The one and only Justin Cardinal

We stumbled upon an eerie and amazing coincidence regarding Israel Baseball League veteran Justin Cardinal last week, after the former outfielder for the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox stood up publicly to the IBL’s elusive executives after a series of bounced paychecks.

A cursory Google search revealed there were two Justin Cardinals, both ballplayers from Canada, both born in 1982-- "was," because one of them, a pitcher, had his career and life cut short in a tragic highway accident in 2002.

Much had been written about the late Justin Cardinal. Of the one who turned 26 on Thursday, not so much, leading some of our more imaginative followers to suggest that one may have taken the name and credentials of the other (just like you see in the movies).

We got in touch with the IBL’s Justin Cardinal and he filled us in:

What an eerie coincidence! I understand you're from Ottawa; the other Justin was from Alberta. Have other people brought up the coincidence before?

No one I know ever talked to me about it except those that I brought it up with once I found out about it randomly some day a couple of years ago.

What's your story?

I was born here in Ottawa, Ontario Canada.

I went to Sir Wilfrid Laurier S.S., but they didn't have a baseball team.

Before the IBL, I played men's league here in town for a few years after coming out of AAA midget ball when I was 18-19.

This AAA team was really the highest quality of ball I had ever played in, and it took me on many different trips to cities as far as 13 hour drives (West Virginia). This coach was really the only one to ever take a chance on me. That year, in 111 plate appearances, I hit .370 with an on-base average of .550 and four home runs. It was by far the season I'm most proud of, mainly because I was basically on a team of all-stars, and was still top five in those offensive categories.

The reason I know I did so well that season was because of how many games I ended up playing in. Every single year, I start off poorly, but once mid-July comes, or a lot of at-bats early, I really start to go on fire.

Last year though, I’m glad to say I was on the championship team. I'm also pretty upset because of my lack of playing time. I don't blame them for thinking I couldn't hit; they just didn't realize what I could do with enough opportunities.

If you ask some of the guys like Gregg Raymundo, Sean Slaughter, Alan Gardner or Johnny Lopez I bet they'll praise what I did in batting practice towards the end of the season. (Manager Ron) Blomberg won't, though He gave up on me right before I started crushing the balls.

For me, it really sucks, because here in Canada, we can go eight months between baseball games, so ya, I just end up forgetting what I have to do to hit line drives. Right now is a great example: last week in my league after about 32 at-bats I was hitting .180, but in my last two games I've hit five-for-eight with two doubles and four RBIs.

Does that sound like a typical .180 hitter???

The two seasons before I went to Israel, my batting averages were .455 in 2006, and .470 in 2005. Bottom line is I get so much better as the season moves on.

Fortunately for me this year, I'll have an opportunity to play for my University in my first year, so this will be the real test of how I can do after having a substantial amount of games during the summer time.

How'd you get to the IBL?

Martin Berger found my baseball profile online, I think, and sent me an e-mail to come for tryouts in Miami.

I took a thousand dollars out of my own pocket to do it, and on January 1, 2007 I got a contract by way of e-mail.

At the time, it was the greatest day of my life. It was what I worked my whole life for.

Are you playing now or are you hoping to hook up with another league?

I wish I could play in a league where I got to play every day, all-year-round, but right now I'm with my men's league again, which just clinched first place with four games to go-- and then hopefully university ball.