When the 20 national teams gather next month for the World Baseball Classic, every team but one will be accompanied by two Major League Baseball security agents.
Team Israel will have four.
“This is just stuff that other teams do not have to deal with,” Nate Fish, manager of the Israeli national team and CEO of Israel Baseball Americas, told JNS. “But it’s stuff that we’re used to dealing with.”
“We don’t talk about it that much,” he said.
It’s been nine years since Team Israel, then ranked 49th, shocked the world by reaching the second round of the tournament and then upsetting No. 5, Cuba, before the clock struck 12. In 2023, Team Israel didn’t make it out of the first round but did well enough to automatically qualify for this year’s event.
Team Israel is in Pool D with the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, the Netherlands and Venezuela. The games begin on March 7 at LoanDepot Park in Miami, home of the Miami Marlins.
Unlike its competitors, Team Israel has concerns beyond just hitting, fielding and pitching.
“You understand this is what you’re signing up for, but we have to deal with a lot of security concerns that no other teams deal with,” Fish told JNS.
“Bomb-sniffing dogs have to board the buses before we do. We travel with a lot of security. We can’t wear anything that has Israel on our bags even when we travel,” he said. “When we went to the Olympics, we had to put our logos on the insides of our bags so we could travel.”
But it’s something the players are used to, according to Fish.
“You go through your security protocols. You go take batting practice. You go back in the clubhouse,” he explained. “There are security guys everywhere. You don’t really notice, so it just becomes part of the environment for us. I think if other players stepped into that environment, it would be quite unusual for them. But we’ve gotten used to it.”
Adam Gladstone, chief operating officer of Israel Baseball Americas and director of baseball operations for Team Israel, told JNS that the team’s main focus will be on the games, not the precautions.
“We’re a baseball team going to play baseball,” he said. “Once you’re on the field, you’re in a bubble.”
Still, security has gotten even tighter since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Security briefings are more serious. More protocols,” Fish told JNS. “But even at the Olympics, which is before Oct. 7, we had really, really tight security because of Israel’s history at the Olympics.”
In 1972, Palestinian terrorists stormed the Olympic village and took Israeli athletes hostage. The Palestinians murdered 11 Israelis.
The players who signed up for Team Israel knew in advance of the extra security protections under which they would play and decided to play anyway, according to Fish.
“I think it goes one of two ways. Either you’re concerned about security, and that affects your decision to play for the team, or it motivates you,” he told JNS. “For any of the guys that are going to be there, it’s going to be a motivating factor. They’ve decided to step into this experience, put on the uniform and wear it publicly and proudly, and there is some risk involved in that.”
“Anyone that’s doing it is ready to do it,” Fish said. “We all know what we’re signing up for. So anyone that’s on the team knows what they’re signing up for when they sign up to play for Team Israel.”
In fact, Team Israel is finding more players asking to play on the team rather than having to do the asking.
“In past cycles, the onus has been on us to go out and recruit,” Simon Rosenbaum, general manager of the team, told JNS.
“In this cycle, more than the last cycle and hopefully going forward, it’s shifting to more players trying to sell themselves to play for us, which I think says a lot about the players who want to be proud of representing Israel,” he said.
