got a pitcher in the game who could throw strikes, and we won game 2 by a few runs.  I finished the second game 2-for-4, 2 singles, and finished the day 2-for-6 total with 3 rbi’s.  I am intentionally not keeping track of my exact stats.  I’m gauging my progress on a looser and more accurate scale – how I feel, and if I am having good-at bats, and am driving the ball, and am solid on defense.  If I had to guess, I am right around .333 so far with good rbi , slugging, total bases, and run scored totals which are all good things.  Gotta keep getting better though.  I think the guys we’ll see in Florida in September will be better than the pitching I am seeing now so I need to take any success I am having now with a grain of salt and be ready to crank it up to the next level when I arrive.  Nothing can replicate what the other guys on the team have, and what I am some how trying to recreate for myself with a combination of training and playing, that is… playing every day against really good competition and striving to get to the next level.  Most of the guys reporting in September will be coming straight from their minor league season at AA or AAA.  I, on the other hand, am playing for the A’s and T-Dogs, lifting at Richie’s, taking ground balls and hitting with a group of high-schoolers a couple days a week.

I don’t know who Spain, South Africa, and France are bringing to this tournament.  They do not have access to pro players “eligible” for citizenship the way we do, but they probably have a few good domestic players, and will pluck whoever they can out of the minor leagues, college ball, and various international and independent pro leagues.  International tournaments are always interesting because you really don’t know what the other teams have until you get out on the field and play.  I am sure our staff will get reports on any recognizable names on the other teams’ rosters, but for all we know there’s an 18 year-old 6’ 10’ left handed pitcher throwing a 90 mile per hour slider in a bullpen in France right now.

Talked to Youk after the games Saturday.  He was microwaved too.  Said he was 0-for-3, lined out hard to short-stop, and had a good game defensively.  I hesitate to tell him about my games because it just seems irrelevant.  It would be like a pebble telling a mountain what it’s like to be a rock.  Anyways, we never met up for dinner which sucks because I wanted to talk to him about getting traded and about the Israel Team and it would have been good for the blog!  But what ya gonna do?  They had a Sunday day game and had to be back at the park early and then probably flew at right after the game.

Almost forgot, lot’s of new gold jewels…

new jewels.

6/29/2012

Home from Vermont.  Double header in the morning.  Went to the park near my house to hit off the tee a little.  The prospect of hitting tomorrow after a week of not swinging horrified me to the point that I dragged my tee out of my bag and hit in the dark while keeping one eye out for rats.

Youk is in town.  He got traded to the White Sox a few days ago and they are here for the weekend.  I think the White Sox are a good fit for him, and he is going to tear it up in Chicago.  I saw that he went 3 for 3 in one of his first games. Funny, while I am playing third base and trying my best to hit off a college kid tomorrow, Youk will be playing third base down the street at a little place called Yankee Stadium hitting off god knows what monster on the Yankee staff.  Same game, different stakes I suppose.  Good luck tomorrow, Youk!

6/27/2012

In Vermont.  Lake living.

I found an awesome little field down the road where I’ve been doing my sprint work.  Told myself I was gonna take the week off, but can’t help it.

little field in vermont.

Anyways, back Friday.  Four games over the week now.  Double header both days with the T-Dogs.   Hope I haven’t lost anything after not playing for a week.  Will let you know.  For now, gotta get back to Lake Life Livin’.

6/21/2012

Lifted at Richie’s this morning.  Lifting at Richie’s is a close to lifting in prison yard as I ever want to get.  It is me and some adorable monsters from the local projects.  I got some looks day one, but everyone is pretty cool and I have even elevated to, after a few weeks of steady appearances, official fist-pound status with many of the regulars.

Richie’s Gym.

I also have a run with the Bridge Runners tonight, in about 30 minutes, so I’m writing fast.  The Bridge Runners are a group of former vandals, skaters, kuckleheads, artists, users, and abusers who started a running group to get healthy.  It has turned into something of an international phenomenon with Nike Bridge Runner Crews in 11 cities around the world.  Tonight is the annual Harold Hunter run. It’s just a three mile run, which is about three more miles than I am used to running.  And it’s like 100 degrees today in NYC.

here we come. nyc bridge runners.

our pace car, Freaky Fridge!

