Why’s a nice Jewish boy playing baseball…in Israel?

The Israel Baseball League was a romantic idea that was not fated to succeed. (Image via Wikipedia)

Where have you gone, Kenny Holtzman?

As of the summer of 2007, managing the Petah Tikva Pioneers in the fledgling Israel Baseball League. Unfortunately, soon after, both the league and the only man to pitch two no-hitters for the Cubs dropped out of sight. Holtzman, who appeared on a number of my “Diamond Gems” baseball radio shows in its first year in 1994-95, apparently is keeping as low of a profile as the immortal to which he was always compared — Sandy Koufax.

Notice the connections here: Holtzman, Koufax, baseball and Israel. If you grow up Jewish and love the national pastime, you have a side fascination with Jews who made it to the majors.

The old stereotype held that Jewish boys couldn’t hold their own in sports and thus were funneled into the intellectual pursuits of law or accounting. Writing? “There’s no money,” your mother warned.  This time Mom was right.

So any Jew who made it to the majors earned distinction above his stature. Koufax, perhaps the greatest pitcher of all-time, and Holtzman were self-explanatory. And any team that employed a Jew, let alone two, well that’s one for the record books. The Cubs have had a pair of Jewish players for the first time in franchise history two of the last three years — pitcher Jason Marquis and outfielder Sam Fuld in September, 2007, and Fuld and pitcher John Grabow in 2009.

Given the odds of any player of any creed making it to the majors, most hopefuls end up deferring their baseball dreams permanently. But what if you had another chance, and literally could go to Israel to fulfill that baseball yearning? That’s the best angle of the new film, “Holy Land Hardball,” which gained exposure in two recent showings at a couple of Chicago-area theaters. The movie finally gets its TV debut on MLB Network at 10 p.m. (Eastern) on Sunday, January 10.

But this isn’t a rah-rah production by any means.  Boston-area bagel impresario Larry Baras, who founded the Israel Baseball League for its one-season lifespan, had his reputation tarnished by apparent financial mismanagement of the league. Checks bounced and participants were angered. No wonder “Holy Land Hardball” stops at the first pitch of the league’s existence on June 24, 2007 and doesn’t show any game action — or the behind-the-scenes politics of a business plan gone bad. Even Baras was depicted in the film claiming he thought the league was manageable — “but I was wrong.”

Still, making the film a worthwhile view and worthy of telecast are the profiles of a quartet of baseball wannabes who’d travel halfway around the world, to a country that is not ready, physically or culturally, for a game called by one native as  “a lazy game…a lot of fat people play it.” Another Israeli suggested that “the ball never comes” amid all the built-in action stoppages.  He  should be Bud Selig’s director of operations so he could speed up the game.

At the center of the story is Nate Fish, a former University of Cincinnati teammate of Kevin Youkilis, just about the top Jewish star today with the Red Sox. Fish, an observant Jew, carries himself like a Seventies rock star with his mop-top of hair, wanting to re-ignite his career at 26.

Then there is Eric Holtz, a 40-year-old father of three and a clothing manufacturer, who used to be a baseball Jones, but cut down his participation in baseball leagues one by one  as each of his kids was born. Holtz, afflicted by the “Peter Pan syndrome,” in his own words, wants one last shot at playing competitively.

Also portrayed is Willis Bumphus, an African-American player from San Diego. And there is Dan Rootenberg, who left for Israel soon after his first child was born. A senior-citizen Holocaust survivor who went through a courtesy tryout in Miami is a wonderful touch.

The desire to play baseball, as long and as hard as you can and until they throw you off the field, is a classic American tale. Watching Fish, Holtz, Bumphus and Rootenberg go through tryouts and put up with spartan dormitory conditions in a kibbutz — the air conditioning was spotty at best during a Middle Eastern summer — is eye-opening.

And when you’ve had one of baseball’s most prestigious jobs, in this case general manager of the Red Sox, you don’t easily let go of the craving to run a team or league. That was the portrait painted of Dan Duquette, defrocked as Red Sox GM in 2002. Duquette was distant, even arrogant, running the marquee franchise. It’s revealing to see him come down to earth with his people style heading up baseball operations in the Israel Baseball League.

In addition to Holtzman, the IBL attracted two other former Jewish players as managers in the six-team operation: Ron Blomberg, the first-ever designated hitter with the Yankees in 1973, and Art Shamsky, the platoon right fielder of the 1969 world champion Mets.

The film shows baseball probably can’t be a truly world game. Soccer has that title. Baseball simply can’t take root everywhere its backers desire.  Smaller-scale pro leagues operate in places like Italy and The Netherlands. The game is now entrenched in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and even Australia.  But the Middle East, much of Europe and South America and all of Africa are not fertile soil.

Baras, an observant Jew shown praying at the Western Wall, did fulfill the baseball version of the thousands-years-old vow of  “next year in Jerusalem.”  But unlike Israel itself, there would be no permanence of baseball in the Holy Land.

Once again, baseball shows itself as a cruel game to those that want to embrace it. It’s the ultimate game of failure. Yet its allure is so powerful people keep trying. And that’s the moral of the story of “Holy Land Hardball.”