1999-2010

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Jerusalem Post's editor-blogger: "No Israel baseball book, but I may pen follow-up story for the Post"

Jerusalem Post writer and editor Sam Ser says he’s not planning a book about the rise and fall of the Israel Baseball League, nor was he greasing the skids for an IBL PR swing yesterday when he posted a glowing, ten-month-old Post story about the IBL’s Opening Day (the Jerusalem Post’s last substantial story on the IBL shonda) on his website.

But Sam Ser says he is planning to write an update on the IBL’s saga— the details of which have been painstakingly laid out here, thanks to the intrepid and fearless reporting of Our Man Elli in Israel.

Sam Ser responds this morning to our story yesterday about the appearance on his website of the long, heartwarming story that appeared in the Jerusalam Post magazine back in June of last year. Its sudden resurfacing amid a surge of outdated and misleading Israel baseball postings across the Internet that have given the impression that the league is alive and well-- along with the Post’s lack of attention on its major hometown story-- led us to ask if Sam was planning a book.

That answer is "no." It turns out Sam Ser is a friend of Our Man Elli (who’s carried the water for every well-paid “mainstream” sports reporter in the business when it came to covering the rise and fall of the Israel Baseball League, painting an evolving and sobering picture of the shattered dreams and unpaid bills left behind by the carpetbagging American businessmen who made a “quick hit” before stealing home and leaving Israel without professional baseball this year or possibly years to come).

Elli got in touch with Sam, who’s packing for a US lecture tour. Sam emails Our Man Elli to say he’s not planning a book, there were no ulterior motives in posting that and other stories on what's essentially an archival site for his extensive writings on many Israel-related subjects (he'd uploaded dozens of stories yesterday).

And he says that we, in our sarcasm, were off base. We will not argue the call.

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