Jew wants to play baseball without compromising Shabbos

Chabad Online has the story of a Nevada teenager who is forgoing a potential career in Major League Baseball because he is shomer shabbos, and that would not be possible in the Major Leagues.

Actually, he has not, yet, given up on his dream of playing baseball professionally. For now he is saying he won't play on Shabbos. Eventually he'll have to choose. At that level of baseball, you don't really get to choose such a thing. He'll either have to give up his Shabbat observance, or compromise it in some way, or give up professional baseball.

From the article:

“My dream has always been to be a Major Leaguer. I never thought of anything else—baseball has always been what I’ve wanted to do,” says Elie Kligman, a high school senior from Las Vegas who plays as both an infielder and pitcher.

The 18-year-old has been playing ball his entire life. After years of competing at all levels, Elie, who is on his high school team and one of the top-ranked players in Nevada, was one of only 175 high-schoolers from across the country—and the first Orthodox Jew—to take part in the Major League Baseball-scouted “Area Code Baseball Games.”


He does all this without compromising his Judaism. Elie has never played on Shabbat, makes time to pray three times a day and keeps the Jewish dietary laws of kashrut.

“I have the mindset of, ‘This is what I am doing for Judaism, and this is what I am doing for baseball.’ Once the sun goes down on Friday night, it’s not a debate for me, [celebrating Shabbat] is just what I am doing,” says the teen. “When you are a proud Jew, people respect when I tell them I’m not going to play on Friday night and Saturday.”

Good luck to Elie. Hopefully he will find a way to make it work, hopefully he'll be good enough that teams will be willing to give it a try, and won't have to join the long list of Orthodox Jews that gave up dreams of playing for the hometown team because of Shabbos. Myself  included :-) .

He could always come to Israel and play baseball here. Obviously it isn't quite as lucrative of a profession though. 

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