What a Year for Jews in Baseball!

For any baseball fan who pays special attention to the few (very few) good Jewish baseball players in Major League Baseball, 2017 was a very exciting year. And the excitement started even before the MLB season kicked off. In a Times of Israel article, I wrote about the memorable seven days of March that were magical for the ragtag Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic. Nate Freiman of Team Israel referred to his squad as "The Mensches of March" and they were known for their iconic "Mensch on the Bench" doll and for donning yarmulkes during the playing of Hatikvah (Israel's national anthem) before games. Team Israel became the pride of every Jewish kid around the world who had been waiting for their big Sandy Koufax or Hank Greenberg-esque excitement.

With the bar mitzvah boy before the Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia

The next big moment in Jewish baseball (at least for me) came in late July. I flew to Philadelphia to officiate the bar mitzvah of a special needs boy before the Philadelphia Phillies game. About 100 of us gathered in a party room at the ballpark to watch this young man be called to the Torah (yes, I brought a small Torah into Citizens Bank Park!) along with his therapy dog (it was a bark mitzvah too!). Officiating a bar mitzvah before a Major League Baseball game inside the stadium was pretty cool and I couldn't imagine what could top it on that special night. And then the game went into extra innings. In the bottom of the 11th inning, pinch hitter Ty Kelly, a nice Jewish kid from Dallas, hit the walk off RBI to win the game for the Phillies. The bar mitzvah boy was ecstatic (along with the other Philly fans in the packed ballpark). The 29-year-old Kelly, who proudly wears a Jewish star necklace, has a Jewish mother and played for Team Israel this past year.

The excitement of the 2017 MLB season for fans of Jewish baseball players continued right up to the very end with two elite Jewish sluggers squaring off against each other in the World Series. Both Joc Pederson of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Alex Bregman of the Houston Astros had memorable postseason performances. Pederson had 3 homers in the postseason and Bregman had 4 homers and 10 RBI in the postseason. Had the Dodgers emerged victorious, Pederson was surely a candidate for World Series MVP.

Alex Bregman, of the 2017 World Champion Houston Astros, is one of the top Jewish MLB players today

The 2017 World Series had a couple notable moments for Jewish baseball fans. Pederson had all 3 of his postseason home runs in the World Series, giving him the record for most home runs by a Jewish player in one World Series, moving him past Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg. Bregman also makes the Jewish baseball record books becoming the first Jewish player to win a World Series game with a walk-off hit (in game 5 of the World Series). Both Bregman and Pederson homered in Saturday night's game 4, making them the first Jewish baseball players on opposing teams to homer in the World Series in the same game. Wow, that's a lot of records for one World Series.

Israel's 7 Day Baseball Miracle of 2017

In the foyer of my home hangs a large piece of art featuring the most successful Jewish baseball players of all time. Most die-hard Jewish baseball fans would struggle to name every player in the rendering and there aren’t even enough uniformed players in the group to field a full roster. However, for seven days in March, young Jewish baseball fans like my 13-year-old son could name the entire starting lineup of Team Israel. This underdog group of a few former major leaguers and career minor leaguers took the baseball world by storm going undefeated in the first round of the World Baseball Classic.

This team made up of all Jewish players (at least one grandparent would suffice) and a few actual Israelis was unique. Some referred to them as the United States JV squad, but as Team Israel player Nate Freiman wrote in a Player’s Tribune article, “The Mensches of March,” these guys wouldn’t even make that team if it existed. Freiman beautifully summed up what this experience meant for him, his teammates and Jewish baseball fans around the globe. “So there we were, flying high and talking nonstop about whether they’ll make a movie about us someday.” Someone even suggested calling the movie “Jewsiers,” a play on the popular mid-1980s film “Hoosiers” about Indiana high school basketball. The team that had to get batting practice from local coin-operated batting cages before the World Baseball Classic began somehow became a miracle team during those seven days of March.

From the team’s iconic large stuffed “Mensch on a Bench” doll to their decision to exchange their baseball caps for team yarmulkes during the playing of Israel’s national anthem before games, Team Israel became a source of pride for the Jewish community in the days surrounding the holiday of Purim, remembered as a miraculous triumph over a wicked persecutor who sought to exterminate the Jewish people. (Freiman compared the team’s success with the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, albeit a seven day miracle instead of eight.) I was curious about how this team of MLB has-beens and never-will-bes embraced their Jewish heritage and represented Israel, a country many of them had never visited. I also wanted to know if the team experienced any anti-Semitism or criticism for representing Israel, the little nation that so many love to vilify. I had the opportunity to talk to Peter Kurz, the President of the Israel Association of Baseball, and ask him about the making of this Jewish baseball team that was compared to the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team.

First of all tell me a little bit about your role with Team Israel and how you got involved with the team?

Peter Kurz: For the past 4 years I’ve been the President of the Israel Association of Baseball and before that I was the Secretary General of the IAB for 8 years. So obviously when I came down to get a general manager for team Israel 5 years ago for the qualifiers, the president at the time said you’re the only one left standing so you might as well be it. So I started right away and I’ve been in that position ever since and I’m very happy with it.