Mike's baseball diary: Season finale
The first season is over and everyone is a little sad about leaving Israel
Well, the season ended Sunday night and it ended with a swell of fans watching a pretty tightly fought game. Beit Shemesh ended up winning on the performance of Rafi Bergstrom. He threw a shut-out and Beit Shemesh got some timely hitting, mainly from Gregg Raymundo.
Gregg's an interesting guy, I had a chance to chat with him one night, he's known around the league for his strong religious (Christian)
beliefs. Here's a guy that made it all the way to AAA not long ago, received a call before the season started in Israel and jumped on plane to play ball here professionally.
He ended up as Co-MVP of the year, Eladio Rodriguez (also a former AAA player) was the other recipient of the award. Anyway, Gregg always has his Bible close by and he's always willing to discuss religion and philosophy, not your typical ballplayer.
Domincans sad to go
After the finals he quickly packed up and went to Jerusalem, where he plans to stay for the remainder of his time here.
After the game I went to back to the players' village and a small but fun party happened.. Everyone was a little sad about leaving Israel, lots of great friendships were made here and tons of laughs were had.
The Domincan guys seemed especially sad leaving, all these guys wear their hearts on their sleeve and are some of the friendliest, nicest people I ever met. Other guys met very nice Israeli ladies that they dated and I suppose they'll have to end their summer romances now, which is good because it leaves more for me.
There is a common hope that at least one guy from this league will make it to the Majors. It would be so cool to see a guy I played ball with go all the way to the top. I'll be sure to hit him up for tickets wherever he plays, airline tickets that is ;-) One of the best things I realized is that now I have 120 places around the world where I can stay, from Japan to America, but I doubt I'll stay with that Japanese kid.
For many players, this is the last time they are ever going to play pro-ball again. Some of them are starting careers in other fields, some of them are going to travel, and some of them realize that being a pro-ball
player just isn't in the cards for them. Many want to come back next year and play in this league again, they are excited over what improvements will be made and how the league will progress.
There is talk of putting a team in Jerusalem next season, and quite a few players are excited about representing the holiest city in the world.
As for me, it's back to the daily grind, although I do plan on playing in the amateur league here in Israel. After the experience the IBL gave me, I'm pretty sure I can do very well at that level.
I hope that all of you who made it out to the games enjoyed yourselves and I trust you look forward to next year as much as I do. So until then, take care and God bless.
