Our Man Elli in Israel has an update from the ballpark where the Israel Baseball League had promised to launch its five-day show festival today, but canceled without warning or explanation:
"Local softball players played at Baptist Village tonight: In the former the Ra’anana softball league which moved to Baptist Village, Mel’s Men beat the Chipsters, 26-22, in a nine-inning slugfest.
"A few fans who'd arrived to see the IBL, stayed to watch a little softball.
"The word from someone at Baptist Village is that the IBL is not expected tomorrow."
"Local softball players played at Baptist Village tonight: In the former the Ra’anana softball league which moved to Baptist Village, Mel’s Men beat the Chipsters, 26-22, in a nine-inning slugfest.
"A few fans who'd arrived to see the IBL, stayed to watch a little softball.
"The word from someone at Baptist Village is that the IBL is not expected tomorrow."
i am very grateful my name is not attached to this thing. Al the players who are using this for a trip to israel may not realize they are participating in something that smells very wrong.
ReplyDeleteI was 1 of the guys who played pick-up softball last night at Baptist Village where there was NO IBL game going on, but a few disappointed fans. I e mailed Leon Feingold via Facebook as I knew he was one of the players here and told him about the sad series of events (fans showing up for nothing and no announcements on the website) and he replied as follows:
ReplyDelete"Yonatan - wow, that's awful. I can't believe they didn't make an announcement or anything! To the best of my knowledge, they are still trying to fight with the IAB to allow us to play. I mean, we're all here! But the IAB won't allow the IBL to play unless ALL the debts from last season are paid - and so we're just sitting here, trying to stay in shape, and hope everyone stops trying to blame someone else, so we can play ball.
Please accept my personal apologies, and pass them along to everyone you meet who was inconvenienced. "
Well, that's where things stand now.
Yonatan Sredni
Nice that Leon apologized but why doesn't the IBL apologize?
ReplyDeletethats nice for leon to apologize, but he doesn't have to. He just plays in the games, its the management and people in suits who fucked this up. lets hear from them.
ReplyDeleteWell Leon is a sweet lovable guy.
ReplyDeleteDid they play Monday night?
Baras never wears a suit but he may be wearing prison garb soon.
The stripes are very becoming!
But really,did they play Monday night ?
yeah why hasn't that putz, Eli, posted a story yet?
ReplyDeleteWhy does it always have to be Elli with ALL the news. There are a bunch of guys right now in Israel who can man up and say what a catastrophe the Festivus has been.
ReplyDeleteThe players were duped. Come out and say it. These guys did not stand up for their fellow unpaid players, but for the sake of a fun week in Israel looked the other way.What will you say when you are stranded in Israel andhave to pay your way home too!
Thanks Elli!
i know of at least one player who gave up a spot on an independant team in the US to go to that joke of an Israeli baseball festival. Can you imagine bailing on a team mid season in the US just for that crappy organization? He went and burnt a good contact and now doesn;t even get to play over there.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure every player, at least from the old IBL knew what the situation was.
ReplyDeleteanonymous 12:13
ReplyDeleteElli the Great has just posted that festivus has no field to play on!
someone who knows him want to ask leon why he put faith in a guy who was bouncing checks to his buddies while spending money to fly anyone and their uncle who was willing to field a team for him to israel? is this guy leon just selfish? have all the hotdogs gone to his head? how can he claim not to know what was going on? and blame the iab? wasn't their head guy interviewed a few weeks ago and said that he wasn't involved in the festival because it wasn't a league? why does leon blame the iab for the ibl's problems?
ReplyDeleteleon, or any other player, what's going on?
players are innocent. Trust me, even if the guys didn't get flown to israel, do u actually think players from last season would have gotten paid with that money... YAAA RIIIIGHT!
ReplyDelete