ISRAEL BASEBALL LEAGUE COMMISSIONER QUITS! BOARD MEMBERS FOLLOW! FINANCIAL, BUSINESS QUESTIONS CITED! OUR MAN ELLI VINDICATED!

"...the resigning members were distressed
that the league's finances and business operations
were not handled in a more professional manner and, in particular, that the league was unwilling
to provide relevant financial information
concerning its operating results.
They also noted significant staffing and
other organizational problems
that have beset the league since inception."

After months of controversy that erupted after a sound, journalistic report by Our Man Elli in Israel (the great journalist Elli Wohlgelernter) that was first published here, and days after Tabloid Baby revealed the details of a federal lawsuit that accused Israel Baseball League founder Larry Baras of fraud in using funds from a failing food company to start up the league, the IBL commissioner Daniel Kurtzer, the former US Ambassador to Israel, has sensationally resigned from the league, and board members-- including New York Yankee-connected PR maven Marty Appel-- also are running from the stink as fast as they can.

Appel himself put out the news release that leaves the future of the Israel Baseball League in serious doubt:

Daniel C. Kurtzer Resigns As Commissioner
of Israel Baseball League;
A Number of Advisory Board Members Also Depart

New York, November 15, 2007: Daniel C. Kurtzer, who served as Commissioner of the Israel Baseball League during its first season, has submitted his resignation to the league's founder, Larry Baras.

In addition, a number of members of the Advisory Board have also resigned, including Martin Abramowitz, Marty Appel, Jeff Goldklang, Marvin Goldklang, Dr. Stuart Hershon, Randy Levine, Gary Rosen, Bob Ruxin, and Andrew Zimbalist, along with others. In addition to serving as advisors, Mr. Rosen handled league marketing, Mr. Abramowitz produced the league's baseball cards, Mr. Ruxin managed ticketing/merchandising and Mr. Appel handled public relations.

In their individual resignation statements, the resigning members noted the historic accomplishment of bringing baseball to the Middle East, completing a full schedule of games, and developing several players who went on to sign pro contracts in the US. The individuals also commended Mr. Baras for having the vision to bring professional baseball to the Israeli people.

However, the resigning members were distressed that the league's finances and business operations were not handled in a more professional manner and, in particular, that the league was unwilling to provide relevant financial information concerning its operating results. They also noted significant staffing and other organizational problems that have beset the league since inception.

All the members felt that the concept of professional baseball in Israel was a noble cause and a workable concept.

(The statements above are not direct quotations and are not attributable to any individual member named in this release. They are meant to provide a summary of the common theme found in the individual statements of resignation. Several advisors did not submit letters of resignation but requested that their names be removed from the Advisory Board).

Kurtzer had previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Egypt and then to Israel.

Contact: Marty Appel Public Relations ( Appelpr@aol.com)

Appel won't work with new Israel baseball league

So who'll be running publicity for the new Dominican Republic of the Middle East Baseball League? Not Marty Appel, the New York Yankees' public relations legend who had the job the first time around, before the coup by El Presidente David Solomonte, when the league was known as the Israel Baseball League.

The PR maven who helped get the original IBL off the ground with brilliant stunts like having the Modi'in Miracle draft Sandy Koufax, tells Our Man Elli in Israel that he was approached by the Boston businessmen running the DRMEBL to help turn the tide of public criticism.

Appel says he was hesitant, torn between the great promise and challenge of baseball in Israel and his skepticism about the direction the DRMEBL seemed to be taking. He says he offered to take the job if several conditions were met:

1) He be paid for last year's work (Appel, like the players and former IBL commissioner Daniel Kurtzer, has not been paid);

2) He be paid for this summer in advance;

3) The Dominican Republic of The Middle East Baseball League agree to operate with full disclosure and financial transparency in order to win back credibility.

Appel says he never heard back.

He tells Our Man Elli:

"I was hoping that the group would be able to stage a 2008 season, and there had been an offer to me to return to serve as the league's media representative, but I never heard anything further and feared this might be the reason.

"It's disappointing, but I remain hopeful that there will be pro baseball in Israel in the future and that the Israeli people be given a full opportunity to experience this great game. Hopefully, the scaled-back plans for this year will result in new enthusiasm for the concept."

Major league snag for meeting to decide baseball future in Israel: Officials want new league to pay Larry Baras' debts before first pitch is thrown!

Whoever wants to pick up the ball and carry on with professional baseball in Israel will first have to pick up the tab left unpaid by the Israel Baseball League, that’s been run out of the Holy Land because of its staggering debts and wailing wall of silence.

And that just might be the dealbreaker, as the future of professional baseball in Israel is decided far from the Holy Land, at a meeting in New York City on Thursday morning.

The summit will be led by former IBL commissioner (and US Ambassador to Israel and Egypt) Daniel Kurtzer, who quit, along with most of the IBL’s distinguished advisory board, the day after Our Man Elli in Israel revealed that the debt-ridden IBL founder Larry Baras was facing a federal lawsuit charging IBL-related securities fraud (that and the fact that Baras wouldn’t release any financial information-- as in showing where all the money went), and attended by potential investors in Israel’s baseball future.