And have a group workout in Central Park tomorrow morning.  I organized group workouts for myself and bunch of high-school players every Wednesday and Friday morning at 10am on the North Meadow, field number 11.

the wed/fri central park high-school training crew. from left to right; christian, george, chris, and alex.

It will be last workout on the field for a week.  I rented a house in Vermont beginning tomorrow until next Friday, the 29^th.  I wanted to get out of the city and clear my mind after leaving work and everything else that’s happened.  But now I feel like it’s interrupting my training and I am nervous I’ll lose some momentum…

6/19/2012

Just got home from a game with the Thunder Dogs.  The T-Dogs play in the Westchester/Rockland Wood Bat League (WRWBL).  If the A’s are a bunch of maniacs just released from there pro contacts who don’t take the game seriously enough, the T-Dogs are a bunch of white guys who never had pro contacts and take the gam too seriously.  It’s a mix of college kids using the league to stay ready for their fall season, some former college and pro guys, and a few old shlubs who just never stopped playing.  I am not sure which category I fit into.  The level of play is not as good as the Zorrilla, but it’s nice to start on time and know you’re gonna have nine guys show up.  Our home field is Roberto Clemente Park in the Bronx.  Like in the Zorrilla, there’s local traffic.  Commuter trains run behind the backstop every five minutes or so and always blow their horn to say hello and try to distract us.  Built up high behind the train track are layers of dark buildings, what is known as the Bronx.

the T-Dogs before a game.

We played the Lookouts.  Their starting pitcher was just okay.  Not as good as we’ll see in September in Jupiter, but good enough that I could work on some things.  In my first at-bat, I came up with runners on second and third and hit a 2 strike curveball line drive/ground ball back up the middle.  Both runs scored and we went up 2-1.  I struck out looking, then swinging, in my next two at-bats, curveball change-up respectively.  Then, you’re not gonna believe it, it happened again.  In the bottom of the 8^th we were down by 2 runs and I came up with runners on 1st and 2nd, so I represented the winning run, and I hit a first pitch fastball over the center fielders head, and it hit the top of the fence!  This time I busted it out of the box and wound up safe on second base with a stand-up double.  The ball hit just below the yellow line.  It seems I am experiencing a power surge and a power outage simultaneously.  I am glad to be squaring the ball up, especially against the reliever they brought in who was throwing hard, but need to start hitting the ball over the fence, not off it.  One run scored on the play.  We ended up tying the game at five, but did not take the lead.

I was up again in the bottom of the 9^th inning.  Tied at 5.  Bases loaded.  2 outs.  Holy shit.  They intentionally walked the guy in front of me to pitch to me which surprised me considering I had accounted for 3 of our 5 runs so far.  But it was fine with me.  They had brought in a college kid and I was confident I was going to bang one somewhere.  But…  I swung at the first pitch and hit it into the ground.  Ground out.  Short stop.  Game finished in a tie because they had to turn the lights off.  I am not upset about the approach, swinging at a first pitch fastball is not a bad idea in that situation.  But I gotta square it up.  Anyways, I am continuing to learn and am feeling more comfortable on the bases and at 3rd base.  I had spent most of the Orieles/Mets game watching David Wright and Wilson Betemit play defense and I have adopted some of their movements, specifically a little glove touch to the ground as the ball is entering the hitting zone on every pitch.  It helped, and I played error free at third.  Finished the game 2 for 5 with 3 RBI’s.  But need to keep getting better, especially in big situations.

In team news, today Youk publicly announced his support for 2013 if we can win the qualifier.  Got an email today from the team with this picture attached…

6/19/2012

Met’s won 5-0.  R.A. Dickey threw a 1-hitter for the Mets.  Potential future teammate on Team Israel, Met’s first baseman, Ike Davis, hit a Grand Slam.  Again, the tournament in September is going to be mostly minor league players… and me.   Then if we win the qualifier, guys like Davis and Kinsler will join up for the actual tournament in 2013.

