softball in Israel

Softball's main season has started!! For some general details, you can read here and here. I play on the Bet Shemesh team, now called Shimshon Hi-Tech (thanks to our new sponsor).

Friday we played our first game, which was also the first overall game of the league's new season. We had a fun game, and even won in the process, always an accomplishment for us.. :-). Mind you, we are a bunch of aging guys with families and pot-bellies and not in anything you can call tip-top form, especially for the first game of the season.

The season looks promising, especially because we have added a few new guys to our roster, some of whom are fresh off the boats from America (Nefesh B'Nefesh planes actually). It is a fun and exciting experience playing in the Israel Softball Association's fastpitch league, and you even get your name written up in the newpaper's reviews occassionally!

By the way, I usually play infield, usually at first base. This game, due to some poor excuses of injuries by other players, I was platooned in left field. Thank God only a couple balls were hit in my general direction, and most had no plays on them, so I did not mess up out there (there is a lot of ground to cover out there in left field!). I even made one great catch - a guy hit a foul ball fairly shallow but high and I made a (very) long run from where I was positioned and made the catch just before it dropped...

In the process I met a new teammate who happens to be a fellow blogger. Check out his blog at Balloon Twister Aliya Saga