KING OF JEWISH BASEBALL

Got this e-mail December 3rd, 2012, 6 weeks ago…

Hi Nathan,

I got your name from Ami. I was talking to Ami about my plans to start Softball here at Yeshiva University and he mentioned that you might be interested in helping us start the team and would be an excellent resource for us if your schedule didn’t allow you to coach. I would love to have a conversation with you about our plans when you have a free moment. Please let me know what is the best way to reach out to you.

 Thanks

—

Let us, again, commence with an exercise, let us ask ourselves, logically, if we were an all Jewish University, and we wanted to start a softball program, who would we contact? – That is correct, we would contact the King of All Jewish Baseball.  There is surely only one man qualified for the task of creating a softball program for Yeshiva– coaches, players, uniforms, equipment, gyms, fields, wins, losses, a team, a season – so much to do.

Just 6 weeks after receiving the email above, we made history, a little history, at least, little enough that it didn’t feel like history, as history, I suspect, has a way of feeling, or not feeling, I should say – that’s right, Ladies and Geetles, last night, we held the first ever practice for the Yeshiva University Maccabees Womens Fastpitch Softball Team.

11 women attended “evaluations”.  We have a total of 18 on the team.  3 coaches. 3 practices per week in the gym until the weather breaks, then we’ll head outside.

And so the King of Jewish Baseball continues to march forward through the perilous, barren landscape of Jewish Baseball, or Softball, in this case, leaving in his wake only vast swaths of scorched earth, and, of course, the distinct odor of Jewish Baseball residue.  To life.  To the 2013 Yeshiva University Maccabees Womens Softball Team.

The first YU Maccabees softball practice… ever.

There are certain perks that come with being the King of Jewish Baseball.  For example, the dungeon, the gold, the royal bathings are nice.  But, believe it or not, the job does not pay well.  So I picked up some work until I move to Israel.  I am coaching 3 teams this spring, 3 squads of the finest, bravest, most fearless men we could find in all of New York City.  That’s right, Ladies and Juice Worms, meet THE BULLDOGS…

Bulldogs 8U (Black)

Bulldogs 8U (Red)

Bulldogs 10U

3 teams, 1 goal… world domination.

We’ll keep you updated on the ‘Dogs’ progress this season.

I got this e-mail recently…

 Nate;

How are you. My name is “Coach” Steve Mandl

I coach at the legendary George Washington HS in NYC, where we have had 7 Major Leaguers since my career began about 30 years ago. We are a storied program and Im sure you know much about the program. 

I, like you am a Jew, a proud Jew. I wear #32… due to Sandy Koufax. 

I have a very long resume that spans not only here but over most of the world. I am a member coach of USA Baseball and was planning to coach with them this summer. The past few summers, in addition, I coach with  Bobby Valentine and the All American team.

“Coach” Steve Mandl

—

Hello, again, Ladies and J-Birds, let us begin, today, with an exercise…  Let’s say… you, for example, want to get involved with Israel, or baseball, or any combination of the two, who would you contact? – That is correct, you would contact the King of Jewish Baseball.  But no one garners the attention of the KOJB without paying a tariff, no one! – If you’ve spoken to me even just once, you are an official lifetime member of the Jewish Baseball Magicians Institute.   That’s right, Steve, in exchange for an introduction to the world of Jewish Baseball, I, King of Jewish Baseball, trade you… one blog post.

Steve is in his 30^th season at George Washington High.  So I thought it only noble that I pay him a visit at his fiefdom.

I told Steve I’d be there at 3, when school lets out, to discuss the ever-growing kingdom of Jewish Baseball.  After getting lost in Washington Heights, I arrived at 3:30, late.

GW!  A majestic sight! A palace, if I don’t say so myself, on a hill, in Washington Heights, waaaaaaaaaay uptown Manhattan, with the sun shining on it, and inside, with a large front hall, and gold banisters, and lots of security, fit for… a King.

Steve’s office is a small room in the basement covered with photos and posters of Jimi Hendrix and a huge, signed Manny Ramirez, and Kurt Cobain, and framed team pictures from each of his thirty years there.  And I looked at Steve and thought, yes, here we go, the King of George Washington High.

Steve Mandl, the King of George Washington High, in his office.

