They really need to initiate the slaughter rule in Israel’s Little League.
My 14 year-old joined the Jerusalem Cadets, a new team in the Israeli Little League, and last night I experienced a game for the first time. Winless going into the match, and with a total of 2 runs scored to date, my expectations weren’t too high.
Remember Timmy Lupus, the right-fielder on the infamous Bad News Bears, the one coach Buttermaker used to describe as a “booger-eating spaz?” Let’s just say that Lupis would have been an All-Star and Golden Glover on the Cadets.
OK, true confession- I wasn’t really watching the game all that closely. In fact, none of the dads were paying much attention. This isn’t a commentary on our investment in our sons, it’s just that this was a night game. And, in the world of Anglos in Jerusalem, we all work at night. Being seven or eight hours ahead of our workplaces has some advantages. Beautiful hikes in the mornings, breakfast with our wives and a few hours to learn some Torah or write blogs are all gifts of living many time zones ahead. But, when evening rolls around, most of us go to work. And by go to work, I mean most of us jump on phone calls and Zoom meetings.
Last night was no different. As I half listened in to our weekly staff meeting, pacing up and down the first baseline, I must have seen 17 wild pitches, 6 errors in the field and little if any bat on ball contact. I mean, these kids are really bad. I’m pretty sure even Coach Buttermaker would have thrown in the towel.
But then, somewhere in the deep angst of a 5th inning slaughter rally by the opposing Beit Shemesh Blue Sox, I heard something that sent shivers down my spine. It was a simple chant. All teams do it from time to time with hopes of sparking a rally or comeback. But this one, seared a permanent track in my heart:
“Let’s go Jerusalem! Da-da-da-da-da. Let’s go Jerusalem! Da-da-da-da-da.”
Are you kidding me? Is this real? Is my son really playing Little League for the Jerusalem Cadets?
Is this literally the prophecy of Zecharia in real time?
After witnessing the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and watching the remnant of the Jewish population dragged off in chains to Babylon, the prophet uttered these words of hope:
”And the squares of the city shall again be crowded with boys and girls playing in the squares.” (Zecharia 8:5)
“Let’s go Jerusalem! da-da-da-da-da. Let’s go Jerusalem.”
There aren’t adequate words to describe how I felt at that moment. The realization that after 2000 years of national yearning to return, and over 20 of years of personal longing to come home (since we left Israel in 2001), I was now watching my kid let grounders go through under knees and get hit by wild pitches on a baseball field in Jerusalem.
My son is playing Little League on the JERUSALEM team? Now I know, we have really come home.
