KING OF JEWISH BASEBALL

In the words of the great prophet, politician, and poet laureate, Kool Keith, “It’s over now.”  That’s right, over.  The World Baseball Classic has come to an end.  We know who won, and who lost.  We can put our 2013 WBC musings and dreams behind us, finally, and look to 2016.

Last night, the best team in the tournament– in the world, The Dominican Republic, beat Puerto Rico, 3-1.  Their record was a perfect 8-0 in the tournament.  They dominated.  Congratulations to Team DR and their giant plantain!  You guys deserve it.  Here are the game highlights.

Team Dominicana vs Team Puerto Rico, Final

As King of All Jewish Baseball, to see how we can make baseball popular in Israel, a small country the size of New Jersey in the Middle East, let’s see how the Dominican Republic, an almost equally small country in the Caribbean, one half of the island, Hispaniola, became the greatest baseball playing country in all the world.

Facts, otherwise known as things that are true…

10 million people live in the Dominican.

7.5 million people Live in Israel.

The Dominican Republic is 18,000 square miles.

Israel is 8,000 square miles.

The Dominican Republic got independence in 1844 from Haiti and the islands previous European colonial powers France and Spain and was immediately and repeatedly attacked by Haiti, the nation they share the Island with.

Israel in got independence 1947 from previous European colonial power England and was immediately and repeatedly attacked by Palestine and other nations they share land with.

In the Dominican Republic, it is hot.

In Israel, it is hotter.

15% of Major League Baseball players come from the Dominican Republic.

0% of Major League Baseball Players come from Israel.

The Dominican Republic won the 2013 World Baseball Classic, handily.

Israel did not qualify for the 2013 World Baseball Classic.

So… how are two countries with so much in common so different when it comes to baseball?

Made up facts, otherwise known as things that might be true…

Well, let me tell you, here and now, Ladies and Geetle-Bugs, that I, the King of All Jewish Baseball, certified international baseball genius and card carrying magician, have no idea.  But I will make some things up as is my habit as a professional blogger and exaggerator.  And it, some of it, at least, may even turn out to be true. But we will not know for a long, long time, thankfully.

So, your answer…

Simply put, one country is full of Black Men with outrageous natural athletic ability who grow up with the sole intention of playing Major League Baseball in the name of helping their families out of poverty, and one is full of Jewish Men with varying levels of no athletic ability with the option of taking whatever worldly career path they’d like to explore.

Just kidding… sort of.  To take a more “academic”, more “environmental”, less “racist”, I believe it’s called, approach, allow me to keep making things up…

The real fake answer is 4 answers, really.

1) Proximity to the USA

2) The passage of time

3) Farming

4) War

1) Proximity.  All the places baseball has become popular are close to the USA, where the game was “invented”, and where it is still played most– The Caribbean and the Caribbean Coast of South America, Japan and East Coast of Asia, Mexico and the rest of Central America, Canada, and, somewhat less, Australia.  The USA is like a baseball fire, and all these other countries are trying to keep their hands warm.  Africa, Europe, and Israel, as I will soon see, are all far away.

2) Time.  Baseball came to the DR in 1870 when Cuban farmers fled the Spanish in the Ten Years War.  So 143 years have passed since baseball was introduced there.  The IAB, on the other hand, was founded in 1986, just 27 years ago.

The example “farmers” fleeing “war” segways nicely…

3) Farming.  Flat ground, big fields, and tobacco – all needed to play baseball.  Not to mention the similar pace of farm-life and baseball-life.  Life in israel, from what I know of it, is many things.  “Slow”… is not one of them.

4) War.  There is though, unfortunately, plenty of war in Israel.   It is commonly thought that baseball pops-up (pardon the pun) wherever American soldiers are fighting.  The soldiers build fields, then the natives use them when they leave.  This, like everything, is both true and untrue.  Yes, baseball, and baseball fields, often spread with American conquest, but what, and this is the thing we are really searching for, is the magical quality that then attracts people to use the abandoned fields, or not use them???

Your fake guess is as good as mine.

This blog post is dedicated to all my former Dominican teammates and all the ballplayers in the Republica Dominicana… You guys are the CHAMPS!

Team Dominicana celebrates!!!