Yesterday we told you that Israel’s governing body for baseball, The Israel Association of Baseball canceled its contract with Baras and his embattled IBL, citing “its unpaid bills from the 2007 season, and the clear inability… to produce a baseball league in Israel in 2008.”

And that’s the twist. Will the successors to Larry Baras have to pay his debts? We spoke with Elli Wohlgelernter to get the latest.

TABLOID BABY: Do you realize it's five months to the day that we ran your original exposé on the IBL's first season?

OUR MAN ELLI: Who'd have thought it would lead to this?

Not us. So?

So, we’ll know everything this Thursday. January 31st at The Penn Club in Manhattan. With five months to go until an Opening Day-- if there's gonna be an Opening Day-- the main principals are going to meet.

Do you think they’re going to serve Unholey Bagels?

What?

At the meeting. You know, the Baras bagels at the heart of the lawsuit.

Should I hang up now?

All right. We’re serious. We know Kurtzer will be there. Who else?

Marvin Goldklang will be there. He’s minority share-holder of the New York Yankees and former member of the Advisory Board of the IBL; Marty Appel, the Yankee PR legend who was the head of public relations for the IBL; Jeff Rosen—- he was an IBL investor and head of the new Israel Professional Baseball League; Michael Rollhaus, a former IBL investor of the IBL and current IPBL investor; Jeffrey Royer, IBL investor and a general partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks; and Martin Berger, the president and COO of the IBL. He’ll be representing the IBL.

Should be quite a meeting.

Oh, yeah.

What do they hope to accomplish?

Marty Appel released a statement saying they’re discussing the future of baseball in Israel with current and potential investors, and that they hope to play ball this summer. Sounds like they’re looking to pick up the pieces and get a new league rolling.

The official statement released by Martin Appel:

“It is a meeting to discuss the future of baseball in Israel involving a number of current and potential investors, as well as people who have experience and advice to contribute. It is not an IBL meeting, although issues related to the IBL's experience will be discussed. It is an in-person meeting, not a teleconference. All the participants are hopeful that professional baseball will return to Israel this summer.”

So what’s this with the new league being forced to pay the vendors and players that the IBL stiffed?

Yeah, the main issue is dealing with the enormous debt. Look, like I told you yesterday, there’s a general sense that in principle at least, any new league-- most likely the Israel Professional Baseball League shouldn’t be forced to pay Baras’ bills, but on a practical level, they’re going to have to offer some kind of partial relief.

We thought the IAB is demanding it.

They are. Peter Kurz, the IAB’s secretary-general told me, and here’s the quote: “Our policy is that whoever wants to run pro baseball and wants our licensing has to pay the debts of the IBL.” And also, remember on a PR level, this whole enterprise will be getting bad press, as others catch up to what we've been reporting. The word “failure” will be appearing in every story about baseball in Israel with the same frequency that the word “change” appears in every speech by a US candidate for president.

At least they’ll finally be getting some press.

Yeah.

So how much of a debt are we talking about?

My sources tell me that in Israel alone, it’s $420,000, spread out among at least twenty-three people and places, including Kfar Hayarok, where the players stayed, the bus transportation company— it goes on from there. And that doesn’t include expenses in the United States, where the IBL is based, let alone the money still owed to Berger and Dan Duquette, the league’s baseball operations director.

So Thursday’s meeting is the day before February, five months before the season should start. A little late for 0-8, no?

It's late. Very late in the game, true enough, and while the game of baseball has no clock, the business of baseball certainly does. But the good thing is that the people coming to the meeting are honest men with their heart in the right place-– they all are looking for way to make baseball happen in Israel in 2008.

Throw in the word “change” and you’ll sound like one of those presidential candidates. Very inspiring.

Hey. It is inspiring. Kurtz told me, quote, “We’re definitely trying to bring all the parties together so that there is baseball in 2008.” He also said the number of kids now playing baseball in Israel is up 30 to 40 percent.

Again, I quote: “If they can come together in any way, we are interested in meeting with them and moving forward with them. I’m optimistic there will be pro baseball in Israel this summer.”

Think the meeting will succeed?

As one participant told me: “Well, if the former Ambassador to Egypt and to Israel can't bring about some small accord here…” We’ll know more at the end of the week.

We’ll be waiting.

Right. And one more thing. Those pictures you ran yesterday, supposedly showing people mourning the death of baseball in Israel— very bad taste. There’s real suffering here that you can’t imagine back there in Los Angeles.

Hey, we have to remind people they’re getting their news from Tabloid Baby. If they want taste, they can go to the New York Times or Jerusalem Post—oh right, they can't get their news from those places, because they’re following us a week or so later...

Settle down, Beavis.

One more thing in this end— any truth to the rumour that after they’re done taking testimony on steroids from Roger Clemens, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is planning to take testimony on fraud from Larry Baras?

Good night.

Stay tuned...