It’s embarrassing, but I still have dreams about playing in the Major Leagues.

met’s high-fiving after win

I can’t help it.  When I am conscious, I can rationally be thankful for the fact that I did not make it and instead have had the opportunity to cultivate my mind and do things most pro ballplayers miss out on like having a healthy obsession with costume jewelry.  But when I’m asleep, my subconscious takes over and I’ll have a dream where I am with Youk in the clubhouse or in the dugout and we’re both playing for the Red Sox and I keep thinking, “I’m finally in the Big Leagues, I’m really in the Big Leagues.”  Then I wake up and realize that I am not in the Big Leagues, but in my bed on the floor in my room in Brooklyn.  Who needs the Big Leagues?  I got the Thunder Dogs.  Game time is 7:30 tonight.  Will report back after…

6/18/2012

82 days ‘til we report.

Just got back from my morning workout at Richie’s.

I played my first game with the A’s yesterday.  We won 7-4.   The team had gotten off to a bad start.  Before yesterday, our record was 1 win and 3 losses, so this win takes us to just 2 and 3.

It was an early game, 10am.  Shlo and I agreed to meet at 8:50 at the Norwood stop of the J train by the field.  I got there early and tried to find the field myself and ended wandering around in a cemetery before finally heading to the right place.

The Zorrilla is an all-Dominican league in East New York, one of the few remaining truly dangerous areas in New York City.  The league is full of guys released at various points in their minor league careers.  The Zorrilla is both legendary and undiscovered.  The field is, as I found out, located in a hard-to-find corner of Brooklyn on Atlantic Avenue way out where Atlantic Avenue turns into Conduit Boulevard and where Brooklyn and Queens turn into Long Island.  A steady stream of traffic runs behind the outfield fence on Atlantic.  This is the first year for the league’s new field.  It’s a nice surface.  There are fenced in dugouts down each baseline.  There are stands for about 500 behind the dugouts and backstop.  And there’s even a small press table just to the right of the backstop behind home plate where an announcer introduces pinch hitters and calls the play-by-play in Spanish over the little PA system.  I have heard stories about the league, that by late afternoon the stands are full of wives and girlfriends and children of the players banging pots and pans and old drunk men gambling on every pitch.  But it was mostly quiet when we arrived, just one or two players on the other team getting lose down in right field.

There are 10 teams in the Zorrilla, and we, despite the slow start, are the best team in the league.  Each year the winner of the league gets a free trip to the Domincan Republic to play in a tournament down there, and not only do we often win the Zorrilla, we win the tourney in the DR.  There are a total of ten teams in the league.  Each team has a Major League Team name.  We are the Oakland A’s.  When we break from huddles we yell, “Oakland”, despite playing on a public field in the ghettos of East New York 3,000 miles away.   Because there are 10 teams, 5 games are played at the field each weekend.  Two games are  Saturday, three Sunday.  Game times are 1pm and 4pm Saturdays, and 10am, 2pm, and 5pm on Sundays.  But as I am learning, games NEVER start on time.  At 10, when the game was supposed to start, I had already gone through my warm-up– stretched, band work, throwing program, sprints, dry swings and ground balls in the bullpen down the left field line, and I was staying busy pacing around in front of our dugout, and we still didn’t have enough players to start the game – the coaches weren’t even there yet.  As a neurotic Jew and a baseball genius, this threatens my every notion about what it takes to be good at something, especially something as steeped in ritual and regiment as baseball – Major League players report to the park as early as 6 hours prior to game time to begin getting ready, but this isn’t the big leagues, it’s the Zorrilla.  Shlo had warned me about this.  Games typically start and hour and half late as players show up shirts untucked, eyes puffy, stinking of booze.  By 10:30 when the ump was threatening to call a forfeit we had nine players and we got started at 10:40, early for Zorrilla standards.

I started the game hitting 8^th and playing right field.  I have not played an inning in the outfield since middle school.  But when they asked me if I could do I simply said, “Hell yes”.  I have to earn my stripes, so I borrowed an outfielders glove from Ray, our short stop, and ran out to right field.  First hitter of the game hit a lazy fly ball down the right field line and I tracked it down and caught it for the first out.