And so the quest for supreme incontrovertible international and interplanetary baseball domination continues in the form of round 2 of the World Baseball Classic.  Only 8 teams remain.

In POOL 1, as it’s referred to by experts like myself, being played in Tokyo, Japan– Japan, Chinese Tapei, Cuba, and the Netherlands will be competing in traditional Mongolian Wrestling Challenges and the Scandinavian Barrel Toss.  Winner advances.

And in POOL 2, held in exotic Miami, Florida, Team USA, Italy, Puerto Rico, and the Domincan Republic will be put through various rites of passage ceremonies if they wish to be welcomed into adulthood including spending two weeks in solitude in the gator infested swamps of South Florida, and, in the Jewish version, nearly as deadly, they will each deliver the week’s Torah portion according to the Mayan calendar.

And then, AND ONLY THEN, they will play baseball.

If the 2nd round is at all like the 1st, we will see highlights only the Wild World of International Tournament Baseball can provide.  And, finally, the scientific community, the elderly, all babies, most animals, and the conservative right will unify if for a brief moment in awe and support of this wondrous event.

So far, we have seen…

fights…

Canada vs. Mexico fight

Walk-offs, upsets, and sac flies, all in one…

Dutch Walk It Off

And lots of home-runs– even Grand Slams…

Wright Grand Slam

So join me on this wild-ride through the untamed final frontier of international baseball where Americans, Italians, Dominicans, Japanese, the Dutch, and squirrels everywhere battle for the right to call themselves… the Kings of International Baseball.

The 2013 WBC.

Boom!

And so that glorious quadra-annual spring tradition is upon us– no, it is not what you were thinking, if you were thinking leap year, it’s… THE WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC.

At first, my approach to dealing with the WBC was to not deal with it at all, to ignore it, which, as every mental health professional will tell you, is the proper way of handling anything that potentially causes you discomfort.  I was not going to watch, not going to write about, comment on, or indulge in the games whatsoever, knowing it would just recall the disappointment of losing the qualifier.  But I cannot hide from the fact that the WBC started Friday night.  Honestly, I am too interested to stay away.

Japan beat Brazil (5-2) in the tournament opener in Fukuoka, Japan.  4 games have been played so far.  There are 4 brackets with 4 teams in each.  The championship round will be played March 17-19 in San Francisco at AT&T Park.  Here are the brackets…

2013 WBC Brackets

As the Executive Director of the IAB, and, of course, as the King of All Jewish Baseball, I have been offered two tickets to the finals in San Fran.  But will not be attending due to an inability to transport myself the 3,000 miles without disrupting the delicate financial flow of the universe.  But I will do exactly what I previously promised myself I would not– I will check box scores, highlights, I will watch games, I will report to you and other rabid KOJB fans my most expert opinions on the games, and I will generally participate in this rare and magical planetary phenomenon known in the scientific community as the 2013 World Baseball Classic.

Good luck to all the teams…

And so we meet again– me, you, Ladies, Geetles, millions of faithful readers.

The article in Details Magazine was released yesterday to much fanfare (http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201303/team-israel-world-baseball-classic-qualifier).  Due to the online version of the article hitting the net, KOJB readership has gone from the usual 46 “views” per day all the way up to 52.  So, before we break the internet, let me seize this magical moment in time, take this opportunity, if you will, to trick you into buying something.  For that is, after all, what we are supposed to do to one another, is it not?

Before I was the King of All Jewish Baseball, or, better put, before I knew I was the King of All Jewish Baseball, I was just a man, with an afro, in a movie, about Jewish Baseball.  And that movie is called… Holy Land Hardball.

In 2007, a genius who specializes in making bad ideas into real things, something I admire very much, Larry Baras, a Boston bagel maker who had earned a small fortune selling his “Unholy Bagels”, pre-stuffed, pre-packages, holeless bagels with cream cheese, decided, naturally, to start a professional baseball league in Israel.  And another man– two men, really, Brett Rapkin and Erik Kesten, also geniuses, as it were, from Los Angeles, recognized the certain kind of crazy in Larry’s idea, and decided to make a movie about the creation of this Israel Baseball League, the first “professional” baseball league in the Middle East, the Kings of Jewish Baseball Documentary Film Making (despite it being a stiff category), if you will.