Exclusive: Was Yankees' signing of two Israel Baseball League stars just a publicity stunt?

While the Red Sox put a quick and definitive end to 2007 for Major League Baseball, aftershocks from the premiere season of the Israel Baseball League continue to rumble, with the latest rumblings regarding the big announcement last week that two IBL standouts have been signed by the New York Yankees.

People who know a lot more about baseball than we do are grousing that the signings of Eladio Rodriguez and Jason Rees are just a stunt to generate some positive publicity and attract investors to a league whose first season's foibles were laid out in a controversial and now legendary article by Our Man Elli in Israel, that was first published here.

Even disinterested wags with no bones to pick are scratching their heads. Fantasy league center RotoWorld reports that Modi’in Miracle catcher Eladio Rodriguez and Aussie Jason Rees of the pennant-winning Bet Shemesh Blue Sox were signed “to minor league contracts… They were playing against competition that might have equated to Rookie ball in the U.S., and it's highly unlikely that either player will ever see time in the majors with the Yankees.”

"Unlikely that either player will ever see time in the majors?" Then why would the Yankees sign them? And with all those 22-year-olds running around, why Rodriguez, who, at the advanced age of 28, already had a shot on the Red Sox farm? One theory is that the East Coast Old Boys’ Network wants to prop up IBL founder Larry Baras of Boston, as he looks for new IBL funding at a time he faces renewed criticism in wake of Elli Wohlgelernter’s exposé .

Interesting, some say, that no other major league team found any other IBL players worth signing for their minor league systems, just as it’s interesting that Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig is on the IBL advisory board, along with his wife Sue, daughter Wendy, and:

* Randy Levine, the New York Yankees president (known most recently for his aiding and abetting in the screwing of Yankees manager Joe Torre);

* Marty Appel (greatest moment, right), the Yankees’ former public relations director, executive producer of Yankees game telecasts, overall Yankees booster— and perpetuator of the Nixonesque smear–the-messenger campaign against Our Man Elli-- portraying him to other media professionals as a “disgruntled job seeker” (we call them “freelance journalists,” shmucko), yet refuting none of what Elli wrote);

* Marvin Goldklang, a minority owner of the New York Yankees and principal owner of four Minor League teams; and

* Dr. Stuart J. Hershon, the IBL's chief medical adviser-- and Yankees team physician.

One source goes as far as to tell us, “The signing of the two Israel Baseball League players last week is a scam, done solely to save the ass of the founder, by bringing him good publicity at a time when he’s in deep debt caused by ineptness, if not outright malfeasance; as well as save face for Levine himself.

“The Yankees are so smart that they sign not one, but two players from a mostly semi-pro league? Including a 28-year-old? And all 29 other teams are idiots who can't judge talent? Feh!”

We won’t go that far. And neither will Our Man Elli.

We asked him to follow up on this latest scuttlebutt, he’s not biting. “Everything I wrote was based on facts. Where are the facts now? This is all rumour. And there are enough sports journalists out there who can chase down rumours if they’re interested.”

We’d like to see professional baseball flourish in Israel. We’d also like to see players be paid for their work, and for fans to get their shekel’s worth. But mostly, we agree with Our Man Elli, and would like to see some mainstream sports journalists get off their fat asses and do some of the work themselves, rather than just plagiarize Our Man Elli, like that Greenberg putz.

Exclusive! Inside the big Israel baseball meeting: No decisions, and most likely, no 2008 season

All the major backstage players in the first and last season of the Israel Baseball League-- bar one (or should we say "Bar-as one?") got together in New York City Thursday to hash out plans to get the game back on track after the disastrous organizational and financial morass that was first revealed by Our Man Elli in Israel within days of the field crew pulling up homeplate for the final time.

The meeting was meant to be secret. The participants were told specifically to not talk to the great journalist and baseball lover Elli Wohlgelernter.

Guess what? Most of them did talk. And we talked to Elli about an hour ago:

Tabloid Baby: Where the hell have you been?

Our Man Elli: Trying to separate the-- what was that you said last week? The wheat from the Chass? That was a good one.

Let’s get to the meeting.

You can imagine, with an eight-plus-hour meeting, there was a lot to digest, especially working with the handicap of participants being told not to talk to me.

Cue the violins, Woodstein.

But a lot of them did.

Ha ha.

Right. But the bottom line, today, is that we don’t know. We don’t know anything about anything.

We waited five days for that? For that we could have called That Putz Greenberg—

Well, listen. It was a long, detailed meeting. And there were a lot of agendas—four basic ones: The Israel Baseball Leagues, the Israel Professional Baseball League that wants to take over, the ones who want to see the IBL debts paid and don’t care who pays them, and the ones who wanted everyone to agree on a league under new leadership, figuring out a way to address the old debts.

It was sometimes a little heated and it there was even some anger— but it was productive in that everything was laid out as to where things stand now, on every issue. Past, present and future. But at the end of the day, nothing was resolved.

Fewer teams & games?

So is there going to professional baseball in Israel this summer?

I don’t know. They don't know.

