OMG could you all stop squabbling! The WBC has defined the rules to play, and this thread was started to congratulate Team Israel, a roster made up of mostly college/minor league/ex MLB Jewish ballplayers who did far far far better than expected. They were the underdogs, and caught the baseball watching world's attention. IT HAS TO BE GOOD! It shows (at least to me):
- on any given Sunday, anyone can win
- the international audience for baseball is alive and well and GROWING
- Don't ever discount Jason Marquis!
- Jerry Weinstein is a good coach
- Jewish players like Ian Kinsler might decide to play for TI going forward (he is not the only Jewish MLB player NOT to play for them)
- Israeli Little League (which does exist) is going to get a BIG bump from this, and many other small countries around the world can be similarly motivated to try to qualify next time around and grow the game in their own backyard
- There are only 4 guys on the roster who are on the 40 man squad for MLB (including HSBW son Bradley Goldberg!)
Let's put aside the arguing of what it takes to become a Jew, how to convert, who is close minded or who is not and just think back to some great epic battle of our own that we played in or our children played in or that we witnessed where some rag tag team of Bad News Bears misfits topple the favored stacked team. It is joyous to see people who love the sport don the uni of Israel and PROVE PEOPLE WRONG!!
Oh, and yeah son #1 actually does have a BRING THE HEAT ISRAELI BASEBALL shirt and has had it for like 2 years now!