GW has been one of the best high-school teams in the country for nearly Steve’s entire career.  From what I can gather – please remember my resources are limited to the internet, direct e-mails to Steve, time travel, and all of nature – GW has won 28 of the last 29 League Championships, 3 city titles, they’ve put 7 players into the Major Leagues (including their most well known alum, Manny Ramirez) and countless others into college and minor league baseball.  Last year alone they had two high draft picks.

Manny Ramirez GW High School team pictures. Manny is sitting bottom left in ’89, and front center, on a knee, in ’90.

Steve told me if the baseball team played the football team in football, the baseball team would win.  Then he told me if the baseball team played the basketball team in basketball, the baseball team would win that too (and claimed it was once happening until the basketball coach stopped the game).

What I really wanted to do was observe practice, see the kids play, and watch the master at work.

Since I was late, I was sure I was going to interrupt, that they would have already started.  But the security guard took me downstairs. Steve was sitting with a player, or former player, or father, or another coach.  The gentleman kindly bowed and exited.  Steve said practice would start in about 5 minutes.  I felt rushed and as if I were rushing him though he did not seem at all hurried.

Practice never really “started”.  Or maybe it had never ended.  Steve said they practice from about 3:30 – 7:30 every day.   He did not eventually call everyone together, which is what I am accustomed to, the official signal of the beginning of practice.  Instead, we walked out to the hallway outside his office.   Players came and went, dressed in Diamond Backs and Blue Jays and Yankee gear.  Eventually, they began running down the hall and up a flight of stairs and out of sight, a lot of them, a group of around 40.  A red Gatorade had leaked from the bottom of a garbage can in the middle of the room.  Players jumped over it or around it as they ran by.  We looked at the weight room.  You could hear the team now running their laps overhead, pounding footsteps in the hallways and the stairwells.

Warm-ups took 40 minutes.  Every exercise I have ever seen, done 3 times, in sets of 10, and it made me think of my teams when I was young, an infield routine with 8 baseballs in flight at once, all the push-ups, the yelling.  The kids were banging out jumping Jacks like it was the damn Olympics.  They were like the Giants before a Wold Series Game, but they weren’t the Giants, and they weren’t about to play a World Series Game, not to mention a game at-all, that day, or week, or month even.  It was January.  We were in the floor-stained basement of a big, old, dirty high-school.  40 or so kids were doing jumping jacks like Navy Seals.  Steve still had not said anything.  After nearly an hour of this, Steve spoke – he had them finish the warm-up with 15 minutes of abs.

Then sprints began.

“Pairs of two.  Down the hallway.  On me.  Take a lead.  Go on ‘go’.  Get back to the bag on ‘back’.”

“Next.  Do a 360 to the right, facing the radiator, on the way there.  And a 360 to the left on the way back.  Don’t turn your head.  Use your peripheral vision.  Trust your body.  Go.”

It was 5pm when I left, two hours had passed, and no one had picked up a baseball.   I thanked Steve and walked out as the guys were breaking up into groups to throw.

There was no rush.  There was a long practice ahead, like yesterday’s, and another one tomorrow. Forever.  If you’re lucky.

Good luck to the George Washington Trojans and the King of Goerge Washington High School, Coach Steve Mandl, from the King of Jewish Baseball and all the members of the Jewish Baseball Magicians Institute.

Coach Mandl with the team in the basement of GW.

 We’ll keep an eye out for you guys this season…

I got this e-mail yesterday from Haim…

I am pleased to announce that Nate Fish has agreed to serve as national director of the IAB. 

Nate is no stranger to Israel Baseball.  He was a golden-glove third baseman for the Tel Aviv Lightning in the IBL  a coach for the senior national team in the 2011 European Qualifiers and more recently actively assisting our fundraising and organizational efforts for the WBC.  Nate was chosen by Brad Ausmus to be the bullpen catcher for the team.  I can testify to the instrumental contribution Nate made to the team both in terms of binding the players to each other and to their Israeli heritage.  He will be coaching the USA team in the Maccabiah this summer.

 Nate helped establish and managed an indoor baseball facility in New York which organizes clinics, baseball lessons, and travel teams for over 1500 players.  

 Nate has a strong passion for baseball, coaching and developing the game.  We feel this passion is contagious and that he will quickly infect 100’s then 1000’s of Israeli youth with baseball fever and motivate our existing player to excellence.   