Isn’t it getting late for “they don’t know”?

Oh yes, very late indeed. And as this drags out, and as we get closer to the summer, one solution being contemplated is to reduce the number of teams to four, and to reduce the number of games, to make it easier to manage logistically in the time that remains.

Okay. Any surprises at the meeting?

One big surprise. Guess who showed up?

Osama bin Laden?

No.

Jackie Mason.

Dan Duquette! (The Israel Baseball League’s Director of Operations, at right). No one told me he was coming.

Duquette got some good press last week. The LA Times ran a big story about how he was ridiculed for letting Roger Clemens go from the Red Sox in '96--

Right. In the "twilight of his career."

But now that Clemens is accused of using steroids and human growth hormone in the years that followed, Duquette's been vindicated.

Yeah. Okay, Red Smith, you want I should continue?

The Participants

Right. Who was in the room— in the Penn Club in midtown Manhattan, so long ago?

Watch it.

It was last Thursday. It was a long time ago.

Just so happens, I have the names of the fourteen participants. It was mentioned on the original press release. I say "original" because they couldn’t even agree on the language of the release, so it was scrapped. But I have a copy.

Anyway, here’s the list:

1) Marvin Goldklang, minority share-holder of the New York Yankees and former member of the Advisory Board of the IBL, who chaired the meeting;
2) Dan Kurtzer, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel & Egypt and former commissioner of the IBL;
3) Marty Appel, former head of public relations for the IBL;
4) Jeff Rosen, former IBL investor and head of the newly-created Israel Professional Baseball League;
5) Michael Rollhaus, a former IBL investoraand investor in the IPBL;
6) Andrew Wilson, a facilitator on the ground for the IBL, who’s now working for Rosen and the IPBL;
7) Seth Cogan, financial adviser to Rosen, on the phone from Israel;
8) Martin Berger, president and COO of the IBL;
9) Dan Duquette, director of baseball operations of the IBL;
10) Jeffrey Royer, general partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the largest individual investor in the IBL;
11) Haim Katz, president of the Israel Association of Baseball, on the phone from Israel;
12) Mitchel Rosenzweig, chief financial officer of the Jewish National Fund, the single largest investor in the IBL;
13) Ami Baran, manager of the Netanya Tigers;
14) Jeff Goldklang, son of Marvin, and a former member of the IBL advisory board.

And you’ve told us that Larry Baras, Boston bagel baron Baras, the IBL founder, was not in attendance.

Uuhhh, don’t think there would have been any meeting had he attended. There’s too much animosity toward him.

Really.

Rosen, Rollhaus and Cogan expressed their deep loathing and bitterness, to say the least, towards Baras. They also expressed their sadness at the state of affairs brought on by Baras’s lack of transparency.

Was there any other anger at anyone else?

I’m sure there was.

C’mon.

What are you getting at?

"Wohl-ge-LIAR?"

Yeah. Someone at the meeting referred to me as “Wohlge-liar.” I’m trying to find out who.

Excuse me a second.

(NOTE: Do you know who in that meeting
called Our Man Elli “Elli Wohlge-liar?”
If you do, or if you can think of
any other funny takes
on Our Man Elli’s name,
email us here and we’ll send you a prize!)

Okay, where were we?

The meeting. The meeting itself held some promise. Everyone reasserted their belief in the concept of professional baseball in Israel. But Jeff Rosen’s group—the IPBL-- expressed strong opposition to paying any of the outstanding Israeli debts accumulated by the IBL, except the ones that are absolutely necessary to a continued operation.

Debts

How did the rest of them feel about picking up Baras’ debt?

Most all the other participants felt it was morally right-- and practically beneficial-- to pay most of those obligations in that they owed people who had placed their faith in the concept of professional baseball in Israel.

The IAB took the position that it was willing to consider working with any group that was willing to address the Israeli debts in a reasonable manner. And according to a confidential internal memo-- a copy of which was leaked to me by a recipient--

Nice.

-- Jeff Royer urged that the debts “be addressed in a proper manner."

But is it their problem?

To these guys, it’s a matter of establishing the financial credibility and image of the professional baseball game in Israel. Many players are still owed money. And so is Kfar Hayarok, where the players stayed. And there are other creditors who placed their trust not so much in the IBL, but in the concept of professional baseball. One of the participants told me that paying the creditors is the right thing to do, regardless of whether it's legally required of anyone other than the IBL and Baras.

Rosen, meanwhile, trued to attract additional investors for the IPBL, but everybody brushed it off. They want him to clarify his position on the debts and his proposed business plan. Rosen said he’d talk to his partners and report back.

What about the money the IBL still owes to Berger and Duquette?

Not a word. Neither Duquette nor Berger, nor anyone else talked about the money they’re owed. Although Cogan did complain at one point about the money he'd lost with the IBL.

How much?

I hear around $40,000.

2009?

Oh, and get this! Martin Berger indicated that Baras was working with a couple of prospective investors to bail out the IBL.

That must have went over really well.