Brett and Erik brought their cameras to the first tryout for the Israel Baseball League at Dan Duquette’s camp in the Berkshires (Dan now is the general manager of the Baltimore Orioles,  but, at the time, was the head of Player Development for the IBL).  And I happened to be there too, trying out.  And the rest, as they say in… the movies, is history. I was eventually selected by the Tel Aviv Lighting and went on, along with 120 teammates, friends, coaches, roommates, and league executives, to play what I, the King of All Jewish Baseball, personally guarantee, was the craziest baseball season ever, anywhere.

After the season, the film was released, and Brett and Dan and I and everyone else who was involved went on a raucous, no holds-barred film tour.  We went to Jewish Film festivals, synagogues, colleges, JCCs, we visited anyone who would have us, drinking Poland Springs by the dozen and politely answering questions about the experience.  For a period of six months or so, we dominated the Elderly Jewish Social Scene up and down the Eastern Seaboard.  We were unstoppable.  The film won Best Documentary at the Boston Jewish Film Festival.  It aired on the MLB Network.  Variety loved us! –  “You don’t have to be Jewish or understand a box score to embrace the crowd-pleasing national-pastime docu ‘Holy Land Hardball.'”

And now, all these years later, due to a unique positioning of the planets coincidentally timed with Brett’s parents insisting he get the boxes of DVDs out of their garage in LA, we are making this one-time, irresistable offer.  WE WILL SELL AND SEND DIRECTLY TO YOU A COPY OF HOLY LAND HARDBALL, SIGNED BY THE DIRECTOR AND THE KING OF ALL JEWISH BASEBALL, FOR ONLY THE VERY AVERAGE PRICE OF JUST $19.95.  The DVDs can be used for the following… Birthday gifts (ages 0-125), bar-mitvah gifts, bat-mitvah gifts, coaster/tiny coffe table, buy lots and build a “house of Holy Land Hardball DVDs”, frisbee, shin guard[s], snow shoes, a time machine, a space taker upper– you can even use it to watch the movie and be entertained for 90 minutes.

To buy your very own copy of Holy Land Hardball, just click the link below.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=251237385255

Hello, again, Ladies and Geetles.  In my new role as the Director of the IAB, and, of course,  in my eternal role as the King of All Jewish Baseball, part of my obligation is to magically transform into an actual Israeli citizen, or, as it’s called in Hebrew, make “Aliyah”, and, eventually, to adopt sacred, time-honored Israeli traditions such as acting pissed-off all of the time.

An organization called “Nefesh B’ Nefesh” specializes in relocating Jews from North America and England to Israel. I have been working closely with the people at Nefesh the past month or so to get the formidable dossier of necessary documents together to make this magical transormation possible and to confirm my earthly existence; birth certificates, passports, travel and financial records, shoe size, baby pictures, letters from Rabbis, the trust fall. And finally, yesterday, I had my official Aliyah interview at the Jewish Agency here in New York.

And so it is true, after all, the King of Jewish Baseball is… Jewish.

From left to right… present day KOJB, young KOJB.

I arrived at the Jewish Agency offices and was greeted warmly with a thorough security screening before being let into the waiting room.  Soon I met my “shaliach” or “shepherd”, Asher, who will personally guide me on my journey to Israel like an unblinking camel across the stormy deserts of the Middle East.

There was a lot of activity in the office, people scurrying about, looking my way.  As is my habit, I assumed this was just typical joy and excitement generated by a visit from the King of All Jewish Baseball.  Asher shook my hand and said with a big smile in his thick Israeli accent, “Mr. Basketball, Mr. Maccabi Tel Aviv.  I expected you to be taller.”  I said, “Oh no, not basketball, BASEBALL, I am moving to Israel for baseball.” “Oh,” he said, his smile flattening, losing interest, “There’s baseball in Israel?”.

One nice thing about moving to Israel… the Israeli government pays you to do it – it’s like moving to Alaska, or the Moon Colony.

