For the first time in history, the Israeli national baseball team has qualified to compete in the Olympic Games, which will be held this year in Tokyo. The team is made up of Jewish-American players who have qualified to represent Israel by becoming citizens only in the last year-and-a-half. It’s a remarkable and inspiring story: Don’t miss the article about the team linked below.
UPDATE: The 2020 Tokyo Olympics has been postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Quote: “I didn’t understand the significance of the World Baseball Classic [2017] until we were in Korea. Yoni [Rosenblatt, team strength and conditioning coach] is a very religious man, an Orthodox Jew, very smart man. And he’s the one who kind of put it in perspective for me: ‘The fact that our flag is flying is enough. If we don’t win even one game, it doesn’t matter. The fact is that people have to recognize that not only do we exist, but we earned our way here and we can be equals on the playing field.’ For me, that put it in perspective, and I got chills.” — Ryan Lavarnway (pictured), pro baseball catcher and member of Team Israel
Source: TheJerusalemPost
Learn more about Ryan Lavarnway on Wikipedia. >>
Learn more about the Israeli baseball team that will compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. >>
Photo: Sports Illustrated
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