No. It didn't go over well at all. From what I'm told-- and this is a quote: "Five people wanted to jump up and scream, 'STOP THE BULLSHIT!!!!' The others in the room were just too numb from over a year of hearing continual bullshit."

Nice.

And by the way, if you go to the IBL website, you'll see that Berger's name is no longer listed among the executives. (UPDATE: Berger's name was back on the IBL site the next day-- they read us!) There's only Baras, Duquette and Baras' son, Jeremy, the "Director of Game Experience," whatever that means.

How long until Duquette's name is down?

Hey, he's got his good baseball name back. Why sully it further?

Any other controversy?

Well, there was some disagreement on whether they should push for a season in 2008 or push it back until 2009, when improved facilities will be available and leaving more time to build a more professional organization and raise lots more money.

So it looks like 2009 at the earliest.

Look, the real question is whether any league is capable of mounting a serious marketing effort in time for a 2008 season. Right now, nobody has enough boots on the ground.

Get your boots back on the ground and get us more.

Later. I'm in a restaurant. A friend just walked in.

--click--

UPDATE: ASSOCIATED PRESS PICKS UP ISRAEL BASEBALL LEAGUE STORY: NO MENTION OF OUR MAN ELLI OR TABLOID BABY

Tabloid Baby's exclusive is now
being repeated all around the world

Three days late and credit short, the Associated Press has run a story on the implosion of the Israel Baseball League.

The item has been picked up the by Boston Herald, a hometown paper of IBL founder Larry Baras, and Israel's Haaretz, among other papers and news organizations around the world.

Of course, there is no mention of Our Man Elli in Israel, who broke the story exclusively here, or the months of controversy that unfolded here and led to the recent turn of events. For that, you will have to bookmark Tabloidbaby.com.

Israel baseball league Commissioner Kurtzer
leads flurry of resignations

By Associated Press | Sunday, November 18, 2007 |

JERUSALEM - Dan Kurtzer stepped down as commissioner of Israel’s fledgling professional baseball league, topping a flurry of resignations amid questions over the league’s operation.

The former U.S. Ambassador to Israel announced in a statement Thursday that he was resigning along with league advisory board members Martin Abramowitz, Marty Appel, Jeff Goldklang, Marvin Goldklang (a minority owner of the New York Yankees), Stuart Hershon, Randy Levine, Gary Rosen, Bob Ruxin and Andrew Zimbalist.

They commended the league’s founder, Boston-based Larry Baras, for having the vision to bring pro baseball to Israel, but expressed dismay with the way the league’s finances and business operations were handled.

The league’s broadcasting deal with Israel’s Sport5 TV cable network was canceled at midseason because the league could not live up to its financial obligations.

The six-team league concluded its first season in August. It drew a following from the country’s expatriate American community, but failed to catch on with native-born Israelis.

Israel’s first professional baseball league said it will return next summer with at least one new team.

Jerusalem Post: "The IBL was not a success"

The Jerusalem Post has been playing catch-up with Our Man Elli in Israel and our coverage of the Israel Baseball League for almost six months now (when they even bothered to cover the story at all). Which is probably why, in wake of our most recent post predicting a ball-free summer of 2008 in the Holy Land, JP columnist Jeremy Last gives us no credit as he comes in last, but powerfuly, with a commentary that will be unwelcome by anyone who hopes to see baseball rise in Israel again:

Jan 2, 2008

The Last Word:

Can 2007's disappointments be overturned

By JEREMY LAST

There were numerous success stories in Israeli sports in 2007, many of which have been highlighted in these pages over the last few weeks. But at the same time that Betar Jerusalem was being molded into a championship winning side and Shahar Pe'er was smashing away her opposition, there were a number of teams and organizations which failed to live up to their expectations...

Disappointments included... the extremely hyped Israel Baseball League...

The Israel Baseball League was another of the prominent flops of last year. While those running the league may protest that it was only the first year and the league was initially aimed at Americans, that was the biggest problem and led to practically empty stands for many games.

The fact is the IBL was not a success. It was hyped and hyped and promoted, but to the wrong people. By the end of the summer few Israelis still had any idea the league existed. And it was beset with problems which never should have arisen. From the late realization that the floodlights at Kibbutz Gezer were not strong enough, forcing games to finish early, to the complaints from the players about the conditions at their living quarters, the league was not run in the professional manner it should have been.

It must have been a relief for many of the top IBL personnel when they finally resigned in November. Ex-IBL commissioner Daniel Kurtzer, ex-PR representative Marty Appel and other members of the advisory board soon saw that "the league's finances and business operations were not handled in a... professional manner" Founder Larry Baras has promised that the IBL will return this summer, and even released a schedule, but there will be no point even bothering if the league is not managed correctly, marketed properly to local Israelis and more Israelis are not given the chance to play. Otherwise the failures will just continue in 2008.

In light of this recent turn of events, it will be interesting to hear the response from IBL apologists like Eric Holtz and Leon Feingold.

Our Man Elli has an article in the NY Times

Tabloid Baby's man in the Mideast, Our Man Elli In Israel, has an article in tomorrow's New York Times. Buy six copies!

