UCSD’s Shlomo Lipetz may be the best Israeli baseball player ever. Now he has a shot at the major leagues.
By Karen Pearlman
Is Major League Baseball ready for its first Israel-born player?
Is the world?
From the Land of Milk and Honey to the home of apple pie, it’s entirely possible for University of California-San Diego pitcher Shlomo Lipetz.
At age 26, Lipetz is older than most baseball prospects, but the 3/4-sidearm-throwing right-hander could be one of the chosen in June’s Major League Baseball draft. One major league team has already shown interest.
In the March/April 2005 issue of Jewish Sports Review, Shel Wallman, who has been keeping tabs on Jews in sports for decades, called Lipetz “by far the best Israeli baseball player ever.”
The Tel Aviv-born Lipetz is in his final year of eligibility at UCSD, where the Tritons baseball team is ranked 18th in the country (Division II) with a record of 12-5.
“Last year I didn’t have to deal much with adversity,” says Lipetz, who led the Tritons last season with a 2.84 earned run average. He went 5-0 in 24 relief appearances, holding opposing hitters to a .257 batting average. “I’ve had a little bit of adversity this season, but I think that they know I’m the one they can go to. I’ve proven myself, and even when I struggle, I keep my head up and say, ‘What’s next?’ That’s my attitude.” As of press time in mid-March, Lipetz had appeared in 11 of the Triton’s 17 games, with an ERA of 4.38 and two wins, one loss and two saves.
Lipetz transferred to UCSD, where he is carrying a 3.6 grade point average majoring in political science/international relations, from San Diego Mesa College, where he studied and pitched for the Olympians for two seasons.
“He’s just matured and blossomed,” says UCSD coach Dan O’Brien, in his eighth season as the Tritons’ head coach. “Shlomo’s maturity is the big reason he’s so successful. It isn’t easy having the role of a late-inning bullpen guy, but he has the ability to stay even-keeled, which you need. He is still working on his consistency, but he’s very effective, he has shown great composure, and he’s a great example for the others.”
His three-year mandatory stint in the Israeli army didn’t deter him from staying active, mostly through playing softball as often as he could.
By the time the 6-foot-4 Lipetz arrived at Mesa College as a freshman in 2001, the Olympians had already held their tryouts and set their roster. But he was 22 and wasn’t about to wait another season to fulfill his lifelong dream of playing college ball.
So he convinced Mesa coach Kevin Hazlett of his ability to throw a baseball accurately, and throw it hard. Never mind that he had never pitched regularly and was really an infielder...
“He got to us by lying to me,” Hazlett laughs, “but when I asked him to throw a bullpen [session], he was convincing. He was mature, and he wasn’t a guy I had to worry about a whole lot. He knew how to take care of himself on and off the field.
“He didn’t play much his first year but the second season, in 2002, he was 4-2 with three saves. His second year I saw a ton of improvement. He was good in pressure situations and was a calming influence on the rest of the team.”
Lipetz says he enjoyed the camaraderie of his fellow community college teammates, and since he was through with his party years, he took pride in the way they looked up to him.
“The players at Mesa called me ‘Sarge’ because of my military experience,” Lipetz says.
Always athletic and a sports fan like his younger brother, Gabriel, a surfer who lives and competes in Hawaii, Shlomo Lipetz got a real dose of baseball passion in 1986. It was the fall when his family took a trip to New York – the same year the Mets were in the World Series and the city of New York was euphoric. Upon returning to Israel, Lipetz looked into playing for a youth baseball team in Tel Aviv.
What he found was efes. Zilch. Nada. Nothing.
As Lipetz recalls, softball was played here and there, but soccer and basketball were the mainstays of Tel Aviv team sports. Then – as now – open land is hard to come by in Israel and water and grass are equally scarce, so building baseball fields was not a priority.
But he and a group of his young friends – many of whom would anxiously tune their televisions to a Lebanese TV station that showed major league baseball games every so often – pushed and pushed for baseball and eventually the little chaverim got things going.
“We would play once a week,” Lipetz says. “Girls would come cheer us on. We had almost no equipment, maybe a couple of bats and gloves.”
Leon Klarfeld, former Israel Association of Baseball president, recalls this was the time when interest in baseball in Israel began to take off. And how it has.
“It was about 18 years ago that a small group of 8-year-olds sat next to the outfield fence in the Sportek in Tel Aviv and decided that ‘Tigers’ would be a good name for their young baseball team,” recalls Klarfeld. “It very well may have been Shlomo Lipetz who suggested the name that soon became a baseball and softball dynasty in Israel.
