Israel Scores Big in Little League World Series

Most of them are too young to remember when Israel went on its magical 2017 World Baseball Classic run. After all, the 14 members of Israel’s U12 Little League team were between three and five years old when Israel established itself as a legitimate contender on the world stage.

But this summer, this talented group of young ballplayers authored their own chapter in Israeli baseball history by coming two wins away from securing the country’s first-ever berth in the Little League World Series, held in Williamsport, Penn.

In mid-July, the Israeli squad steamrolled their way through the competition in the Little League Europe-Africa Region Qualifying Tournament in Kutno, Poland, outscoring opponents by a whopping 77-3 margin in their immaculate 5-0 run.

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During a stretch of dominant wins over Ukraine, Estonia, Poland, and Croatia and a 6-5 thriller over France, Israel’s pitching staff yielded merely five hits while the imposing lineup belted four homers. By virtue of reeling off a 5-0 record in the seven-team qualifying round, Israel emerged as one of two teams (Lithuania being the other one) to advance to the Regional Field for a shot at Williamsport.

In mid-July, the Israeli squad steamrolled their way through the competition in the Little League Europe-Africa Region Qualifying Tournament in Kutno, Poland, outscoring opponents by a whopping 77-3 margin in their immaculate 5-0 run.

Ultimately, the Czech Republic prevailed in Regionals for a second consecutive summer by knocking off Germany to represent Europe-Africa in the Little League World Series, but Israel clearly demonstrated that it belonged among such elite teams. With the backing of political luminaries such as former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and current Israeli President Isaac Herzog as well as Orthodox Jewish pitcher Jacob Steinmetz of the Arizona Diamondbacks organization, who inspired the boys with a video message, Israel scored victories over South Africa (11-4) and Spain (7-4), before eventually falling to Germany, 12-2, in the semi-final elimination round.

“We made changes to our local league for years to get these players to the highest level possible,” explained Ken Sachs, commissioner of Israel Little League, when speaking to the AJT earlier this month. “This was a plan put in place by former national team player Ophir Katz and myself a few years ago, knowing the best way to improve our program inside Israel was to start getting the kids into a more baseball-like program from a younger age.

“We worked with the board to restructure the leagues and put rules into place that emphasized development over winning at younger ages with the hope that this would be the beginning of pushing all of our national teams to higher levels.”

Apparently, the plan has worked. Israel boasts an imposing lineup, anchored in large part by sluggers Lior Margulis and Moshe Carmen, the latter of whom socked a 250-foot moonshot during a regular season game at his home ballpark in Efrat that has become the stuff of legend in his hometown. As is the case for the entire Israeli youth baseball program, the future is bright for the 12-year-old Carmen, who became the first youth league player (ages 12-15) to clear the left field fence at Efrat’s ballpark before following up his prodigious regular season blast by going deep four times in Poland.

Meanwhile, the pitching staff consisted of a rock-steady rotation that included Margulis, Roei Malka, Yitzy Kralek, Itiel Holtz, and Eitan Weiss. Some are fireballers, others more finesse pitchers. All played a crucial role in Israel having a nice run during the program’s second go-round in the LL European Qualifiers. (Summer 2024 marks the fourth year of the current iteration of Little League in Israel, but because of COVID and the war in Ukraine, this is only the second time Israel appeared in the Little League European Qualifiers.)

“We saw last year that we could compete in the qualifying tournament and that we were not too far away from competing in the main tournament,” added Sachs, who’s also a longtime coach in Israel and board member of the Israel Association of Baseball. “I personally felt we had a 60/40 chance to make the main tournament before we arrived this year.”

Keeping the kids focused on making the main tourney while living abroad for two weeks – not to mention monitoring the pitching staff’s workload, which is no easy task in Little League as there are stringent pitch limits – fell on the shoulders of head coach Michael Levy, who was assisted by David Weiss, an expert at in-game strategy, and team manager Mordechai Holtz, who deftly managed tricky logistics that ended up including scheduling games around Shabbat and ensuring that kosher food received from the Warshaw Chabad was properly refrigerated.

“He [Levy] infuses the mental aspect of the game into his coaching style and philosophy to get the max out of the players’ potential on and off the field. He clearly did this in Poland,” Sachs commented about his head coach who has a master’s degree in sports psychology and is a mental performance coach back in Israel.

For good measure, following the Israeli Little Leaguers’ impressive showing in Poland last month, Israel also proved victorious in the recent U-23 Baseball Euro Qualifier in Zurich, Switzerland, to secure its place at next summer’s U-23 Baseball European Championship in Trebic, Czechia. Perhaps, it will be an appearance that will coincide with Israel Little League’s debut in Williamsport.