Lots of baseball

Our last few days have been filled with baseball. First, we saw the new film “Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel,” a documentary which follows the team before and during the 2017 World Baseball Classic. In fact, the team was comprised of a group of American players of Jewish ancestry (not always Jewish according to the strict traditional definition which requires that one’s mother be Jewish or that one has undergone a proper conversion), none of whom had ever visited Israel before the trip they took in preparation for the tournament. But, as the film points out, Israel is not the only team that has “imported” members to play on its team.

The team even has a mascot, called “The Mensch on the Bench.” This word derives from the German word for human being but has come to signify a person of integrity and honor.

The documentary film crew happened to be in Israel at the same time that a ceremony was being held for the opening of a new ball field in Ra’anana named in memory of Ezra Schwartz ע”ה, an 18 year old young man from Sharon, Massachusetts, who was a brother of one of our grandson Joshua’s friends. Ezra was murdered by a terrorist gunman in Israel in 2015 while spending a year there after high school, and this was briefly included in the documentary. 

The Israeli team did pretty well. In their initial division, they won all three of their games, enabling them to go on to the next level, where they were able to win one game but unfortunately lost the other two, ending their inclusion for the next level.

On Sunday we went to see the Mets play at Citi Field for what will likely be our last game for 2019. It turned out to be the longest 9-inning game in Mets history, going 4 hours and 29 minutes! It came close to breaking the all-time 9-inning game record length in major league baseball history of 4 hours and 45 minutes (Red Sox vs. Yankees at Fenway Park in 2006). Needless to say, we did not stay until the very end, leaving in the 8th inning when the Mets were losing 10 to 7, which turned out to be the final score. We listened in the car, and the game was still not quite over when we arrived at home!

We look forward to the return of the boys of summer in 2020!

Love,

Rebecca