 He will be arriving in Israel with the USA team in July and will remain, as an Oleh Hadash, to be the national director of the IAB.  We have high expectations from him as outlined in the job description we presented to him.  While we realize there will be growing pains and numerous obstacles in his path we have every confidence that Fish will make his mark on Israeli baseball and its advancement in Israel. 

 Fish has a blog as the self proclaimed King of Jewish Baseball. 

—

Self proclaimed? – Self proclaimed, Haim?!?  This was divined, I tell you.

That’s right, ladies and Ju Ju Beans, I am back, back in velvet, in cape and crown, in royal regalia.   Just months after writing, “One cannot simply be the King of Jewish Baseball forever…”, I am saying now, one can, at least for a while longer.  So I am returning to the land of Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, to take my place amongst my fellow kings and prophets; King David, King Solomon, the King of Jewish Baseball.  I will spare you all the details, for now, as they will surely present themselves to us along the way.  I will just say only, I’m going in – moving to Tel Aviv, applying for Israeli citizenship, learning Hebrew – the whole deal.  And you’re coming with me.

Resurrection!

At the end of the tournament in Florida Peter asked me, “Do you want to move to Israel?”  I said I couldn’t.  I had a whole world in New York to return to, a girl friend, a hopeful career as an e-publishing pioneer/mogul/giant, an app to develop, rocks to paint, friends, fun, family, a life.  But I could not shake the thought that moving to Israel was the right thing for me.  I am, after all, the King of All Jewish Baseball.   So I called Peter in December and asked if the offer still stood.

My official title will be National Executive Director for the Israel Association of Baseball (though we’ll stick with “King of Jewish Baseball”).  I have the honor and challenge of being dubbed… sole full-time employee in baseball in the country.  Like Haim said, ’twill not be easy.   But I— nay, WE, will do our best.  Not by might, and not power, but by spirit alone, and the internet, of course, and some magic, we shall succeed.

We’re going to the Mother Land.

And so, friends, we seem to have come to the end.  It has been exactly a week since I returned from Florida.  One cannot simply be the King of Jewish Baseball forever.  One must, after all, get a job, and take an e-publishing course at NYU. Every story, every book, every life, no matter how great, and no matter how desperately we want to think otherwise, must end.  And this is it.

I will revisit the blog and will post relevant news as it occurs, but as for regular posts from your favorite genius, this will be the last.

I printed and re-read the blog.  Here it is.

the Greatest Blog of All Time

Nearly 200 pages of musings, photos, videos, and prolific exaggerations whipped together like a violent and beautiful tornado of genius and technology given shape in the form the Greatest Blog of All Time.  We have covered some ground, from Gold Jewelry to Richie’s Gym, the A’s, the T-Dogs, and, of course, the Tournament, the Team, the Wins, and the Loss.  And it has been fun, maybe the most fun you’ve ever had, the most fun you’ve ever had reading at-least.  And I thank you for joining me– us, for the ride.

Just because this is the last page of the Book-Video-Blog-Genius-Masterpiece-Semi-Autobiographical-Graphic-Novel known as the King of Jewish Baseball, it is not the end of the road for baseball in Israel, and it is not the end of the road for me.  Not even close.  And we still need your help.  To support Israel Baseball, visit the Israel Association of Baseball’s website… www.baseball.org.il.

And always remember, no matter what time of day or night, feeling good or bad, sad or indifferent, know, my children, that as you rise each day and make your coffee and tie your shoes and drive your cars and think your thoughts, you are the King of Something – the King of Doing the Dishes, or the King of Turkey Sandwiches, the King of Laundry Day, or the King of Listening to Talk Radio.  So, ask yourselfs, one last time…

What are you the King of?

The only thing I know with certainty that you are not…

Nate Fish, The King of All Jewish Baseball

Signing off.

Like I said, everyone on the team had a story – high draft picks, injuries, surgeries, releases, comebacks…  But there was one guy on the team in particular whose baseball career has truly historical significance – Adam Greenberg.

Adam is from New England.  He played college baseball at the University of North Carolina.  By the time was 24 years-old, in 2005, he was in the Major Leagues playing for the Chicago Cubs.  In his first Major League at-bat, on the first pitch of the at-bat, Adam was hit in the head with a fastball.  He suffered a concussion and the effects of positional vertigo for almost two years following the hit-by-pitch.  He has never returned to the Major Leagues making him the only person in the history of baseball to have had the very specific experience of being hit in his first, and only, plate appearance.  His story has been well documented, particularly recently, so it may be easier to just show you some of the things that have been going on for him.  Here is an ESPN “Outside the Lines” about Adam….

