Israel Dreams Big, as in Big League
Excerpts:
PEOPLE go to Israel for different reasons. Some go to see historic sites, some go for religious reasons, some go to visit their children and grandchildren. Larry Baras goes to Israel to build a professional baseball league.
Baras, founder and operator of a specialty baking company in Boston, is going to Israel next Thursday for the next step in getting his league ready for what he plans to be its debut next year.
"Hopefully I'm going to select some of the venues," he said in a telephone interview. "As soon as I get some of the venues in place, we'll go after sponsorships and start selling tickets."
"I met with Larry and was really impressed with his enthusiasm," Dan Duquette, former general manager of the Boston Red Sox, said yesterday. "The program and the objectives of the league really excited me."
Commissioner Bud Selig is also enthusiastic about the idea. "I am 100 percent not only supportive," he said, "but I have been trying to figure out ways to make it happen. It's a subject very near and dear to my heart."
"We would recruit some Jewish-American major leaguers and minor leaguers," Baras said. He noted that Mike Piazza played for Italy in this year's inaugural classic and said, "They did it with a bit of a stretch. We don't have that stretch. We have the law of return."
Under that concept, any Jew is eligible to become a citizen of Israel. That means an Israeli team could include Kevin Youkilis, Gabe Kapler and Adam Stern of Boston, David Newhan of Baltimore, Shawn Green of Arizona, Brad Ausmus of Houston, Mike Lieberthal of Philadelphia, Jason Marquis of St. Louis, Scott Schoeneweis of Toronto, John Grabow of Pittsburgh and Scott Feldman of Texas.
But first the Israel Baseball League has to come into existence. To achieve that goal, Baras has recruited some impressive non-playing talent.
In his visit next week, Baras will study soccer stadiums in Israel with the thought of converting them for baseball use for what he expects to be a season of about 48 games with six teams, 20 players to a team...he will look at towns like Bet Shemesh, which is between those two major cities.
"A lot of Americans live there," Baras said. "They have 200-plus kids playing baseball there, and they have a soccer stadium. It's near the main highway, and the train from Jerusalem stops near the stadium, I am told."
Israel may be the land of milk and honey, but it's not a land of baseball players. Where will Baras find them? He plans to model the league on the Italian league, where, he said, 60 percent of the players are from the United States.
Baras, an orthodox Jew, said he came up with the idea for the league last summer.
"My first thought was what can I do to help Israel," he related. "I had reached the stage of my life where I wanted to do something. Being passionate about both Israel and baseball and having familiarity with minor league baseball, specifically unaffiliated baseball, I said, 'Why can't we do that over there?'
"Not only was I met with some skepticism, but I was skeptical," he added. "But as time went on, I realized it could be done."
Now he just has to do it.
Hey, why not ask Steve Leibowitz to help? He knows American sports in Israel. Click here to write to him.
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