We were playing the Indians.  They had a big kid throwing, about 6’4”, 225 easy.  Fastball was 84-87, little curveball.  But he was young, and I could tell early on he had command problems.  We scratched one out in the second innings, and Shlo was rolling.  In my first at bat, I came up with runners on 1^st and 2^nd, no one out.  I have no idea what the signs are, and no one speaks English, but considering my status as the new guy and a knower of all things baseball, I figured it was a good time to get a bunt down, so I squared to bunt and took ball one.  Judging from the body language of the third base coach, I had guessed right – he had given the bunt sign, so I squared again on the second pitch, ball two.  Squared again on the third pitch but was going to take a strike if he threw one, but no, ball three.  Did not square on 3-0 and decided to work my stride timing and took a ball 4.  I eventually was relieved from base running duties when the next hitter grounded out to short stop. I was out at second base on the fiedler’s choice.  And a run scored on the play and went up 2-0.

Shlo had bad luck when our first and third baseman made errors in the 4^th, and he gave up 4 unearned runs, 4-2, them.

By the 4^th inning, most of our players had shown up and the little field was transforming into the madhouse I have heard so much about.  Families arrived and set up their things in the stands.  The announcer had his PA system at full blast.  The place was coming alive.  Our regular right fielder who played in the Mets organization arrived and I moved to my 3^rd base.   We loaded the bases in the 5^th inning and sent our regular catcher whose name happens to be Jose Reyes in to pinch hit now that he was ready.  In the Zorrilla, it is a bit difficult to decipher who is who and where anyone has played prior, but Jose has clearly played some baseball.  When I met him at our exhibition game a few weeks ago, he shook my hand and smiled – “shook” is a bit misleading, I put my hand in his where it disappeared momentarily before he was kind enough to return it to me.  I just looked him up on Baseball Reference, a website that lists baseball players and their stats.  He played from 1994-2002 in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.  On “BR” he is listed at 6’1, 188lbs.  But either the scale was broken that day, or he has grown.  I would guess he is 6’1”, 240 pounds, solid muscle.  His head is two of mine.  I had asked Shlo to from now on please if I am going to meet someone of that size to warn me so I can interact with said individual minus the look of shock.  The Indians brought in a new pitcher to face Jose, and he proceeded to hit a bases clearing line-drive in left center field, we’re winning 5-4.  If he had any air under it at all, it would have cleared Atlantic Ave, and possibly the Atlantic Ocean.  And we never turned back.  I finished 1 for 3 with a walk, fly out to left, fly out to right, and an RBI double to bring home our final run of the day in that order and officially made it through my first game in El Zorrilla.  My leg hurt a little when I hit the double, but in general, the apparatus feels pretty good.  Just need to keep on top of the program every day.

The A’s in the dugout. That’s Shlo in the foreground!

Have another game tomorrow night in the Bronx with the Thunder Dogs.  And am going to the Mets game tonight with David.  Dave is 17.  He’s one of the kids I coach.  I have known him since he was 10 and even went to his Bar Mitzvah.  His mom, Robin, passed away last week.  So Dewey and I are taking him to the game tonight to get his mind of things.  This blog post is for you, Dave.  You’re the best!

6/16/2012

It’s 10:59.  Just got home.  Yesterday was my last day at work.  We celebrated.  At one point, roughly 20 hours ago I suppose, I was momentarily not allowed entrance in a club because I looked like an astronaut according to the man with the velvet rope.  In his defense, he did not know I am the King of All Jewish Baseball, and I was dressed like a fool.  I went from work (East Harlem), to our 8-and-under travel banquet dinner at Larry’s house (West Village), to Max’s (Lower East Side), so I borrowed a shirt from Max.  The shirt was paisley and too small, but who cared, I was free!

We went to a Depeche Mode party.  The shirt was smaller than I had originally thought, and now was fully unbuttoned, and I was dancing, alone.  By the time we arrive to LeBron I believe it was called, the shirt looked like a doily stuck to my back.  I was essentially naked, and the man with the rope was simply not willing to let a someone like myself into a place otherwise reserved for more put-together men and women.  I handled the deal like a gentleman, I am royalty, after all, and was ultimately permitted entry.  Fast forward roughly 5 hours to me, dehydrated and somewhat off balance, running sprints in the park near my house.  It may have been a bad idea.  My left leg hurts now, my left hip and quad.  I think if I can manage it today, it will get stronger and feel fine.