The New York Times
June 24, 2007

Israeli League Is Ready to Play Ball

By ELLI WOHLGELERNTER

JERUSALEM, June 23 — In the land of milk and honey, it is time for peanuts and hot dogs — the Israel Baseball League makes its debut Sunday night when the Petach Tikva Pioneers play host to the Modi’in Miracle. A high demand for tickets has moved organizers to double the seating capacity at the Yarkon Sports Complex to accommodate a projected 2,000 spectators expected to attend.

The game will be televised live in Israel by the local sports channel, whose broadcasters will handle the play-by-play in Hebrew. The game will also be broadcast in English in the United States next Sunday on PBS affiliates in New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and West Palm Beach, Fla.

The league’s six teams will share three fields: in Tel Aviv; in Petach Tikva about 10 miles northeast of Tel Aviv; and in Kibbutz Gezer, between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

The teams will play an eight-week, 45-game season, with an all-star game July 29 and a one-game championship Aug. 19. The league will honor the Jewish faith — there will be no games on Saturdays or on July 24, the Tisha B’Av fast day.

The oldest of the league’s 120 players — who represent eight countries — is Pioneers pitcher Scott Cantor, 51, of Nyack, N.Y. The youngest is Miracle pitcher Nate Rosenberg, 17, who lives on Kibbutz Gezer.

Another teenager from Gezer is Alon Leichman, who started playing at 4. His father, David, initiated the construction of a field at Gezer in 1982.

“I said 25 years ago that the field is for our children, and now my 18-year-old son is to play pro ball on the field,” said David Leichman, who, like many at Gezer, emigrated from the United States.

The league is run by an advisory board of donors and investors who will try to eventually make a profit. For the players, who are being paid $2,000 each for the season, the league is an opportunity to continue doing what they love.

“To me, it’s a reward for all of my hard work in the gym and on the field, and it’s the ultimate Jewish-American dream,” said Josh Eichenstein, 23, a middle infielder from Los Angeles. “Being able to play baseball as a job in Israel blows my mind.”

Eichenstein said he hoped to put on a good show for all the people watching baseball for the first time.

“I want to help Israelis understand the game of baseball,” he said. “Once the game is understood, they will fall in love with it.”

That is what organizers are hoping will happen. In this soccer- and basketball-crazed country, baseball may be a hard sell. The game has been tweaked — some say corrupted — to make it more palatable for a foreign audience. Games will be seven innings instead of nine, and ties will be broken by home-run-hitting contests instead of extra innings.

The league has assembled some former major league players and executives. Art Shamsky, Ken Holtzman and Ron Blomberg are among the managers. Dan Duquette, a former general manager of the Boston Red Sox and the Montreal Expos, is the league’s director of player development. The head of public relations is Marty Appel, who once held that position with the Yankees.

Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former United States ambassador to Israel, is the league’s commissioner. Now retired from diplomatic service, Kurtzer will spend the next two months in Israel, on vacation from his day job as a professor at Princeton.

“My role basically is to establish the character of the league,” Kurtzer, a professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton, said this week in a telephone interview. “So we’ve developed the rules and a code of conduct. My job is largely to give advice and do some public relations, give speeches and things like that. I don’t know that I’ll be at every game, but I’ll be there the entire summer.”

Once accustomed to negotiating disputes between Israel and its neighbors, Kurtzer is still working on how to mediate arguments on the field.

“We’ll see if it’s a punch, if it’s a brawl, if it’s a melee — we’ll make decisions on the spot,” he said. “I assume that issues will come up about discipline and other kinds of issues that end up in the commissioner’s office. I have done a pretty good study of how the commissioner’s office in Major League baseball works, and in other sports. So you never know — each situation is going to be different.”

The games will also be announced in Hebrew at the ballparks, and the Web site israelbaseballleague.com features the rules and a glossary of terms in Hebrew. Still, the league has been pitched to Jews in the United States, urging Jewish organizations to send tour groups to games and establishing support chapters in Chicago and Phoenix.

Some Israelis, including those born in the United States, are wondering whether such a marketing strategy will help the league establish traction among natives.

“Baseball is the greatest game ever invented, and I hope the league is a rousing success,” said Eli Groner, a one-time Maccabiah Games bronze medalist in softball, who works as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company’s Tel Aviv office.

“But the key to generating popularity here is in successful clinics at the grass-roots level.”

He added, “ ‘If you build it, they will come’ is nice for a movie and to create a tourist destination in Iowa; inculcating a culture requires much, much more.”

The league has a long-range plan for building a fan base. It has run youth camps and clinics, and has promotions scheduled throughout the season. Players will teach children the rudiments of the game and leave behind baseball equipment for them.

“Our real objective this summer is to build some degree of interest on the part of Israelis,” said Kurtzer, who acknowledged having doubts about whether Israelis would make a quintessential American sport their own.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I know there’s a Little League that’s functional, that includes not only American Israelis but Israeli Israelis. We won’t know until we test it. We’ve talked to people about it and we think there’s room in Israel for a third sport beyond basketball and soccer. Baseball is a little complicated, it’s a little bit different from what Israelis know, but we’ll have a little fun teaching them.”