“At that time in 1988, there were only about seven or eight teams spread across the country. Back then, we were novices and players were scarce, so teams played 8-year-olds alongside 15-year-olds on
converted soccer fields of various sizes, shapes and condition.
“They were all so small then... Who knew they would grow up into tall men and go off to the Army, college and continue to play baseball throughout the whole ordeal? Eventually the baseball program in Israel solidified into its 25-year plan. The plan will reach fruition when Shlomo and his friends coach their children and other 8-year-olds.”
Now there is an infrastructure to support about
60 youth teams and a budding senior league, Klarfeld says. There are games
for college-age baseball players four nights a week under lights on a
Major League-size field. This year, for the first time, the IAB will host
a Maccabia Baseball Tournament. Four years ago the tourney was canceled
because of security worries.
“Over the years I have coached, umpired and played
with hundreds of children,” Klarfeld says. “However, it is
that first group of 8-year-olds that I remember most fondly. Then, we
had only a burning desire to play, have fun, learn and build baseball
in Israel. Then, if someone brought us a batting helmet or a catcher’s
mitt it was the most precious item we had.”
Lipetz has become the heart of top Israeli national youth
baseball teams that have traveled the world – from Germany (where
young Lipetz and the U-10 Tigers lost their very first tournament game
to Saudi Arabia, 41-0) to Italy and myriad countries in between, to play
teams representing other countries for various world championships.
In 1996, Lipetz helped the Israeli national team to a second-place
finish at the European B-Pool Championships, losing to the Czech Republic
in the finals.
Last year, Lipetz was a member of the Israeli National Team
that played in the European B-Pool Championships. The team went 3-2, and
Lipetz was 1-1 with a 2.65 ERA and 12 strikeouts in 17 innings pitched.
He also hit .333.
In between traveling abroad, going back to Israel to help
with seminars and clinics and having a life, Lipetz has found time to
give back to the local Jewish community.
During the summer between his studies at Mesa and UCSD, Lipetz
was an assistant teacher at Congregation Beth Am, helping fourth-through-sixth
graders with Hebrew. He also tutored kids privately.
Getting his master’s degree at a university somewhere
in the States – possibly in New York or San Francisco – is
a probable, but Lipetz hopes to continue his baseball career after college.
“I hope I have a good enough year to have some talk with
some (big league) teams,” Lipetz says. “There are other options,
though. There are professional baseball leagues in Italy or maybe even
elsewhere. I’m just going to see where it all goes.”
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| CHAI, UH, SIX: The six Jewish players on UCSD’s baseball team are (back, L-R) Byron Grubman, Dusty Destler and Bryan Silverman and (front, L-R) Shlomo Lipetz, Adam Butler and Brian Trump. |
The Chai Five There’s mo’ than Shlomo. UCSD boasts five other Jewish baseballers. Not every Jewish boy wants to grow up to be a doctor or lawyer. Some want to be baseball players. But most Jewish boys want a good education… or at least their parents want them to! At UCSD this year, baseball-playing Jewish boys are at an unusually high percentage. Of the 36 players on the 2005 Tritons, six are Jewish. Sixteen percent. Perhaps more than any other team in the United States this year (does Brandeis have a hardball team?), and definitely the most at one time on any college team in San Diego. Besides Israeli pitcher Shlomo Lipetz (see “Shalom run!”), the Tritons boast backup catcher Bryan Silverman, backup second baseman Dusty Destler, starting pitcher Byron Grubman, first baseman Brian Trump and relief pitcher Adam Butler. “They’re all quality ballplayers,” said eighth-year UCSD baseball coach Dan O’Brien. “We’re not actively recruiting Jewish baseball players, but we have a high level academically and athletically (at UCSD). Academics are a priority in the Jewish community, and we offer a great place to get a degree and play competitive baseball.” O’Brien remains close to one of his Jewish alumni, Yeshayah Goldfarb. From 1997 to 2000, Goldfarb pitched for the Tritons. His freshman year, there were three other Jewish pitchers. He currently works for the San Francisco Giants in Baseball Operations/Video Systems. Another former Triton, pitcher David Siegel, now works for the Los Angeles Dodgers. “We have great alumni here – they’re like family,” said O’Brien, who played for the Tritons in the early ‘90s. “Yoshi was a senior the first year I was the head coach here. He is a great supporter of the program.” -by Karen Pearlman |
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