I have a game in the morning.  The A’.  The legendary Zorrilla.  I am not sure how the team is doing so far, wins and losses wise.  They have played 3 games I believe.  But this will be my first regular season game with them.  I’ve missed the others because of work.

Shlomo is pitching for us.  Shlomo is on the WBC team too.  I repeat, Shlo is on the WBC team.  Shlomo aka Shlomo Slow-Mo-SHo-SHo-Joe-Joe-Jack-in-the-Hat-Jemmy-Ono-Kinoko Lipitz is the Ace of the Israeli National Team (And of the A’s).  Straight off the beaches of Tel Aviv, Shlo was the second Israeli ever to play college baseball in the US (he played at University of California San Diego), he played for the Netanya Tigers in the Israel Baseball League where we met, and has in general been plowing through hitters for a good long while now.  I coached him in last year’s European Championships, and he did some amazing things.  I probably as a baseball coach should not admit to letting him have done this, but Shlo threw 214 pitches in 13 scoreless innings against the British National team in the championship game[s] last summer.  We had to beat the British team twice in a day to advance.  The Shlobot blanked them in the first game, 7-0, and asked to start the second game. And we let him.  He threw 4 more shutout innings in the second game when they scored a run and we took him out.  We ultimately lost the second game of the day, 2-5, and the British advanced to the next round.

Besides being a stealth pitching machine, Shlogurt also happens to live about 5 minutes from me in Brooklyn and manages a large music venue in the city and in general maintains an appearance of a drunken magician.  We’ve been training together Tuesdays and Thursdays in Mcarren park in Williamsburg.  We usually meet around 9:30 and finish around 11:30 and then we ride Shlo’s electric scooter to the bagel store.  Between my gold collection, and his appearance, we are known around town as the Baseball Banditos, or we would like to think so at least.  We can get the bandit mobile almost up to 15 miles per hour with the two of us on there with our gear bags.  Tomorrow, Banditos ride! For now, must get good rest, but not before I to my exercises for my leg…

Today is June 15, 2012.  In 85 days, on Sept. 9^th, I am reporting to Jupiter, Florida to play for Team Israel in the 2012 World Baseball Classic.  Here’s the email I received from the team last week…

Congratulations,

You have been selected to be part of the WBC Team Israel roster of players.  This is quite an honor and each of you is deserving of it because of your accomplishments and talents, and past performance for Israel National Teams.  As the highest level event to which an Israel National baseball team has ever been invited, the IAB wants to recognize your accomplishments, and wants to continue the forward momentum that we have generated over the last 5 years, by having you play a part in the WBC qualifying round.  

 The IAB has set 3 goals for our involvement in the WBC tournament:

1.  To win the qualifiers and advance to the final rounds in March;

2.  To further develop and grow baseball in Israel and help finance the IAB Home facility on land donated by the City of Raanana;

3.  To strengthen the contacts between the Jewish American and Israeli communities through baseball.  

 The WBC qualifying tournament will be held from September 19-23 in Jupiter Florida.  Team Israel will be matched up against national teams from South Africa, France and Spain.  Brad Ausmus has agreed to be the Team Israel Manager, and Shawn Green and Gabe Kapler have agreed to be player/coaches – it is an honor to be coached by ex-players of this caliber, and to have them supporting the cause of developing baseball in Israel.  

There will be two training camps prior to the tournament: from September 9-13 for the Israel Senior National team players and from September 13 – 18 you will be joined by Jewish American players who will make up the bulk of the travelling squad for the tournament.  A number of Israeli ballplayers will be chosen to play on the WBC travelling squad.  The balance of the players will be invited to watch and cheer on your teammates. 

