Blue Sox vs. Pioneers

Last week, Israel got its very own professional baseball league. And tonight, I went to my first Israel Baseball League game. It was the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox vs. the Petach Tikva Pioneers. (IMHO, whoever made up the names of the six teams in the league did a pretty lousy job.) When I got to the field, which is in the middle of a corn field in Kibbutz Gezer (each field is the home of two teams) the first thing I thought was that this was more similar to my cousins' Little League games I went to last summer than any other professional game I've ever been to. It was very cute, thought at first I was thinking more along the lines of pathetic.
The fact is, the game was very different from most professional games. For one thing, it was only 7 innings. I don't know whose idea that was, but it was pretty weird. And the whole stadium, and the huge screens, and the massive amounts of fans. Here it was two bleachers, a bunch of chairs, mostly full, and a few girls from some birthright-like program who got really into the cheering and a little bit annoying. On the plus side, there was Burger's Bar.
As it happens, this game was a bit historic. Petach Tikva scored four runs in the first few innings, and Bet Shemesh didn't get anything. Then in the 5th inning, Bet Shemesh got two runs, and in the 7th got two runs simultaneously. This called for a tiebreaker in the form of a home run derby, which is where each team sends three players, each player gets six swings pitched by one of their teammates, and the team with the most home runs wins. And then that was also tied... So they had to have a meeting to figure out what to do next. They ended up repeating the concept with one player each, and Bet Shemesh won.
Wow. I highly doubt I've ever written that much about a baseball game. Goodness knows I probably got the terms all wrong.
And speaking of the terms, baseball terms don't exist in Hebrew. They were all kinda transliterated, which was somewhat amusing.
So since the whole league is kind of small, it makes it that much cuter. The players are into talking to the fans, and this one Blue Sox player kept throwing balls over the fence while he practiced. When the Blue Sox won, they were all jumping around, they were so cute!
The thing with the IBL is that it really appeals mostly to Americans. I am somewhat American, and I didn't particuarly mind that the game brought out the American in me, but the fact is that most of Israelis don't like baseball much. It's just not an Israeli thing. Not to mention that a lot of the website and the commentary at the game is in English. So there's a chance that it won't survive. Sad.
But the bottom line is, it was a really cool game (not that I know anything about baseball, but I think it was) and a lot of fun! Except that the league is tiny.