This Sunday night, the MLB Network will be broadcasting "Holy Land Hardball," a documentary about baseball in Israel, at 10 PM.It is the story of the founding of the Israel Baseball League, and the film was made by Brett Rapkin, who I had the pleasure of working with on "Impossible to Forget: The Story of the '67 Boston Red Sox."
And one of the driving forces behind the founding of the league was Dan Duquette, the former general manager of the Red Sox from 1994-2002. Kevin Youkilis, as well as former MLB players Art Shamsky, Ken Holtzman and Ron Blomberg make appearances in the documentary.
The founding of the league was the dream of a Boston businessman named Larry Baras, and in 2007, it came true. He had a lot of obstacles to overcome. Here's the trailer from the film:
I haven't seen the film yet, but I look forward to checking it out. I love the last line on the trailer of "Holy Land Hardball": "It only took 5,767 years."
3 comments:
Hey man, I put this comment on FB first. Figured I'd copy it here -
This is something that came to my attention through our rabbi's office. He included a link to the documentary in our newsletter a few months ago. I think it's pretty damn awesome.
Unfortunately there is no denying that baseball is not prominent in the Jewish culture. There is only the one temple in our town so just about every Jewish youngster that plays baseball in any of the 6 Little Leagues in our county is a member. Yet in a typical year there are no more than 3 or 4 kids that play ball at our temple of 400 or so families. But we're working on it, we have a softball team now, and this story is a welcome sign to me, being the baseball devotee that I am.
Hope you enjoy watching the documentary, Tim. Let me know what you think afterwards. I'll be watching Sunday, too.
As will I. Thanks John.
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