Upon landing in Israel, I will be carried on the shoulders of ecstatic men, I am almost sure, like Vince Lombardi, into a small office where I will register for my medical insurance and will be given an envelope of cold, hard Shekels – the first of 6 monthly Aliyah payments.  The money is to help me with rent and other expenses.  In addition to those 6 payments, I will be provided a one-way flight to Israel, I will receive intensive hebrew-language training, I do not have to pay tax on anything I ship, I will get a 90% income tax rate reduction for the first three years I live in the country, and, I can’t forget, I will be provided one golden palace so large as to allow my flock of 1,000 rare tropical birds of prey to fly free inside the greenhouse/courtyard surrounded by fountains made of ice and a staff of several hundred loyal robots whose sole purpose it will be to maintain the structural integrity of the ice fountains despite crushing 100 degree temperatures.

So a big thank you to Asher and to Nefesh B’ Nefesh for leading me on my way to Israel.

This is happening.

Ladies and Geetles, gather ’round, for I have important news– the King of Jewish Baseball recently, just two days ago, as a matter of fact, shattered what was until recently thought shatter-proof, that is, the 20,ooo readers barrier.  It is indeed a slow climb to 1.3 million. It will only take, at this rate, according to my calculations, 217 more years.

Partly, I am sure, because of the 20k news, a wild KOJB media frenzy has ensued in the form of a single article in Details Magazine that hit newsstands today and is sure to create a nasty outbreak of Jewish Baseball Fever across the land.  It is hard for me to leave my apartment these days with the sea of photographers and reporters and fans awaiting me in the streets, but earlier, in disguise of course, to say, without cape and crown, I safely snuck down to my local magazine shop and purchased two copies of Details.

Give me the magazines!

So go, now, get your copies of the March issue of Details Magazine– the thoughtfully timed release coinciding with the first days of Spring Training, but be careful, there are mobs, looters, stampedes even, of ravenous KOJB fans lurching closer, magnetically drawn, zombie-like, to magazine shops seeking their fix of Team Israel, the Greatest Jewish Baseball Magic Show on Earth, and a glimpse at the King of All Jewish Baseball himself.

March issue of Details Magazine. That’s me on the cover.

Everyone in publishing knows, YOU PUT THE GOOD STUFF ON PAGE 160. See Shlo?

I will let the protective comedic shield down, momentarily, and I will attempt to write about being written about.  For there are only two real options in life, 1) someone else writes about you, or 2) write about yourself.  The first is preferable, though I will not hesitate, as clearly demonstrated, to resort to the second.

In seriousness, we, me and Shlo, knew the article was coming out, obviously.  Charles, who wrote the article, and Rebecca, who took the photos, were with us for a week in Florida, at the games, around the clubhouse, at the hotel.  So we have been waiting almost four months to see it.  Every time I am involved in a minor media explosion, which is often, my expectation is that it will somehow transform me.  And then the article or the film is released, and nothing changes, I am 99.9 percent similar to my prior self.  It is the power media has over us– well, me, anyways.  I am not sure what I expect to happen.  I have been lead to believe fireworks will fly from rooftops, maybe, or women, I think I expect things to just somehow be easier.  Maybe you are a better man, or woman, than I am, and you do not suffer this particular affliction, but I doubt it.

Today, for example, I bought the magazine, and jumped back in the car double-parked outside the magazine store.  I found our article between novel-length stretches of men’s fashion ads.  About halfway through the article a man rapped on my window and asked me to move, I was blocking his car.  He must have thought, what type of horrible idiot sits in his car, double-parked, blocking me, on a Wednesday, at noon, reading a magazine?!?!  Startled, I pulled around the corner and finished reading.  The whole thing took maybe 15 minutes.  Then, I put the magazine on the passenger seat, and drove home.  And now I am sitting at my desk.  In a couple of hours, if I can muster the motivation, I will go to Richie’s Gym.  Tonight, at 7, we have Yeshiva University softball practice.  The girls on the team will warm-up, they will stretch, and they will go through their throwing program.  We’ll work on defense, hitting, then we’ll condition at the end, like we always do.  And life will continue today as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow.

I am learning, as the order goes, the book is always better than the movie, but neither are as good as the real thing.

http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201303/team-israel-world-baseball-classic-qualifier

So, it’s been two weeks since I was named Director for the IAB.  I will not officially be employed by the IAB until summer.  But it is time for the work to begin.  There is so much to do.  But what, exactly, does the Director of Israel Baseball, how do you say… do?  The answer… is… I do not know.  But I am learning and organizing an army of warriors the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since 2006 with the release of the film 300.

This is Sparta– I mean, Israel Baseball!

