Hamas War

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Playing Ball in Israel-- Strike One?


Or should the umpire decide?
Honestly, I'm totally on the sidelines; I never went to an Israeli Baseball game. Actually, I doubt if I've ever been at a baseball game in my life at all. Punchball doesn't really count, right?
I certainly have nothing against the fact that there was baseball here in Israel this summer.

Apparently, things weren't as great as they could have been. Read this article by Elli Wohlgelernter. picture credit

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

'Expose'? Whoa. It was the beginning year, everyone knows that hardly any Israeli has heard of baseball here, there are no 'world-class' baseball diamonds here, Israeli players are all rookies, etc...

A) I think the idea of bringing baseball here reeks of galut, B) for now, while a lot of work was put into it and it was a dinky little endeavour, give it a break, let it grow, let it live or die by itself. C) The reporter is a sh_ _ck for sensationalizing the faults and I wonder what his agenda really is. Then again, I don't care, he's a sh_ _ck. I would warn everyone about the credibility of his writing if this is his style.

One thing though was right; you can't run an Israeli enterprise from the east coast of 'America'.

Batya said...

Let's see what happens next year.
For most people, it was just a fun experience, and just like they wouldn't like to know how "circus people" really live, they don't care about what happens in the "dug out."

Anonymous said...

Thanks for a well written article!To make improvements ,we must discuss all the things that went wrong this past season.Hopefully, next year u can report all of them!

Batya said...

For baseball in Israel to continue, the problems must be solved, not whitewashed, or "ti'ach'd," plastered over, as we say in Hebrew.

Anonymous said...

When it's about an entrepreneur, it's not about whitewashing at all, better leaning on airing dirty laundry. I think that the article (actually seems to be a series of articles this reporter is infatuated with his 'scoop') could have been written in a much more sympathetic way instead of the hunt for blood attitude. The agenda of this article was to delegitimize the concept of Israeli baseball under the current 'league'. Oh, and reporting only one side of the story is usually a sign of very poor reporting.

This general attitude these days is to let out vicious criticism with regard to many endeavours individuals might attempt whether it's a genuine business, or especially more private events like something in a neighbourhood or on a yishuv. I like the word 'firgun'. It does not equal whitewashing but rather support. We are missing so much firgun in our lives that many people simply do not want to take chances and rish failure.

Batya said...

josh, good points
thanks