What the f***?

What the f*** was that all about?

The Israel Baseball League's promised expanded second season was reduced to four-team, three-week, 20-game "momentum-building" mini-season, truncated to a one-week "show" festival, reduced to a five-game "show" festival, cut to a one-night stand-- and ended with nothing.

NOTHING.

For all the lip-flapping and free-lunch-acceptance from IBL apologist Shoeless Leon Feingold, for all the deceptive posts on the IBL website, and for all the twitterings of "in-coming President" David Solomont, the supposed saviour with pretensions of installing himself as Presidente of the Dominican Republic of The Middle East Baseball League-- for all the abuse that anonymous commenters heaped on Our Man Elli in Israel's accurate and groundbreaking and award-deserving coverage (and you can find your own links this time, because we're disgusted)-- they never played a f***ing game!

It never happened!

Our Man Elli reports that Shoeless Leon and the other IBL "All-Stars" who got a free trip from the States to Israel have headed back home (hopefully without any transmitted diseases, which could be a possibility if our spies are correct-- Neve Ilan ain't the Olympic Village, boys).

Russell Robinson of the Israel National Fund has checked out of his five-star hotel without ever throwing a first pitch. And David Solomont has also fled the country.

Israel Association of Baseball President Haim Katz, whose group was falsely accused of stopping the tournament that was ever advertised, insured or manned, told Elli today:

"This week changed nothing; It did not affect any change in their (the IBL's) status or in their license to play baseball. No matter what they would have done, it wouldn’t have affected that status.

"It was irrelevant if they played one game or two games or no games. Nothing was coordinated with us beforehand, so it didn't have any bearing on the future."

Mr. Katz, we must disagree. We'd say that a lot has changed.


As long as the people leading the alleged IBL (Larry Baras, David Solomont Martin Berger and the gang) hang around, it will be tougher to get anyone else interested in taking a new approach. Even if the IAB puts the IBL out of our misery by deciding it will no longer deal with its "executives," any other group stepping forward will have to deal wit h the baggage.

Bottom line:

Who will buy their bulls*** now?

And what the f*** was that all about?

Where's the Associated Press coverage of all this?

Oh, right. They only refashion press releases.

Where's bigtime Jerusalem Post sports editor Jeremy Last and his team? Watching the Olympics on television? Or because of the embarrassing publicity, has he gotten the order not to use this site as a source?

Does Jeremy Last still think the IBL failed because there was no promotion among Israelis?

Stay tuned here for a major announcement on the future of coverage of the Israel Baseball League and its fallout.

"This is going to be the Dominican Republic of the Middle East... Our players are going over to put on a show!"

--IBL's new "in-coming president" Solomont

IAB'S KATZ: "WE DIDN'T STOP IBL SHOW FEST... THEY SENT GUYS OVER WITHOUT COORDINATION, INSURANCE OR TEAM TO PLAY... BELATEDLY ASKED OUR ASSISTANCE"

"The IBL sent these
guys over here without
any coordination
with us, no insurance
and didn't arrange
to have a team
for them to play."

--Haim Katz, Israel Association of Baseball

As soon as it was clear that the Israel Baseball League's show festival was not going to happen, so began the spin that the well-intentioned executives of the IBl were stopped from playing by the Israel Association of Baseball, the sport's governing body that had withdrawn the IBL's certification and canceled its contracts back in January because of the massive debts it had left behind from the first season.

We went directly to IAB president Haim Katz, who replies to our questions this morning:

TABLOID BABY: Why did the IBL cancel opening day of its festival? Did the IAB stop them?

HAIM KATZ: You'll have to ask the IBL. The IAB was not involved in their planning of this festival. As you stated correctly, if some tourist show up and want to play a pickup game, it's not for the IAB to stop them. The IBL sent these guys over here without any coordination with us, no insurance and didn't arrange to have a team for them to play.

It's not surprising that they had to cancel their game.

We've heard that IAB won't let them play until all the debts from last season are paid. Is this true?

HAIM KATZ: While the IAB is recognized by the Israel Sport's authority as the governing body for baseball in Israel, that doesn't mean that anyone who wants to pick up a bat and hit balls to his kid needs our permission. This authority refers to those who want to run an organized program.

They did, however, very belatedly request our assistance with this event. For this assistance they need to fulfill certain requirements which they state they will fulfill, but to date have not.

Will the "show" go on at all?

HAIM KATZ: While Israel is the land of prophets, to my knowledge none have been spotted for several millenniums.

10 days to go: Israel baseball fest unlikely

When the Israel Baseball League put out a press release announcing that a one-week “festival” and baseball “show” would replace its already-truncated four-team, 20-game, three-week, momentum-keeping mini-season on August 14th at the Yarkon Sports Complex at the Baptist Village, it also promised:

“Final roster spots will be determined and announced in the coming days.

