“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.”