Who's spinning the IBL so late in the game?

Yes! Something is afoot when it comes to the Israel Baseball League. News can't travel that slowly, can it? Really, they’re can’t be that many Pollyannas with websites out there posting naïve wishes for success close to a month after we reported that the IBL has lost its license to play, through all these weeks of our reportage about the big meeting at which the bigwigs attempted to pull something out of the ashes, and the same week we find that some people are pushing for a Congressional investigation, however unlikely, to trace where the IBL money went.

But again, in the days after similar spinmeistered material showed up on sports sites including Carry On, Citizens and The Bleacher Report, we again awaken to another wishful, hopeful post, this time from a site, apparently based in Japan, called My World of Baseball, that says, a few weeks too late:

“Israel Baseball Faces Uphill Battle for Second Season.”

The post cites coverage from the International Herald Tribune and Miami Herald in November, stories that followed and copied Our Man Elli in Israel’s exclusive reportage, and observes that “while the league did finish its first season it did encounter financial difficulties, and concluded that “it appears the eyes of Larry Baras to promote baseball in Israel was larger than what his pocket book could handle.

"For the growth of baseball, it would be nice if the league could survive its second season, but economic realities and financial obligations may make that a challenge."

Say what? “Israel Baseball Faces Uphill Battle” seems to be the latest in an effort to cast Larry Baras and his IBL team in the most favorable unquestioning, light-- and to rewrite history before event coverage even reaches the archives. It’s too bizarre and self-serving to reprint in its entirety, so you can link to it here, and if you’ve got the stomach for it, use your email to set them straight.

Meanwhile the questions are: Why?, Why now? and Who?

(Be sure to visit Baseball in Israel, the archive site for all our coverage of professional baseball in Israel.)