As National Executive Director, I will be responsible for…

1) The Israel National Team Program.

2) 80 or so teams across the country in age divisions ranging from 8-and-under to 18-and-over.

3) Helping raise money for a new National Training Facility and Stadium.

4) General baseball educational services in schools and communities around the country.

In short, I will be responsible for introducing and integrating baseball into Israeli life, and improving the quality of baseball for those few people in Israel who already play.  It should only be slightly more difficult than defeating the entire Roman Army with 300 male models.

The possibilities are endless. But this is no time for fantasies, for there is work to be done.  That’s right, Ladies and Junipers, the King of Jewish Baseball must now leave your bedside, if only for a while, to attend to his duties as leader of Sparta, and the Israel Association of Baseball.  I shall return soon.

Victory is ours!

So, the big tournament, the tourney, what we had all come for, the 2013 AAU International Mens Fastpitch Softball Tournament (really rolls off the tongue).  36 teams from around the world.  The Gigantes, from Venezuela.  Hill United, with 8 members of Canadian National Team on their roster.  And Maccabi USA, the best, and only, believe it or not, all-Jewish team in the tournament….

Team Maccabi USA.

We played 4 games in 3 days. We lost all 4.  3 of the games we lost by “run rule”, meaning the other team was winning by 8 or more runs after 5 innings.  Here are the results, in order… 1-13, 0-9, 4-5, 1-9.

I will say, the 5-4 game was against the team that went on to win the tournament, the Hill United Chiefs, and was a thriller.  We were winning 4-1 in the 5th.  Everyone, fans, other teams, had crowded around the backstop to see if the Jewish Team could beat the best team there.  Eventually, we could not.  They scored 4 runs in the bottom of the 5th, then brought in Adam Folkard, the ace from the Australian National Team and hands-down the best pitcher in the world, to close the game.  What can I say? – Not the best performance ever.  But we held our heads high after each battle, and focused our collective Magical Jewish Softball Beam towards the future. So now, without further prancing about, Ladies and Jamskis, it is my pleasure and honor to introduce the proud warriors of Team Maccabi USA…

Batting first…

Dan Winters.  Los angeles, CA.  Head Coach/C/Superstar. Dan played for the Oakland A’s organization.  In 1985, he was traded, along with another minor leaguer, for Dusty Baker. We make sure to remind him often that it’s the worst trade in the History of Major League Baseball. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1346&dat=19850325&id=KpQsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2PsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1657,4359638

Dan Winnick.  San Francisco, CA. CF/Speed Medal Guitar Soloist/Tech Genius/the King of Jewish Softball!

Jason Gluckman aka CLUCKATRON. Los Angeles, CA. P/C/DH/Destroyer of many things/nasty habit, one of many, of pitching great in big games.

Tony Kahan. Chicago, IL.  C/Coach/CLUTCH performer/the King of All base clearing doubles.

Mike Goldman aka Goldy. New York, NY. 2B/OF/Admin Genius/King of All Jewish Lawyers, and that’s saying something.

Scott Wortman. Hometown Hero straight out of Florida. Disabled List (back)/Scorekeeper/Recently found GUILTY of wearing the questionable “Softball Visor”.

Aaron Owens. Los Angeles, CA. Played in the Brewers organization. C/1B/2B/P/Hell, anywhere on the field/high octane motor/suffers burning sensations in arm when throws/maniac/granted official honorary J-status from the highest court in the land, that is to say, the King of Jewish Baseball.

Larry Silfen. Los Angeles, CA. 2B/the glue that binds us/King of All Courtroom Videography

Marty Weiner. Los Angeles, CA. OF/the Rookie/King of Firsts

Joe Shwartz. Arizona. 2B/OF/Breast Cancer Awareness Enthusiast/the King of Hard Hit Ground Balls Through the Right Side

Mark Brill aka the Jewish Bobby D. Miami, FL. 3B/avoided injury/voted South Florida’s Most Eligible Man of Mystery Jewish Softballer of the Year Award each of the last 11 years.

Nate Fish. Brooklyn, NY (soon to be Tel Aviv, Israel). SS/the King of All Jewish Baseball.

Not photographed:  Jacobo Dabbah aka Doc aka JoboJoboBoboBobo.  Mexico City, Mexico. P/lone representative of global non-American community/was either dodging the camera, or was attending to one of his many more important responsibilities as the King of All Jewish OBGYNs.

