Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Israel News

Baseball Roundup

America’s favorite pastime found an enthusiastic audience in Israel last Sunday. The Israel Baseball League’s opening day was a success, with an estimated 3,112 fans showing up to watch the Modi’in Miracle (managed by former New York Mets player Art Shamsky) take on the Petach Tikva Pioneers at Yarkon Sports Complex in Petach Tikva. Modi’in Miracle hitters were on the offensive, and the team claimed a 9-1 victory over the Pioneers.

But despite the full stands, Ha’aretz and other publications have reported skepticism about the IBL’s long-term popularity. In a country where fast-moving spectacles like soccer and basketball dominate the sports pages, baseball might seem tedious and boring.

The IBL is the country’s first-ever professional baseball league, and the 120 players come from around the globe; only 20 are from Israel. Each of the league’s six teams will play 45 regular games. There is an All-Star game midseason and a final championship game at the end of the season.

In other baseball news, Mets right fielder Shawn Green officially announced his pledge, to UJA-Federation of New York, of $180 for each run batted in. This is good news for UJA. With a respectable .290 batting average and 27 RBIs this week, it’s fairly certain that the slugger will bring home many more runs this season.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.