It looks as if the Israel Baseball League is preparging to kick off their season this August after a brief hiatus (which they thankfully ended so the sport could live on).
(Israel Baseball League) The Israel Baseball League, which inaugurated the first season of professional baseball in Israel last summer, has officially announced its plans for this summer season, a week-long baseball festival starting on August 14th that will pit an IBL All-Star team against a team made up of premier Israeli players.
The baseball festival, which will go from August 14th through August 21st, will take place at the Yarkon Sports Complex at the Baptist Village. The Baptist Village field, Israel’s state-of-the-art baseball and softball facility, is located in Petach Tikva, about seven miles outside of Tel Aviv. Games will start at 7 p.m. and are scheduled to be played on Thursday night, August 14th, and then each night from Sunday August 17th through Thursday night, August 21st.“Our players are going over to put on a show. They are going over to run clinics in various communities. They are going to visit hospitals and hand out gifts. And most of all, they are going over to play some baseball,” said David Solomont, who has stepped into the role of president of the IBL.
The aim of the Israel Baseball League (or IBL for short) to not only promote baseball in the Holy Land (and attract tourism), but to also eventually join the major leagues (as several of their players were eventually picked up by the major leagues due to their involvment with IBL).
Even though the franchise could not play “all out” this year, hopefully they will draw enough attention (and money) to make 2009 a grandslam success. Pun intended. 
Update (7/31): An anonymous reader has pointed me towards a story on the Jerusalem Post with some troubling news. Since there is always two sides to every story, I’ve emailed the IBL to see if I can find out what happened from their perspective.
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