Now, there’s a lot there, so let me help clarify.  Peter is Peter Kurz, the President of the Israel Association of Baseball (IAB), the governing body for baseball in Israel.  Our coaching staff, as you see, is comprised of three recently retired Major League players with an impressive amount of combined games played and home-runs and even World Series rings among them.  Brad Ausmus who will manage, caught for 18 years in the Big Leagues.  Gabe Kapler played for 13 years and was playing right field for the Red Sox when they won the World Series in 2004.  And Shawn Greene hit 328 home runs in the Major Leagues.  All three guys were in the Majors within the last 5 years and Green and Kapler are going to play as well as coach.

There are two dates to report to camp.  The Israeli’s, meaning the “Israel Senior National Team”, will report September 9th.  The American players will report four days later September 13th.

The Israeli SNT is the real Team Israel, if you want to call it that.  The team is made up of Israelis and a few North Americans with Israeli passports.  The core group has played together for years now.  The individual players from the SNT play primarily on different teams in the “Premier League”, or the men’s league, in Israel.  And then every two years or so the team unites for international competitions.  Last summer, 2011, they lost to Great Britain in the finals of the European Championship Qualifiers failing to advance to the 2012 finals in Amsterdam.  I know all this because I was an assistant coach for the tournament and was there screaming in the dugout. So, despite not being Israeli (I’m from Cleveland and live in New York), as the King of All Jewish Baseball, I have been invited to report with the Israelis.

You may ask, what makes one the King of All Jewish Baseball?  Everyone knows one cannot just proclaim themselves a King, it would be heretical and insane.  Well, you will know, I have the credentials.  I, baseball genius and the King of Jewish Baseball, have fought the battles.  I’ve been to Israel to play or coach 5 times in the last 9 years.  I bravely defended Tel Aviv for the Tel Aviv Lightning in the Israel Baseball League in the one and only season of the wounded league.  I’ve fought twice for the United States in the grueling gauntlet that is the Maccabi Games aka the Jewish Olympics bringing home gold and silver medals for the children of my village.  I was an assistant Coach/Prince of the Israel National Team.  And I was recently named head coach of the United States Junior National Team for the 2013 Maccabi Games and am prepared to lead that team earnestly to victory.

The American players, the heavy hitters, will report on the 13th as I mentioned already.  The Major League season will still be going on in September, so the Americans reporting are mostly guys currently playing minor league baseball.  In the World Baseball Classic, you do not have to be a citizen of the nation you play for, you simply have to be eligible for citizenship of that nation.  For other nations, “eligible” is defined most commonly as having had a grandparent with citizenship or according to the “right of return” rule for that country.  In the case of Israel, any Jew in the world is eligible for citizenship meaning Ryan Braun, Ian Kinsler, Ike Davis, Kevin Youkilis (I played college ball at the University of Cincinnati with Youk and we’re still good friends), and a slew of other Jewish Major and Minor League baseball players are eligible which instantly makes Israel a contender.

The actual World Baseball Classic will take place during spring training of 2013.  The tournament we will be playing in this September is the qualifying round like it says in Peter’s e-mail.

There are 16 teams in the WBC.  The top 12 teams from the 2009 Classic automatically are invited back for 2013.  The bottom 4 teams (Canada, Chinese Taipei, Panama, and South Africa) drop into the qualifier with 12 new countries (Brazil, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Philippines, Spain, and Thailand) that have been invited, for the first time, to try and qualify.  16 teams.  4 groups of 4.  Winner of each group advances to the WBC.  We have to win our bracket with Spain, South Africa, and France to get into the tournament.  If any of this is confusing, I will explain it more often and more clearly as the tournament gets closer and as we get info about the team.

Here was my reply to Peter…

Best e-mail I’ve received in a while!  Will be ready to report and kick ass Sept 9-25, gladly. 

Thank you so much for the opportunity.  Let’s win this thing.

Is this roster info public? – As in, can i tell people?

Thanks!

-Fish

His reply…

Fish,

You can tell people, but you are not yet on the WBC tournament team and I hope that was clear…..there is still a long way to go and your struggle will not be easy and there are no promises at all…ok??