It was cold in New York, so the King of Jewish Baseball packed up his equipment, that is to say, his bag of scarves, handcuffs, and rabbits, and headed for sunny Orlando, aka, the Magical Land of Abandoned Styrofoam Castles, for the 2013 annual AAU Mens Fastpitch Softball Tournament.

The KOJB at Orlando’s ESPN Wide World of Sports

Beautiful Orlando.  Magical Orlando.  Disney’s Orlando.  But what happened here, in this place called Orlando?  For what was once clearly a thriving metropolis has been reduced to a bizarre stretch of giant gift shops, novelty stores, and Waffle Houses.  What ancient warriors are responsible for this destruction?  The conquistadors?   The Crusaders?  The economic collapse of 2008?  Many Kings used to ride the wooded trails of Route 192, I can tell, can feel their presence, horses lurching forward, breathe heavy under chainmail and steel visors, swords drawn, on their way to Disney World.  How could this have happened to the Great Kingdom of Central Florida?  Have a look for yourselves, but be warned, the following images are graphic, as in graphic design, highly colorful marvels of post-modern architecture selling almost exclusively post cards and fruit – art of the highest order, if you will…

Orange World, the world’s largest fruit stand.

Who can resist Giant Elvis? None shall pass!

Do not let the completely empty parking lot fool you.  Orlando’s economy is booming.

What is more welcoming than a giant wizard with a lazy eye? – That is correct, nothing.

Everyones’ favorite three headed Flarrafigator, guarding the gates of Orlando.

And so I leave Orlando confused, but optimistic.  For if one man named Walt can colonize and destroy an entire city with only the help of a mouse named Mickey, just imagine what the King of Jewish Baseball can accomplish with his army of Jewish Baseball Geniuses.

I am going to Orlando tomorrow.  I’m playing for the United States Maccabi Team in the annual AAU Mens Fastpitch Softball Tournament.  The tournament is taking place at the ESPN/Disney Wide World of Sports Complex that doubles as the Atlanta Braves Spring Training Facility.  Check it out…

The world of mens fastpitch softball is a Weird World indeed.  Normally, a team of all Jews– all anythings, would be unusual.  But in Mens Fastpitch, teams, especially in this tournament, for some reason, often have a cultural identity.  A team of Native Americans, for example, or a team of Kiwis (the game is big in New Zealand), a straight-edge team, a team of Jamaicans, or, in our case, a Jewish team.

Once you stop playing mainstream sports, whenever you’re out of the system, which inevitably happens for all of us, at some point, you have two options, you can stop playing altogether, or you can join in the Weird World of Sports, that level of sports just beneath the Major Leagues or the NBA or NFL, where people train like pros, but there is no money, and even less glory – this is the world of pro kayaking and triathlons, low-level boxing, ping-pong, trampolining, cup stacking, speed walking, roller derby, and, of course, mens softball.  It is a world millions of people participate in, and still, somehow, no one cares about, no one writes about, no one knows about.

I was introduced to Fastpitch softball in 2005 when I played for the USA in the Maccabi Games.  The next summer, in 2006, I played a full season of pro mens fastpitch for the 6th ranked team in the world.  We traveled for 12 weeks starting in the Dominican Republic where we played a 7 game series against the Dominican National Team, and headed generally northward, finishing the season in Canada at the “World Tournament” where the top 40 teams in the world go each year to compete for the title of best in the world, the Major Leagues of softball.

a young KOJB with the short stop from the Dominican National Team

Fastpitch softball is challenging.  The pitchers are only 46 feet away, and they hop forward closing the gap even farther before throwing the pitch.  The hardest throwers in the world throw the ball in the low 80s.  Taking into consideration the velocity and the distance, it is the equivalent in baseball to what would be a 125 mile per hour fastball.  This video gives you a pretty good perspective…

So, Orlando.  There are a total of 36 teams in the tournament.  We have 1 game tomorrow, 2 games Friday, and 1 more Saturday.  Then the playoffs begin, if we can make it that far.  Championship Game is Sunday.  Stay tuned.  Florida, I’m coming back, already.  Team Maccabi, live, in action, this weekend.  Will let you know what happens…