A documentary filmmaker named Matt Liston, who Adam had never met before, started a campaign to get Adam his at-bat in the Major Leagues.

And yesterday the Miami Marlins announced they will sign Adam to a 1 day contract  He will finally get his Major League at-bat.  He will play next Tuesday, October, 2nd, against the New York Mets, 7 years after he was hit by the pitch in the city where it originally happened.  Here is video of Adam and Matt getting the news on the Today Show yesterday.

I met Adam the night he arrived in Jupiter a few weeks ago.  I had seen his name on the roster and had heard his story, but I had not seen any of the videos above and did not know there was a campaign to get him back to the Major Leagues.

I went to dinner that night with him and his wife and a few other guys on the team.  Adam had an 8 o’clock interview on ESPN radio.  But by 8, we were lost, still looking for the restaurant, and he ended up doing the interview while making u-turns in the dark with 5 of us huddled in the back seat trying to keep quiet.  It was just the beginning of a crazy week for Adam. There were cameras on him the whole time.  I was his throwing partner each day, so as we played catch to warm up I had to try and weave the ball over or around or through the maze of cameramen surrounding him.  He has handled it all so well – the hit-by-pitch, the comeback, the media.  And now he is getting his at-bat.

Tuesday, October 2, Miami Marlins vs. the New York Mets, Adam Greenberg, representative of Team Israel, and of himself, is going [back] to the Bigs.

Congrats, Adam.  No one deserves it more…

Adam Greenberg/Team Israel

There was a lot I did not tell you, could not tell you.  For example, I was hurt, the whole time, but couldn’t say anything because the coaches read the blog and they would have replaced me on the team.

too old

As you know if you’ve been following for a while, my right knee was a question mark going into the tournament.  I was told two weeks before camp that I had a meniscus tear.  What you do not know is that over the course of camp and the tournament I also strained my left achilles tendon, broke my middle finger on my right hand, my arm was a mess, and my left hand ached and creaked every time I moved it from catching so much.  Even as I sit here writing now, I am in pain.  Between the knee, the hands, the arm, and the achilles, every step hurt.  I have never experienced as much pain and as much pleasure as I did each day in Florida.  I would typically get to the training room early to be patched together before going out on the field for the day to be destroyed again all while trying to hide it from the coaching staff.  There were times early on in camp that I honestly did not think I could continue, but each day I was elevated by the environment and by my teammates and by the opportunity to be a part of the team.  I believe, if I recall correctly, the chronology, the injury report if you will, went something like this…

Sept 9th, we arrived.  I knew the knee was bad so was receiving treatment on it right away…

right knee

Then, on Tuesday Sept 11th, just the 2nd day of camp, I strained the achilles running bases….

left achilles

Then, on the 4th day of camp, taking ground balls during batting practice, I think I broke my right middle finger.  I say “I think” because, pissed-off that so much was going wrong, I mostly ignored it.  I do not even have a picture.  It is still crooked and swollen.

By the time Brad and the American players arrived on Sept 13th , I was falling apart.  8 months of training could not prepare my 32 year-old body for 6 hours on the field in the heat every day.

One night Brad called me into his room and asked me about my knee.  I told him it was fine.  At that point, the knee was the least of my problems.  My left heel and right hand hurt worse than my knee.  And the day before Barry took me into the Cardinals training room on the other side of the facility and put something called an iontophoresis patch on my leg, so my knee was feeling better, numb at least.  Brad said I was going to start at catcher the next day in a scrimmage game against a local community college.  I would catch 3 innings.  He would watch.  If I looked okay, I would be on the team as the 3rd string catcher.

Between the pain and the fact that I had not caught in a game (besides 4 innings earlier this summer) in 10 years, since college, I did not know if I could do it.  I didn’t even have a catchers glove.  I just knew that I could not limp on the field or I would not be on the team.

