Game On

Monday, June 25, 2007, 6:00 p.m., Game 1 of the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox season.
Location: Gezer Field at Kibbutz Gezer outside of Jerusalem (Gezer is pronounced "Geh-zer", not "Geezer").
The opponent: The Netanya Tigers.
Gezer Field is set up in, well, the middle of nowhere amongst fields and fields of 3-4 foot tall sunflowers. The baseball field is a converted softball diamond, the first ever constructed in the State of Israel. It was built by David Leichman, a thoughtful, energetic resident of Gezer for many years now. David is a big "macha" at Gezer and he still plays competitive fastpitch softball in his mid-50s while working hard to make Kibbutz Gezer the thriving community that it is. His pride is apparent in the fact that his son, Alon, is one of the youngest members of the IBL. Alon, an infielder, is a member of the Blue Sox.
Working with what space they had, Gezer Field is somewhat unorthodox. Both dugouts are on the third base line, separated by about 10 feet. Naturally, the jokes started that a hockey game was sure to break out in the midst of this baseball game. The fences are fairly shallow...about 290 down the lines and about 360 in dead center. Sort of like the Astros ballpark, the outfield slopes uphill to the fence, although at Gezer, that is true all the way around the outfield and not just in centerfield. Our centerfield, a fleet and talented ballplayer from Virginia Beach is Sean Slaughter (I dare anyone to come up with a better baseball name than that). Sean tested the angles and figured out that it was easiest to cover the most ground by starting up on the hill in either right or left center. Our right fielder, Jason Rees, had to contend with another Houston-like obstacle...a light pole that is inside the rightfield fence. Jason mastered the angles in right, as did Mike Lyons in leftfield. All had to deal with what looked like a warning track of dirt that was about 20 yards in from the fence, which was really the area from which the original softball field fence had been ripped. The basepaths were a darker dirt and a little sandy, but our defense handled itself well. Our SS, Greg Raymundo, our #2 hitter, did strain a hamstring going from first to second when his foot slid in the sand, but he's a gamer and he'll be back shortly.
So, the game. Our starter was Jeff Mor, in honor of his Bet Shemesh residence. He had many, many fans in attendance and didn't let them down. He struck out the first two Tigers and induced a weak pop-up to first for the third out. He also got fined by our Kangaroo Court (of which, as the only lawyer, I am the Chief Justice) because he was "consorting with fans in between pitches from the pitcher's mound" as they cheered him on. We didn't score in the bottom of the first.
In the top of the second, we threw young Jason Benson at them. This kid can pitch. He's pitched in the minors here and came to the IBL from the CanAm league in Canada, where he was 4-0. He was hitting great spots at the knees and not getting calls from the ump. Meanwhile, big Leon Feingold from NYC was throwing heat for the Tigers, though he had trouble with his control. Nevertheless, his Tigers got him a run for a 1-0 lead. We then tied it up with some smallball. Things unhinged for good for big Leon when he nailed our catcher, Jake Ayres, right at the bottom of the earflap of his helmet with a fastball. Jake went down and stayed there for a few minutes (he's ok now and will be back in the lineup shortly). Leon whose a good guy, was rattled and took a bunch off his fastball after that (he can bring it upper 80s to low 90s). Johnny (JLo, Johnny LoLo) Lopez, our big first baseman, caught up with one and cleared the fences for what turned out to be the winning run.
I sat this one out, helped Blomberg coach and did the things you do when you're not playing...stayed ready and kept the guys in the game focused. I also drank a lot of water, something I'll be doing all season, as it was hot as a witches pitooty out there (I leave it to you to figure out what a pitooty is). What I learned was that I still have that burning competitive drive because I was really pissed that I didn't play. But it's a team game and we are a good team. This dog's day will come.