“The full schedule of events will be announced on the IBL web site shortly.”

Here we are, eleven days later, with ten days left on the countdown clock, and so far, no final roster nor schedule has been announced. In fact, no further details of the festival have been announced, and last night, Israel Association of Baseball president Haim Katz told Our Man Elli in Israel that “ The field at Baptist (is) in the worst shape I’ve seen it in 10 years!”

Sadly, it’s looking more and more likely that David Solomont’s plans to turn Israel into “the Dominican Republic of the Middle East” will not be happening anytime soon.

“My suspicion is that the announcement of the festival may have been designed more to help raise money from investors than anything else,” another insider tells Elli.. “If it doesn't proceed, that may mean there's been little progress on the money front. It's apparent Solomont doesn't want to risk his money on the venture.”

“No schedule has been published. Nor has there been any further announcement concerning the festival or the IBL's activities. So I'm beginning more and more to think this may be more show than substance,” says another.

And as for the seven-man “All-Star team” promised to participate, another source confides: “At least one guy told (IBL “Director of U.S. Operations” Martin I.) Berger to forget the festival. That means they’re down to six guys.”

Haim Katz says he's in the dark on IBL's baseball "show" festival: "I just read Tabloid Baby... where most of my information comes from!"

As we reported in part one of Our Man Elli in Israel’s encounter with Israel Association of Baseball boss Haim Katz, while the focus was on Israel’s participation in the Freeport, Pennsylvania international ”For The Love of The Game” baseball tourney, Elli’s mind was on the Israel Baseball League and it upcoming one-week “show” that’s supposed to begin in Baptist Village on August 14th.

Katz, whose group refused to sanction the IBL unless it covered outstanding debts from last season, could only, at least figuratively, shake his head at “in-coming president” David Solomont’s stunt.

“No one told me about it,” said Katz, who had just gotten home from playing at Baptist Village tonight. “The field at Baptist was in the worst shape I’ve seen it in 10 years! It certainly didn't look like they were getting ready for some great event.

“But I have no idea. I just read Tabloid Baby like you do. That’s where most of my information comes from.

“I just read Tabloid Baby like you do.
That’s where most of my information comes from.”

No, he didn’t say it twice. We just wanted to repeat the line.

When Elli asked if the IBL could sponsor a tournament without sanctioning by the IAB, Katz was forthright: “We are in charge of baseball in Israel,” he said. “In a private field, I don’t know if that’s an issue or not. I can’t tell you that any kid who picks up a bat and hits a ball needs my permission.

“But if someone wants to run a league, that’s a different story.”

Katz told Our Man Elli that the IAB board would meet soon to discuss all the issues on the table.

IAB's Katz: Israel's baseball future is bright (and no, he's not talking about the Dominican Republic of the Middle East Baseball League)

Who says there’s no baseball in Israel?

Our Man Elli happened to run into Haim Katz, head of the Israel Association of Baseball (the governing body that must give permission for the Israel Baseball League to play), at Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv this past week, where Elli was picking up his visiting sister and Katz was freshly home from the baseball tournament in Pittsburgh we told you about a couple of Sundays ago.

Elli, of course, dropped his visitor's luggage and ran like OJ through the terminal to buttonhole Katz and pepper him with Qs about the Israel Baseball League. Katz, exhausted from the trip, told Elli to call him tonight—- which he did.

Elli wanted to know about the IBL’s upcoming “show” that’s supposed to begin in Baptist Village on August 14th. Katz was willing to talk about it. But first, he wanted to talk about something far more glorious, and something that says far more about the future of Israel than the “festival” that’s not been advertised nor begun to sell tickets.

It was the all-Israeli baseball team he’d brought to Pennsylvania for the tournament called ”For The Love of The Game” (would that be an apt name for the IBL’s Festival next week?), and in a slap with a wet whitefish to those who say there are no native Israeli love of the game, the team was made up entirely of Israeli high schoolers.

They did go one and fourteen, but ech! Katz loved it!

“There were no standings in the tournament,” Katz told Elli tonight. “It’s called ‘For the Love of the Game,’ so the main purpose was to play as much baseball as possible, and to give our kids experience so they could play at a higher level of baseball in the future. Most of them will be playing next year on the Maccabiah team (July 12-23, 2009).

“They played 15 games in five days, and they played very well in one of the games they lost-- to a team from Maryland, composed of freshman college players from Division One and Division Three. And we lost 4-2. We played an incredible game, excellent defense, against really good pitchers.

“We had a few base runners, we just couldn’t get them in!