I caught the three innings and was removed from the game.  Steve Hertz, our coach at the time, came up to me and said, “You’re out of the game.  You need me to tell you why?”  I did not need him to tell me.  I knew it was because I made the team and Brad wanted to save me for the real task, the Qualifier.  For icing on the pain cake, I got a foul ball off my thigh in the last inning I caught.  This mark was still left almost a week later.

pain

So at that point I left the original group of Israeli’s that reported to camp early, on the 9th, and joined the WBC team, the Americans, who arrived on the 13th.  I was on the team, but still didn’t know if I could physically do it.  And, to be honest, I wasn’t sure if I could keep-up  at practice – if I could run, and throw, and hit with the guys who had all just played a full season of pro baseball, or if I would be able to catch pitchers throwing the ball 97 miles per hour.

But, again, the environment elevated me.  I rode the wave from the training room to the field and back to the training room each day knowing what possibilities lay ahead.  It was a pseudo-religious cycle.  Ritual and routine.  Pain and pleasure.  Torture and triumph.

It got easier as camp went on.  My arm and my left hand kept getting worse.  But my achilles stayed the same.  And my knees held up.  I figured out a way to not have to run much at practice.  And I ate what could contend for a world-record amount of Advil.

Thank you to the training staff for getting me through the tournament.

pain and pleasure

I would do it again.

It’s Tuesday, September 25^th.  The tournament is over.  We lost to Spain in the finals 7-9 in 10 innings.  I am back at home, in New York, sitting alone in my room, the same place this all started when one day three months and 15,000 readers ago I started a wordpress blog called “My World Baseball Classic Blog”, before quickly, and thankfully, changing the name to “King of Jewish Baseball”.  What was then fantasy – making the team, playing in the finals, is now the past.  Everyone is gone.  The posters are down.  No more clubhouse.  No more gear.  No more free meals at the hotel.

back home, New York, in my room

It was not supposed to happen this way.  We could have won.  We should have won.  We were the best team on paper by far.  We had 25 professional baseball players on the team.  14 of them played this season in either Double A or Triple A.  The general sense was that we had already won.  We could taste it as they say.  On my way out to the field for the game I saw a golf cart pulling into the clubhouse full of beer and champagne for the post game celebration. By the end of the 1^st inning, we were winning 2-0, and every locker was party proofed, covered in plastic.  Each of us had imagined running out on the field and dog-piling on the mound so often and so clearly it was as if it had already happened.  And then all of a sudden, it didn’t happen.  After a bizarre 5 hour game, Spain won, and we lost, and it was all over, and instead of celebrating, we sat together in silence for 20 minutes staring at the floor until the coaching staff came in to speak to us.

I cannot shake the feeling that I want to turn back time and do it again, or that I am going to wake up and it will be the morning of the finals and we’ll get a chance to replay the game.  I cannot comprehend that it is over and that we did not win.  Reality has splintered and the trajectory of each of our lives will ricochet off this loss.  There were life altering implications for every single person involved if we had won.  The team would have been flown to Israel for a trip.  We would have started preparing for March for the World Baseball Classic in Tokyo or Puerto Rico or Australia or wherever the first round will be played. The Major Leaguers – Youk, Kinsler, maybe Braun, would have joined the team.  Money would have been raised for the new stadium in Israel.  A nation, at least some of them, would have rejoiced.  Thankfully, some of these thing will still happen despite the outcome, if somewhat slower.  There would have been a book written about our team.  Maybe a movie too.  Players and coaches would have been offered jobs.  So much was riding on this game.  I personally would have been bronzed and donated by the Israel Association of Baseball to the Smithsonian Institute for example.

Maybe it is our fault for putting too much on one game.  You can’t trust baseball.  It’s unpredictable.

Baseball is a game of failure as it’s said – a lot of getting out, a lot of getting hurt, getting cut, losing games.  Everyone of us on the team had experienced our own various successes and disappointments as players and coaches.  But this was going to make everything alright.  It was going to wipe all our personal slates clean and we were going to be champions, forever.  The guys on the team kept saying after the game – and keep in mind they all play for money, every day, for Major League organizations, in front of crowds and scouts and baseball execs – that they had never wanted to win a game so badly.  Doc Copeland said this was bigger than the 2 World Series he won with the Blue Jays.  Everyone was all in.  We worked hard.  We loved each other.  We wanted it so bad.

The loss is challenging my whole sense of logic.  We want to believe that we live in a world where if we are the better team and we do everything we can to win and we are fully invested for the all the right reasons that we will come out on top.  But we do not live in that world.  And we do not need this team and this loss to know that far worse things have happened to people who do not deserve it.

