What’s the Chottest Channukah gift of 2016? That’s easy. ISRAELIS DRIVE ANYTHING, the book. That’s right, Ladies and Geetles, using only the secret new technology called an “iPhone”, and obsessive compulsive behavior, I, the King of All Jewish Baseball, have created the world’s foremost useless collection of photos of Israelis driving… well, anything. I hunted Jazz Carriages, Donkey Carts, and Family Edition Mars Rovers through the streets of Jaffa, Israel for over three years. And now, without further ado, I humbly present THE BOOK. So go! Run! Click the link! Channukah is coming…
We are going to Korea for the World Baseball Classic. I think Korea is near Houston, or somewhere else in Mexico. I’m not sure. I’ve never been there. But I hear it’s nice in March.
Meetings for all 16 teams took place in New York City. The most powerful witches and wizards of the baseball universe sat around the table plotting their upcoming run at global domination, glaring from behind fake eye patches, Donald Trump masks, Oculus VR helmets, and other various symbols of evil and the near future. Who will win? Who won’t? Who will raise the cup and wear the ring? Who will get lost and show up late for batting practice? These were and still are the pressing questions of the hour.
Do not let the smooth taste fool you. As the seasons change from fall to winter, from baseball season to the off-season, reps of each team slip away from meetings to begin their clandestine work, getting commitments from players and coaches. What appears to be the slow time of the year is instead time to work, re-arm, and prepare for the Great Battle of Ultimate Enlightenment known as the World Baseball Classic.
World Baseball Classic Inc. released the full tournament schedule. Guess who plays the opening game? Papa New Guinea versus Alaska. Just kidding. It’s us. Israel. And guess who we play? Korea, the hosts, wherever that is.
It is I, King of All Jewish Baseball, once again, with the financial opportunity of a lifetime. Finally, your chance to do something good, GIVE US YOUR MONEY, to make right all the wrong, to be born anew, fresh and clean. All it takes is a small donation, an offering, if you will, something symbolic, a seared lamb shank, some sage, a few thousand here, a million there, a sacrificial Visa or Master Card number offered at the sacred alter of crowd funding, where self-anointed modern-day saints kneel before friends and family and accept the wealth they assuredly deserve. How can I do this, you ask? Allow me to explain.
Many months ago, my man Tom, aka Dizzy, Gillespie, King of All International Scouting for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Executive Director of Play Global (http://www.play-global.org/), called me and said he had an idea, “Let’s set up a series of fraudulent crowd funding campaigns,” he said, “then disappear forever into Mexico City.” Kidding, kidding. He said, “Fish, I have an idea, let’s start a program in Israel for Jewish and Arab kids to play baseball together. I am, after all, the King of All International Scouting for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Executive Director of Play Global, and you are the King of All Jewish Baseball and the Executive Director of the Israel Association of Baseball. Together, we could surely accomplish this.” To which I said, without thought, “That is a horrible idea, Tom. But let’s do it anyways.” And thus was born BASEBALL LE’KULAM, or, for those of you not fluent in transliteration, BASEBALL FOR ALL.
After much preparation and convincing of parents to loan us their children, on March 5th and 6th of the Great and Nearly Perfect year of 2015, 30 sixth graders, boys and girls, 15 Jewish kids, and 15 Arab kids, who would have never met despite living so close, the Jewish kids from Modiin, the Arab kids from Ramle, just a few miles apart, came together for Baseball Le’Kulam. None of them had ever played baseball before. But we played together. Some of them had never shared a dinner table with a member of the other group. But we ate together. And a few had never spent a night away from home. But we slept together– wait, that didn’t sound right.We slept over, in the same building, that is, the coaches staying up all night chasing the kids back into their rooms when they tried to escape to bond over junk food and air guitar bands.
And like that, magically, Baseball Le’Kulam went from a nice idea, a theory, to a real thing. The kids turned from names on a piece of paper into real human beings with real faces and real lives and real families. Just two weeks ago, all the kids and their parents and siblings were eating pizza and playing catch for Baseball Le’Kulam Family Nightas the sun set at Kibbutz Gezer. We have 2 more sessions, June 4th and 5th, and October 15th and 16th. But all this real pizza and real coaches for these real people costs real money. Which is where you come in.
Watch the video. Read the campaign page. And donate. If you can. We need it to continue the program. We will not go to Mexico City and put it all on black. Promise.