Our readers say: "Three cheers for Jason Rees!"

There was no joy in TabloidBabyville this week amid word that Australian baseball star Jason Rees, a standout in the first season of the ill-fated Israel Baseball League, was cut from the New York Yankees' Triple A minor league team, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees.

Rees' signing, along with veteran catcher Eladio Rodriguez (who'd had a shot with the Boston Red Sox almost a decade ago) with the Yankees at the peak of the IBL's financial troubles, was immediately attacked by critics as a public relations and fundraising stunt, considering that Yankees president Randy Levine, former Yankees PR director Marty Appel, minority owner Marvin Goldklang and the team's doctor were all on the IBL advisory board.

But our readers remind us that Jason Rees is the real deal. And making it to a step away from the Big Game-- let alone from Australia by way of Israel-- is a tremendous accomplishment. The Man from Down Under first made his mark at Cloud County Community College in Concordia, Kansas, playing ball for two years and tying the school record of games played (104). He also won conference and regional honors at Fort Hays State University.

The Newcastle native played professional baseball in Australia before he joined the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox. hitting .362 with 17 home runs, 50 runs batted in, 14 stolen bases and 47 hits in 42 games-- leading the league in home runs and runs batted in, and helping lead the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox to a championship.

We'll be keeping watch on the career of his very talented 23-year old (and we'll be looking for Eladio, who never showed up at the Yankees' camp!). A few of our readers' comments follow:

Do you have any idea how many players get to play a single day in AAA baseball for any part of there career? If he was 2 years younger he would have been given more of an opportunity. Hats off to Jason!

Jason had the strength of character to get in there and give it his best shot. He should have our respect for doing that in such a public way. I had the honor to get to know Jason while we were in Israel last summer and found him to be a well spoken and responsible young man. He will be a success in life and someone that we all will be proud to know. Good luck Jason in your next effort be it baseball or otherwise.

The fact that Rees got recognized for his achievements and signed by the Yankees speaks volumes for what the IBL accomplished in their 1st season. The number of players that ever get to actually play at AAA let alone the BIGS is incredibly small...

Good Luck Rees! You are a great guy!

Rees is both a tremendously talented ballplayer and a solid citizen. Let's keep in mind that only about 17,000 men have played in the MLB over its history and only a relatively small percentage of guys get any shot at all out of camp. Jason flew half-way around the world and put it all out there. It only takes a couple of miscues to fall down the charts. He will re-surface, whether he joins Big Berg in Bridgeport or ends up going into business back in New South Wales. As Greg Raymundo would say, "So what!"...Jason will be a success with whatever he does.

Ferrara first death of Israel Baseball League

Our Man Elli in Israel has resurfaced to bring us sad news: what appears to be the first death among the veterans of the Israel Baseball League. Team manager Tony Ferrara was 84.

"Tony took over for Ken Holtzman when he was fired from Petah Tikva Pioneers," Elli recalls. "Real, real nice guy, players loved him, low-key, and a baseball man through and through.

"Tony may not have been Jewish, but he was the epitome of a mensch."

Tony Ferrara played four seasons with St. Louis Cardinals affiliates before injury ended his dream, but went on to work as a batting practice pitcher, bullpen catcher and scout for Major League teams including the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Seattle Mariners, Chicago Cubs and Oakland A’s.

He also coached college and in the minors-- and acted in and was technical adviser on The Natural.

He was a longtime friend of Mickey Mantle and even wore Mantle's number 7 in his most recent job as bench coach for the Newark Bears.

There was an impromptu memorial service for Ferrara yesterday at the Babe Ruth bat at Yankee Stadium. One of The Mick's sons was there, along with Ron Darling, Art Shamsky, Ed Kranepool, Miracle Met and IBL manager Art Shamsky and legendary Yankee publicist and IBL official Marty Appel.

Click here to see our complete coverage of the ill-fated Israel baseball League on our Israel Baseball League archive site.

EXCLUSIVE! BARAS' REVENGE! ISRAEL BASEBALL LEAGUE FOUNDER AUTHORIZES BOOK TO COUNTER OUR MAN ELLI'S EXPOSÉ! EXCLUSIVE: "ELI (sic) WAS A BIT HARSH"

Two books about the snakebit first season of the Israel Baseball League are in the works and rushing to publication—and though neither is written by Our Man Elli in Israel, one of them is authorized by the league founder who’s been waging a behind-the-scenes smear campaign about the author of the article, first published here, that offered a no-holds-barred investigation into a bumbling, dangerous operation that cared more about the bottom line than the fans or the athletes.

One of the books is being written by Nate Fish, the All-Star infielder from Brooklyn, also known as the Pride of the Tel Aviv Lightning. Nate is not only a heavy hitter, but a straight shooter, and his insider's account could turn out to be the IBL's Ball Four.

