http://fresnozionism.org/archives/508 A pro-Israel voice from California's Central Valley Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:58:34 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 http://fresnozionism.org/archives/508#comment-5301 Shalom Freedman Sun, 01 Jul 2007 07:02:31 +0000 http://fresnozionism.org/archives/508#comment-5301 As an American child I lived for baseball and dreamed to be a major- leaguer. But somewhere in my teens I just left it. And one of the bonuses of Israel, I thought then, was getting away from the endless sports obsessions of American life. So that now when the game is introduced here I have less than delirious feelings about it. Of course it is important that Israel prove itself to be competent in every possible positive human activity. On the other hand it seems to me that there is something about the very nature of baseball, at least as it was then, that will make it very difficult for Israelis to learn to love it. The slowness of the game, and those long pauses between pitches and plays. Also I wonder where little Israel with so small a population and so far from the centers of real ballplaying will possibly arrive to a level worth playing at. I hope I am wrong, and I may well be. But for me it will never be the late nineteen forties and the nineteen fifties in America again. As an American child I lived for baseball and dreamed to be a major- leaguer. But somewhere in my teens I just left it. And one of the bonuses of Israel, I thought then, was getting away from the endless sports obsessions of American life.
So that now when the game is introduced here I have less than delirious feelings about it. Of course it is important that Israel prove itself to be competent in every possible positive human activity. On the other hand it seems to me that there is something about the very nature of baseball, at least as it was then, that will make it very difficult for Israelis to learn to love it. The slowness of the game, and those long pauses between pitches and plays. Also I wonder where little Israel with so small a population and so far from the centers of real ballplaying will possibly arrive to a level worth playing at.
I hope I am wrong, and I may well be.
But for me it will never be the late nineteen forties and the nineteen fifties in America again.

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