Israel national baseball team to visit five states as part of its Olympic preparations
Israel Baseball is pleased to announce that the Israeli national baseball team will conduct a two-week training camp in the northeastern United States in July to prepare for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. Team Israel will travel with its expanded roster and play seven games in five states in mid-July before traveling to the Olympics to fight for a medal.
The games in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland and Pennsylvania will be played against a mix of minor league, collegiate and amateur teams. Team Israel Director of Baseball Operations Adam Gladstone put together the schedule with the goal to prepare the team with competitive gameplay and to build team chemistry to ensure the team arrives in Tokyo in top form.
The opponents are the New York Boulders from the Frontier League, the New York City
Police Dept. baseball team, the Bristol Blues of the New England Collegiate Baseball League, the Wareham Gatemen of the Cape Cod Baseball League, the Bethesda Big Train of the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League, the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League AllStars, and the Long Island Black Sox of the Long Island Stan Musial Baseball League.
One of the highlights of the camp will be the game against Wareham, which is managed by Jerry Weinstein, on July 17. Weinstein managed Team Israel to the quarterfinals of the 2017 World Baseball Classic. Several players from that team will get the chance to compete against Weinstein for the first time.
“We think this trip is the perfect way to prepare our team for the Olympics and show the players how much support they have in America,” Team Israel General Manager Peter Kurz said. “We are playing in five different states; it’s a real barnstorming trip. We have fundraisers and meet & greets planned along the way and will be selling official merchandise at every stop. I can’t wait to get there and share our team with the Jewish communities in the United States.”
Team Israel will have as many as 33 players in total plus some of the top local talents of the next generation to expose them to a serious training-camp atmosphere. The roster is ripe with players known to baseball fans in the United States; there are eight players with previous Major League Baseball experience plus eight current Minor League players. Four are Israeli-born and five are the children of Israelis.
Team Israel will compete in baseball at the Olympic Games for the first time. It is the first team to represent Israel at the Olympic Games since 1976 when Israel’s national soccer team played in Montreal. The six-team Olympic Baseball Tournament will run from July 29 through August 8. For more information on Israel Baseball, please visit www.baseball.org.il