Take care

Peter

So “on team Israel” is a bit of an overstatement.  Trying to make the team is more accurate.  Am I stupid? – Or did that original e-mail say I was on the team?  It turns out, there will be a total of 50 of us reporting to camp vying for 26 roster spots.  All I want is a shot. I may have, as King of All Jewish Baseball, been issued an honorary invite, but what they don’t know is that I am planning on showing up and kicking ass.  It’s been four years since I’ve played competitively, and almost ten years since I had a shot at playing legitimate pro baseball.  And this is my last chance to prove to myself and the world I’m any good, so I’m going all in, training every day, playing 50 games before camp, and putting my body on the line one last time.  At an age when I should supposedly be settling down (32) and securing what is commonly called a “future” for myself, besides the upcoming tournament, I am heading into an amazing stretch of the unknown.  In the last month I’ve had my heart broken, witnessed someone kill themselves, and quit my job.  Once my paychecks stop coming in August, I have no plan.  So I’m doing what anyone in their right mind would do in the face of ultimate uncertainty, I’m starting a blog, shaving the sides of my head, and buying lots of gold jewelry.

Gold snake bracelet.  Newest piece.

From now on I am going to chronicle every game, training session, physical therapy appointment trip to the sporting goods store, bad hair-cut, massage, strike-out, gold necklace, home-run, broken bat, error, diving play, and injury on my journey to Jupiter.  And  it is all just for you!

my new hair cut.

Here’s my final reply to Peter…

You got it, Peter.

I am gonna claw crawl and hit my way onto that team!
Thanks.

-Fish

II

Honestly, I should have started writing this blog a long time ago.  I may have just received the official invite, but I have already been training for five months, and a lot’s happened – I just haven’t had time.

Two years ago I helped found a small indoor baseball facility East Harlem. Every day I, and the rest of the staff, transform the little gym there into an indoor baseball heaven.  We carry 2,000 pounds of astro-turf cut into 14 foot sections out of the little office where we’ve stacked it the night before.  We haul out L-screens, buckets of baseball, tees, indoor pitching mounds… then we drop down three batting cages from the ceiling, get the nets straightened out, and open the doors for the kids.

my office. that’s the turf rolled up on the ground

post transformation

We have over 1,500 players in our baseball program.  We have nine “travel teams”, one in each age division between 8 and 16 years-old.  We have a developmental league for 6 to 8 year-olds.  We do baseball birthday parties, we train high-school teams, and run camps and clinics all year.  I alone do upwards of 1,000 private hitting and pitching lessons every year.  Point being, I have been too busy to start a blog.  But lucky for us, today is my last day managing the Academy.  Roughly one month ago I walked into the ED’s office (ED in this case does not stand for erectile dysfunction, but Executive Director), and resigned, and simultaneously fired off a 5,000 word email to the board of directors criticizing the organization officially sealing my fate as a soon-to-be unemployed baseball coach. Best thing I ever did.  If you are having any trouble deciding if you should leave your job, allow me to help clarify things for you, leave, now, and never look back.  Go do what everyone wants to do but are not brave enough to try– be yourself for a living, or better, be the King of All Jewish Baseball.

I will say, it is nice to have a baseball facility when you’re training to play.  I take a couple hundred swings a day in the cage.  When I started training, I didn’t think I could do it.  My body hurt too much.  I’m mostly used up, and I know it.  My last season playing officially was 2008 in Germany. I was playing in the Bundesliga, Germany’s top pro league, where I lived in an insane asylum in Munich next to the team’s home field and didn’t know anyone but my teammates and wrote a blog like this one mostly to keep myself company for the six months I was there (www.whatthefuckamidoingingermay.blogspot.com). I didn’t think I would make it through the season.  My arm hurt, my hands hurt, my knees hurt.  And now I’m four years older.  I play baseball between 4 and 9 hours every day.  I throw the ball roughly 500 times in that span, and hit a lot on my own or to demo for the kids.  My body is worn out.

But I just completed six weeks of physical therapy, I joined Richie’s, the gym around the corner from my apartment in Brooklyn, I am learning how to run properly from Ed “Go Go” Lovelace (Ed was on the the USA Olympic team in ’92 with Michael Johnson and is the sprint coach for Major League Baseball), and in general have been slowly piecing myself together.  I train every morning.  And I work my shift at the Academy every night.

