The impact of this team on the Jewish community here is even beyond my fertile imagination.  This is not a just team of Jewish All Stars, this is a team of the Jewish people and each and every one of them is proud to be representing Israel.  Not only do they come to me and thank me for this opportunity, their parents come to me and tell me that their kids have not had this much fun playing baseball since little league.  On their teams they are Jewish, but are reserved about it.  On this team they can celebrate it together with their peers both from Israel and from the US.  We are all one family.  I was sitting behind our on deck circle with Elliot Maddox (former Met/Yankee/Oriole who did clinics in Israel with the IBL in 2007)  telling him of our plans for the Raanana field.  As usual I was passionate and probably a bit loud.  Our player who was on deck comes to me and tells me "Haim - focus on the game".  To which Elliot replied unflinchingly -  "He's focused on his job,  you got to focus on yours."   I enjoy watching our Israeli players having fun with the Israeli players who have yet to make Aliya, and to have our players address Shawn Green as Greenie.  The warmth we receive from the entire Jewish community is overwhelming.  The game scores are linked to almost every Jewish newspaper's web site  Last night Yaron was stopped by a cop.  He showed him his Israeli license and the cop said - "Your from the Israeli team,  go ahead". 

It is 4 days and 2 victories since my last post, 8 hours until the first pitch of Israel Baseball's definitive hour. Two exciting baseball games. Two huge steps for Israel Baseball. My barometer for our success is the Israeli Hebrew Press. They with few exceptions have ignored Israel's participation in the WBC and certainly do not 'get' what this is all about. (Eli Wohlgelander in jpost did 'get' it). After the victory over South Africa we made it to the bottom of the sports page headlines. The victory over Spain has moved us to the bottom of the front page headlines. We have had interviews with Galei Zahal and Mabat so we are getting there. (I make no future projections in this blog).

It is important for me to write these words now, before our final game without knowing the outcome.  I am proud of Team Israel.  I am proud of everyone.  I am proud of our manager Brad Ausmus who I believe is the best active manager in baseball today.  He has conducted himself with total integrity and with the two goals of 1) winning the tournament and 2) Developing baseball in Israel.  I am proud of his coaching staff, his players and the players who came and did not make the team.  I am proud of our support staff, and I am proud of our 8 year old minor team in Modiin who have to throw down bases every Friday in the middle of a traffic island to play baseball.   All of us our team Israel.  We have much to do and a long way to go, to bring the traditions of Greenberg, Koufax and Green to the land of Abraham Isaac and Jacob.  But it is happening, not only in Jupiter but in Jerusalem as well.