As an aside, we've had various sundry issues to deal with at the Kfar. The league is kinda figuring things out as they go along and it is surely coming together. Our league laundry is being picked up and it looks like they'll do our personal stuff, too. This is important because the big machas of the league had a misunderstanding with the Kfar folks and told us we could do our laundry on site in a large commercial washer and dryer. It turned out we cannot. Thankfully, though this has been worked out and, thankfully, I brought many, many pairs of BVDs. The food is the food...sometimes it sits right and sometimes I just sit for a while and read, if you catch my drift. We start running clinics for kids soon and I've had a blast signing autographs after games with my teammates.

Game 2, Tuesday, June 26th....Our starting pitcher was Ben Pincus, a really sharp lefty from Tampa Bay. I met him in NY this summer when he worked out with a bunch of us while he was doing an internship at CBS. He's got really nice stuff....he had a rough first inning because his mechanics were off, but he pitched out of it and we came up on the short side of a 2-0 score in the middle of the first. It was 2-1 in the bottom of the third. Hey now, I forgot to mention that I got the start in left field. No balls came my way and I only got one at bat. Our catcher, Scott J, lead off with a walk. I was given the bunt sign. This brash young righty, Danny Kaufman was on the hill. He went into the stretch and I squared, but pulled back as the pitch was high. Second pitch, I squared again, but Kaufman busted it inside for ball two. The bunt was still on so I squared again and laid down the best bunt of my life, dragging it up the first base line, past the pitcher. Everyone said I beat the throw, but I was called out. I ragged on Blomberg a little for not arguing the call, but it's all good. We had a runner on second and proceeded to load the bases. Then our rightfielder, Jason Rees, the IBL's featured player of the week on its website, cleared the bases and we went on to win 8-2. Blomberg pulled me and put Mike Lyons into left in the fourth, which I swallowed, but was not pleased with. Again, though, it is a team game and I will do whatever it takes to win. Of course, I expect to see a little more respect as games go forward. We also got stellar pitching performances from Raf "West Coast" Bergstrom, a big dude from the Bay Area of Cali who chucks hard and has a very niiiice change up, too. To boot, he wears # 54 and kinda resembles Goose Gossage from the Yankees back in the day. Aryeh Rosenbaum, a young lefty from Teaneck and Yeshiva U. came in to finish it up and pitched admirably out of a jam he got himself into by inducing a double play grounder and then getting the third out to end the game.

Game 3, Wednesday, June 27th...the Blue Sox are rollin'...our starter was my roomie, Scott "the Professor" "the Pearl" Perlman, a 41 year old master of the strike zone. He's a lot of fun to watch because he comes from all arm angles, mixing curveballs with sliders with changeups and fastballs. He is a smart pitcher who knows how to keep hitters off balance and he did so this game. He came out to a loud ovations from the crowd with the score 4-3 after he tired in the heat (game time temp was 103 degrees!) and hung a curveball on an 0-2 count that got out of the yard. We stretched the margin to the final score an inning later when Johnny LoLo took a high fastball 10 rows deep over the right field seats (10 rows of sunflowers that is, not seats). I coached first most of this game, relinquishing the spot to Perlman when he came out in hopes that I'd get the call to pinch hit or pinch run. Justin Cardinal got the start in left as he hadn't played yet. He's a great kid from Ottawa, Canada (our team is made up of a bunch of diverse, really interesting and good guys). He acquitted himself well in all aspects of the game and played six innings. Blomberg replaced him with Mike Lyons in the 7th. One of our durable and flexible pitchers, Juan Feliciano, made his second appearance and got the save.

Today, we're back at Gezer against our other roommate, Nate Ballenberg's team, the Ra'anana Express for bragging rights. Loser cleans the bathroom, too. Looks like it will be another hot one.

On another note, I am excited as Sam and my aunt Marsha are arriving tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m. Had a car delivered today so we can all get around and see some things and they will be able to get to games. Marsha will be writing about the league and Sam will be helping out in some capacity or another during my team's games.

I hope you all are well and enjoying your summers. If there is anything anyone would like to hear about as I learn how to blog better, just let me know and I'll do my best. Will be trying to upload some pix soon.