I’m also playing on two teams to get ready, The Bronx Thunder Dogs in the Westechester/Rockland County Wood Bat League (WRBL), and the Oakland A’s in the Zorrilla – New York’s best, and craziest, men’s league. I have played a total of five games so far.  And I am starting to figure it out as they say, refigure in my case.  I am a combined 5 for 15.  I have 2 singles, 2 doubles, and a home-run so far.  A quick story about my last game with the T-Dogs before I head off for an afternoon training session for my last shift at the Baseball Academy…

Sunday, five days ago I guess, after a 9am-3pm shift at the Baseball Academy following a long night, we, the T-Dogs, drove up to Peekskill, New York for a 6pm double header against the Peekskill Tides.  They have a nice little park up there.  I woke-up as we pulled into the parking lot behind the outfield fence.  I changed behind the dugout and headed to the outfield to get warmed-up.  The fences were shallow, just 330 feet to center field, but thirty feet tall.  Someone during warm-ups was making fun of another guy on the team for hitting a ball of the fence last year and only getting a single.  I should have known then.  There was a big lake behind the bleachers on the third base side of the field and the sun was setting over the water.  It was a warm night.

I struck out on my first at bat, a 3-2 fastball about 4 inches off the outside corner.  I looked quickly at the ump and walked back to the dugout without a fuss and thought to myself, “Good at-bat.  Stick with that approach and something good is going to happen.”  And in my second at-bat, on a 2 and 1 fastball a little up in the zone, I hit a long home-run over the left center field fence.  I knew it was gone when I hit it, and just dropped my bat and started jogging, didn’t even look at it.  It had been a while since I rounded the bases like that and I felt unsure of my stride, like I was going to trip any moment.  We won the first game 5-2.

The second game was moving quickly.  It was 2-1, us, in the 4^th inning.  They had a runner on 3^rd base, and a lefty came up.  Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, I play third base.  I had made a catch earlier in the game diving for a ball on the warning track in foul territory on a pop-up bunt attempt and had cut my arm open pretty badly on the gravel and was bleeding, but I was feeling good.  The lefty hit a ground ball to me.  Lefty’s don’t usually hit ground balls to third base, and when they do sometimes it’s kind of a que shot off the end of the bat and the ball will have a lot of spin which is exactly what happened, and instead of staying relaxed and just handling the ball, I stabbed at it, mishandled it, then bounced the throw to first.  First baseman couldn’t come up with it, runner from third scores on the throwing error, batter base-runner winds up on second, tie game, 2-2.

Fast forward to the bottom of the last inning.  It’s still 2-2.  I am leading off the bottom of the ninth for us.  The count goes to 3-2.  I step out of the box like I do before every pitch, close my eyes, and say to myself, “commit to your best swing”.  I  wanted to redeem myself for the error.  He threw me a fastball down the middle.  Bam.  Clean contact.  I saw the ball lifting up into the night sky.  I flipped my bat, and start jogging to first base, game fucking over!  Walk off!  Right?  I hit this one way better than the first one.  Their pitcher was walking off the mound slowly towards their dugout.  But just before I get to first base I hear “Chink”, the ball hitting the top of the tall fence in left-center field.  I turned on the jets to try and at least get to second base.  Their centerfielder bare handed it cleanly off the fence and made a perfect throw to the second baseman.  I was out by 15 feet.  Their dugout went nuts.  We started the inning not with a game-ending home-run, not with a double, not even with a single, but with an out.  I tried to big league it, and I got burned.  Don’t tell any of the kids I coach.  I have no idea how the ball didn’t get out.  It was later and the air was heavy.  Maybe that’s why.  I usually never pimp the game.  Laying out on the warning track on a bunt attempt is much more consistent with my style of play and a bat flip and a slow jog to first base.  And the one time I did it, the baseball gods learned me real fast.  We lost 4 innings later 2-3 at exactly midnight before getting in our cars to drive the hour-and-a-half back to the city.  I got home around 2am, showered, iced, did my rehab and core work on a yellow towel in the living room, and went to sleep thinking about why that ball didn’t get out and planning out my workout for the morning in my mind so that it wouldn’t happen again.

the walk-off that never was