“A few games we played really well. Then we ran out of pitching. Our team was much younger than other teams we played. I’m very proud of them.”


The games were played in Freeport, about 30 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, featuring forty teams from around the world. The Israeli team consisted of eighteen kids. They played four games a day.

“The atmosphere was incredible,” Katz told Our Man Elli. “We were the superstars of the tournament! We were featured daily in the local papers there-- they ran a centerfold spread about us. I’d go to a gas station to buy water, people would come up to me: ‘Oh you’re from Israel, it’s fantastic you’re here.’ In terms of PR, and the feelings you have-– it never felt so great being an Israeli.”

Katz also praised the Jewish community of Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, which hosted the team. “The Jewish community in Pittsburgh went out of their way, in every way, to host us.”

Meanwhile, the juvenile Israeli team, made up of 10- to 12-year-olds, played in three small tournaments in Italy this weekend. They did very well, although they lost the final today 10-1, to a team from Czech Republic they’d beaten 10-0 in the first game of the round-robin tournament.

All told, the juvenile team won 7, lost 3 and tied 1.

Sez Haim Katz: “These kids will be playing in the Maccabiah Games in 2013.”

When Elli asked him to assess the over picture of youth baseball in Israel, Katz said, “Things are pretty rosy. We’re increasing the number of players, we are getting into more places, and more kids are getting involved. And we’re getting more cooperation from municipal authorities and from schools. In general it’s pretty positive.”

He credits the rise in baseball popularity to more exposure to baseball. “The IBL contributed somewhat, and there’s more baseball on cable TV, which exposes the people to it. Israel is becoming more and more Americanized and we’re capitalizing on it. People are looking for different things to do, this is one of them.”

What did Haim Katz have to say about the IBL's planned baseball "show" festival? And what did he have to say about Tabloid Baby? Stay tuned...

IAB to IBL: "P-A-Y your IOU's, you SOB's!"

Dateline: Jerusalem. Our Man Elli in Israel, rushing for Shabbat, reports that as of this moment, Israel's baseball governing body has not, and will not, sanction play by the Dominican Republic of the Middle East Baseball League— also known as the Israel Baseball League-- until all debts are paid in full.

Haim Katz, president of the Israel Association of Baseball spoke with El Presidente Solomonte (known among Boston businessmen as David Solomont) yesterday, and told him in no uncertain terms that the IBL has no agreement with the IAB, and that the IAB has no interest in discussing one unless the debts from the IBL’s first season are paid-- starting with Gezer, where the IBL won't be playing this summer, because Gezer wants to be paid for last season.

Katz says the IAB will only talk turkey with the new IBL regime after debts are paid, and says there will be no preconditions of preferential treatment over any other group or individual interested in professional baseball in Israel.

The IAB board is to meet soon, and is expected to vote overwhelmingly not to have anything to do with the IBL.

It’s not clear if the IAB has the legal power to stop the six-game “festival” at which Solomont promises his “players are going to put on a show,” but sources tell Elli that in any case, the IAB will probably stand back and let the IBL implode by itself.

"If any exec of the IBL shows up," a source tells Our Man, "I assume they'll get served legally by Israeli creditors who haven't been paid."

"This is going to be the Dominican Republic of the Middle East... Our players are going over to put on a show!"

--IBL's new "in-coming president" Solomont

There is Israel Baseball this summer! In Pittsburgh.

Our Man Elli in Israel alerts us that there is baseball in Israel this summer, after all!

Only it’s in Pittsburgh.


Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Valley News Dispatch
Sunday, July 20, 2008

Israel teams join Freeport Tournament

By Paul Kogut

Haim Katz, president of the Israel Association of Baseball, arrived last week in Pittsburgh to visit family members and prepare for the 14th annual Freeport International Baseball Invitational.

About 20 players and three coaches are expected to join Katz this morning, as Israel gets ready to participate in the weeklong event for the first time.

The Invitational, which goes by the motto "For the love of the game," offers a laid-back atmosphere.

There are about 100 games, but no playoffs or champions. Technically, results don't matter.

The main goals are having fun and exchanging cultures. Katz said this is the first time an Israeli baseball team will play in the United States in about four years.

"The players are very excited," Katz said. "We usually go to European tournaments and play four or five games. They're kind of high-powered games. Some players will play more, some less. If we come away and lose a lot of games, there can be a lot of tension."

That shouldn't be a problem this week. Israel, which will field two teams, will be in high demand this week.

Foreign teams are always at the top of local teams' request lists.

"Everyone is excited to see them play," Invitational president Chuck Sarver said.

Last year, Australia made its debut at the Invitational and was in the spotlight. Australia has returned, along with Japan and four teams from Canada...