The entire experience was perfect, except for the ending.

In the technical sense, there is virtually no difference between winning and losing.  A hit here, a walk there, and we win.  The game could have gone either way as you’ll see if you take the time to watch the entire game posted below (I will, at some point) – 5 hours, 10 innings, 25 base-on-balls including walks and hit-by-pitches, 16 runs, 0 errors, bloopers, squibbers, infield hits, and line-outs…  Pederson’s ball in the bottom of the 9^th could have been rattling around in the right field corner instead of landing in the right fielders glove, and we’d all be champs, and this blog post would be much more like the one I had composed nearly in full in my mind announcing our victory.

http://web.worldbaseballclassic.com/wbc/2013/video/play.jsp?topic_id=38613768&content_id=24851669&query=game_pk%3D342971

But in the emotional sense, of course, winning or losing dictates almost completely the lasting impression.  Each one of us now has to deal with the loss individually and collectively.  We each will project our own sense of self-doubt onto the game.  We will each feel that our individual contribution is somehow responsible for the outcome.

So what do we do now?  How do we deal with being on the doorstep of history only to ultimately not be allowed inside?

I personally can come up with only one solution.  We are going to attempt to qualify in 4 years again, and I am going to be on the team again.  We are going to celebrate on that mound and in that clubhouse and that champagne is going to taste that much sweeter.  We may have lost this game, but we will win in the end.  And we will let the world know about it. We cannot be stopped simply because we will not stop.  We are, after all, always and forever….

Team Israel, the Kings of Jewish Baseball

I will keep posting on this blog.  A few more posts at least.  Maybe more.  I do not know.  I need to find a job, make some money, open a store, a new baseball facility, start charging Louisville Slugger a fee to advertise on this site, something.  For now, I will leave you the same way we started, with an e-mail from Peter…

To All Team Israel Players, Coaches and Staff,

Having had 36 hours to reflect a bit, having had the sting of defeat soften a bit, I just wanted to say, this Yom Kippur eve, that you are all a great bunch of guys, that it was my honor to know each and every one of you, and that this team will certainly go down in history as having represented the country of Israel and the Jewish people with incredible honor, admiration and respect.  

I am not one for many words, and I just wanted to thank each and every one of you for taking the time out to help our cause, for giving your maximum efforts, for getting so completely involved and dedicated, and for just being a part of this.  We can only imagine what might have been, but we need to be completely satisfied with what was and what we can make of this going forward. 

This holiday is a time of personal introspection and contemplation, and no matter how one commemorates it I want to wish you all a Happy New Year and I can promise all of you that our mission will continue, and that you will hear from us in the months ahead.   

“May you be signed well in the Book of Life”

It’s 5:25 Saturday evening, the day before the finals.  South Africa and Spain play at 7pm tonight.  We play the winner tomorrow at 5pm.  You can watch the game on the the mlb network, or on www.worldbaseballclassic.com.

I could write all about our team and what exactly is going on as we get ready for the finals, but for now it will be best to show you this video and leave it at that until the game tomorrow is over.  This is the speech our Team Doctor, Glenn Copeland, the King of All Podiatry, gave us in the clubhouse just before we took the field for our first game.  I apologize for the camera work.  I was so excited before the game, and by what he was saying, that I could not stop my hand from shaking a little.

Team Israel.  The finals.  Tomorrow…

Just got home from the park.  We beat Spain 4-2!  Nate Freiman hit 2 more home-runs!  He has 4 total in 2 games.  Check it out…

http://web.worldbaseballclassic.com/wbc/2013/video/play.jsp

It was a magical day at the park for the Greatest Jewish Baseball Team of All Time.  We’re only one game away from winning the tournament.  France and South Africa play tonight.  The winner plays Spain tomorrow afternoon.  And we play the winner of tomorrow’s game on Sunday for the Championship.

This is not a true double elimination tournament.  We will have no losses going into the finals.  And the team we play, whoever it is, will have 1 loss.  Usually, in a double elimination, the team with 1 loss would have to beat the undefeated team twice, but Sunday will be a single game, winner takes all.

And so it all comes down to this, as they say.  All of the things, all of the time, all of the people.  Team Israel, Grand Finale, Sunday, 5pm.  Prepare yourselfs for the Greatest Jewish Baseball Magic Show on Earth.