Remember, as controversy swirled over Elli Wohlgelernter’s article in September, Nate was one of the few players brave enough to go public, telling us that his last IBL paycheck “bounced— which pretty much sucks.” Nate is bound to be candid and compelling, and edited well (Elli?), the book could be a delight.

More interesting for a different reason is the book from New Jersey-based sportswriter and public relations consultant Ron Kaplan (caricatured, above right), who tells us he’s got a “verbal agreement” with McFarland sports and reference book publishers to write a book on the IBL's first season.

What’s more, the book is being written with the cooperation of IBL founder Larry Baras of Boston, who until now has attempted damage control by with a behind-the-scenes character attack on Our Man Elli, the journalist who wrote the Story of Record about the launch of the IBL when he wrote the New York Times article that told the world that IBL's Opening Day was nigh. (In other words, Elli gave Baras and company the ultimate PR!)

"It is not an exposé"

After months of fierce argument among Israelis and sport fans, and shoot-the-messenger slurs that painted Elli as the killer of Israel’s baseball dream, Ron Kaplan officially entered the debate—and our radar screen— on Monday, when he commented on our exclusive report about the connection between the New York Yankees’ signing of two IBL players with little chance of making the Majors— and the Yankee honchos on Baras’ advisory board: Kaplan wrote, in part:

“…I would be more suspicious if the Yanks had signed on of the Israeli-born players, with less experience… I guess some people have no patience. They expect the fledgling league to start off making millions of dollars in a culture where the sport is totally foreign, with no negative experiences at all.”

If that sounded a bit like the Baras party line, it’s also the theme of Kaplan’s planned book. “I hope it will be an honest look at the joys and hardships of beginning a new enterprise, including the difficulties,” he tells Tabloid Baby. “I have several players lined up for interviews and they seem very forthcoming so far. This is meant as a baseball book marking an historic occasion. It is not an exposé.”

It is not first-person, either

Kaplan tells us that “in my job as sports editor for a weekly Jewish publication I have done many stories on the league,” but admits his “is not a first-person account,” as he lives in New Jersey and has never been closer to an IBL game than Hoboken.

Even so, he insists, “I thought Eli's (sic) article was a bit unnecessarily harsh, given the circumstances of the start-up enterprise. Bringing baseball into a culture that has no experience experience with it, no infrastructure behind it, is bound to prove difficult.”

The man who also runs the Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf website is cagy about whether his book will be the “authorized” (read “whitewashed”) version of history, approved by Larry Baras. “I have spoken to Baras about it and he has not objected to it, so I suppose I have his cooperation.”

Whitewash

Any author will have to roll many layers of whitewash to cover up Elli’s already-classic and never-refuted exposé of a league that played to an overseas— not Israeli— audience, and failed to live up to the most minor league standards when it came to accommodations amenities or even adequate ice, leading to a season that wil be remembered for:

“...more errors than hits: players threatening to strike when paychecks were late; a manager hired to help give face to the fledgling league leaving in the middle of the season, after trashing the league to the media; and a player almost killed by a batting practice line drive, an accident that might have been prevented with proper equipment.”

After the article was first published on Tabloid Baby on August 28th, it appeared in various forms in Jewish weeklies across America. It was plagiarized by a Chicago Tribune reporter, and caused great backlash among baseball fans and league boosters, many of whom characterized the missteps of the first season as typical to any startup operation.

“Not so!” responded players and other insiders, who responded with stories of bounced paychecks, unpaid deals and dangerous field conditions.

Nixon

That was when Baras responded behind the scenes by taking shots at the messenger.

The IBL fundraiser could not refute the facts of the story, so he spread rumours that Our Man Elli was a disgruntled job seeker and had an axe to grind- rumours that were helped along by the whispering of advisers and cohorts like New York Yankees flak Marty Appel, whose malicious gossip about the veteran respected international journalist Wohlgelernter drew him even closer to Richard Nixon than did his relationship with the Alzheimer’s-afflicted felon George Steinbrenner.

We’ve contacted Our Man Elli about this latest turn of events. Stay tuned for his response.

Our thanks to Ron Kaplan for his forthright statement to Tabloid Baby this afternoon:

I would appreciate you NOT (running a story) at this point. No contract has been signed, just a "verbal" agreement.

In answer to your questions, however:

It is not a first person account. In my job as sports editor for a weekly Jewish publication I have done many stories on the league.

I have spoken to Baras about it and he has not objected to it, so I suppose I have his cooperation.

I hope it will be an honest look at the joys and hardships of beginning a new enterprise, including the difficulties. I have several players lined up for interviews and they seem very forthcoming so far. This is meant as a baseball book marking an historic occasion. It is not an expose. I thought Eli's article was a bit unnecessarily harsh, given the circumstances of the start-up enterprise. Bringing baseball into a culture that has no experience experience with it, no infrastructure behind it, is bound to prove difficult.

I have corresponded with Nate, who was a player in the IBL, but was unaware of his project; in any case, I'm sure our audiences will be different. It's not a race to see who gets published first.