Israel is entering into baseball history after signing its first two players, Adam Crabb, from South Australia and Dan Rootenberg, an Israeli living in New York, to the newly established Israel Baseball League (IBL).
According to Israel21c, tryouts for the team were held on November 10th, at the Sportek athletic facility in Petah Tikva. More than 60 enthusiastic Israelis, hoping to play professional baseball, showed up for the tryouts, which were run by Dan Duquette, the former General Manager of professional teams, Montreal Expos and Boston Red Sox. Duquette is the current Director of Player Development for the Israel Baseball League.
The league's Commissioner, Daniel Kurtzer, made the following comment regarding the diversity of the league, "the league will have strong local interest with a large number of native-born players, but will also have a good percentage of experienced players from the international arena to insure a high quality of play."
For many who came to the tryouts, it offered a chance to fulfill a dream. Such was the case for Ari Alexenberg, an Orthodox Jew who was one of the participants. Ari commented, "When I grew up in Israel (baseball) didn't exist, and when I moved to the States, all the games were played on Shabbat, so I couldn't play...The fact now that there is an opportunity to play in Israel, at the age of 45, was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
"The league's Opening Day is scheduled for June 24, 2007, and will include six teams.
Word of Life Israel
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