Leon Feingold brings the heat! Denies blaming Israelis for IBL failure; says he's no IBL apologist; uses biting wit to hurl new & old insults at us!

Leon Feingold, the six-foot-six professional competitive eater who pitched for the Netanya Tigers during the Israel Baseball League's first season and is now facing possible picketing from former colleagues and unpaid Israeli vendors as he leads a seven-player group of "IBL All-Stars" into David Solomont's weeklong "show" fest that's taking the place of the IBL's canceled four-team, 20-game, three-week, momentum-keeping mini-season, has responded to our recent report that he'd been quoted blaming Israelis, and not management, for the failure of the IBL.

Leon had told the Jewish Star:

"The reason the league didn’t do nearly as well as it should have last season was because those who live there haven’t grown up with baseball. How can we expect to succeed with a product when no one in Israel has ever tasted it?"

Today, posting as "bringheat" in our comment section, the man who lists both MENSA and Gluttonfest on his CV not only disowns the comment, but denies being an "apologist" for IBL management, while claiming that our reportage has libeled Larry Baras and other IBL executives. The Masonic lodge warden also asserts that none of the dozens of anonymous complaints in the Tabloid Baby comments section about bounced paychecks and unpaid bills is "legitimate," and wrongly assumes that many comments on this site were posted by members of the Tabloid Baby staff-- obviously misjudging the animus directed toward him and his actions in support of the IBL management on a site that has become a clearinghouse and anonymous sounding board for many IBL players and fans.

Leon's comment:

"Wow, looks like I'm late to the game here. Sorry I missed so much quality journalism while I was out.

"First off, has anyone else noticed how no named person has ever had a legitimate gripe about Larry? With perhaps one or two exceptions, virtually every single comment about how 'Larry stole money,' and 'Larry is f__ing over the players,' and so on, is either Elli or the TabloidBaby staff posting anonymously or under a pseudonym (TB staff: you can look that one up online if you don't recognize such an unusual word, as it's obvious none of you have ever taken any journalism classes), and those who do have legitimate concerns and have posted them under their names, have been more confused and wishing clarity, rather than vitriolic and hateful.

"(By the way, very classy with the gustatory insults, over which the TB staff must have enjoyed much sniggering in between their Internet porn surfing and looking up multisyllabic words in the dictionary. I imagine they took you at least a week to come up with, so I assume you've been saving those up for the next time I was mentioned in the news. You guys are nothing if not dedicated.)

"Next, as has been accurately pointed out, I don't see anywhere where I blamed Israelis for anything other than not being introduced to the game, which was a failure of LARRY and his initial organizational team.

"You fail to recognize (or rather, conveniently fail to acknowledge) I am not an IBL apologist; I place blame where it's due. Larry and the IBL messed up a lot, and were way over their heads. But if I were them, and had nothing better to do with my time rather than take the high road, it wouldn't be hard to hit up the TB staff and Elli for libel and a few other choice tortious claims.

"As far as my characterization of your collective staff as 'mudslinging, smarmy, sensationalist, no-talent gossip-column rejects,' I stand by it. I mean, it seems pretty spot on, doesn't it?

"Leon Feingold"