Team Israel finally earned its first win in the World Baseball Classic, defeating Nicaragua 5–0 to move to a 1–1 record and into third place in its pool.

Israel tacks on two more to make it a 4-0 lead in the 5th! pic.twitter.com/ITXmlq2IlK

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) March 9, 2026

The post WATCH: Israel defeats Nicaragua 5-0 in World Baseball Classic matchup appeared first on World Israel News.

San Francisco Giants outfielder Harrison Bader, a Gold Glove winner, will play center field for Team Israel.

By Jonathan D. Salant, JNS

It was almost a decade ago that Team Israel came seemingly out of nowhere to reach the second round of the 2017 World Baseball Classic as higher-ranked teams fell short.

The Israeli team’s leadership is hoping for another taste of success this time around.

“At this point, we have a habit of winning, and we have a tradition of winning,” Nate Fish, manager of the Israeli national team and CEO of Israel Baseball Americas, told JNS.

“We’re going in expecting to find our way out of the first round and into the second round. It’s not like an impossible dream,” he said.

“We’ve made it through the first round before. We made it to the Olympics and we won a silver medal in the European Championships. So there’s a tradition of going on improbable winning streaks for this team.”

Israel enters the tournament ranked 12th of the 20 teams. That’s higher than Nicaragua (18) but below the other teams in its pool: Dominican Republic (2), Venezuela (4) and Netherlands (11). The top two teams advance to the next round.

“We just have to play well,” Fish told JNS. “We have to hit. We gotta pitch. We gotta go play baseball. You know, we can’t pray for a miracle. We just gotta go play better than the other team. It’s that simple.”

The team isn’t just looking at this tournament but future years as well. The better Team Israel performs, the more other players will want to wear the blue and white, according to team officials.

The best Jewish ballplayer in the Major Leagues, Chicago Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman, is playing on Team USA. The best Jewish pitcher, Max Fried, isn’t playing in the tournament.

“Basically, you don’t think about that stuff,” Adam Gladstone, chief operating officer of Israel Baseball Americas and Team Israel baseball operations director, told JNS.

“You love the guys that you got. You try and support them and have them go out and perform,” he said. “It would never even cross anyone’s mind that Alex Bragman could be on the field or Max Fried could be on the field.”

“We’re going to be so focused on the 30 guys that we have out there,” he added. “That’s the team, and everyone just comes together, and you roll.”

Members of Team Israel’s front office touted that roster at an evening event last week at a country club in the Washington, D.C., suburbs over kosher hot dogs, popcorn and brownies.

San Francisco Giants outfielder Harrison Bader, a Gold Glove winner, will play center field for Team Israel. Baltimore Orioles pitcher Dean Kremer, an Israeli citizen, will headline the pitching staff. CJ Stubbs of the Philadelphia Phillies will catch. The roster also includes Spencer Horwitz of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

“It is important for where we are as a group to build credibility among the teams,” Simon Rosenbaum, the Israeli team’s general manager, told JNS.

“Having established major leaders like Dean, like Harrison, like Spencer, I think, starts building that foundation of a team that other players really want to play with and be a part of.”

And there is outfielder Assaf Lowengart, the only Israel-born member of the team.

“Here’s a guy that watched us as a kid and then had the opportunity to learn the game in Israel and has put himself into the position where he’s the first Israeli-born professional baseball player, and he’s made the club,” Gladstone told JNS. “That’s why we’re doing what we do.”

Rosenbaum told JNS that some players are asking to join Team Israel instead of the other way around.

“One of the coolest parts about this cycle has been how much interest in playing for Team Israel has grown organically from players talking to their teammates, players talking to their agents, their agents talking to other players who are eligible to play for us,” he said.

“I still think about 2017 and how inspiring that is for us, and I think about the players who are leaving their Major League camps to come and play for us, and what it would mean to them to get the opportunity to move on, playing the quarterfinals, the semifinals, finals,” he told JNS. “That’s definitely what we’re going to try and do.”

This enthusiasm comes even as antisemitic incidents have spiked since Oct. 7, 2023.

As the war raged, American sympathies shifted towards the Palestinians. In an August Quinnipiac University poll, 37% of U.S. voters said their sympathies lay more with the Palestinians—an all-time high—while 36% said the Israelis, an all-time low.

The World Baseball Classic offers a unique opportunity to stand with Israel.

“How amazing is it to have proud Jewish ballplayers with Israel on their chest saying, ‘I’m not backing down?’” Ari Ackerman, a part-owner of the Miami Marlins, told JNS.

“I’m going to be unapologetically Jewish, I’m going to be unapologetically Israeli, and I’m going to make sure the world sees that I’m not some wimp,” he said. “I’m a guy who’s playing ball, who’s living a very loud, proud, strong Jewish life.”

Rosenbaum, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, said that “people looking around and seeing a group of Major League Baseball players wearing ‘Israel’ proudly across their chest today more than ever is something I’m proud to be a part of.”

The post Tradition of ‘improbable winning streaks,’ Team Israel says ahead of World Baseball Classic appeared first on World Israel News.

Netanyahu considers Israel’s achievements in the World Baseball Classic this year a major success. 

Israel’s Cinderella story in this year’s World Baseball Classic came to an end in Tokyo Wednesday after its team lost to Japan 8-3 in the second round.

“We’re disappointed because we lost and won’t be moving on, but we lost to two excellent teams,” said Team Israel’s manager Jerry Weinstein, adding that “Japan didn’t give anything away.”

The second excellent team referred to by Weinstein was that of the Netherlands, which routed Israel 12-2 in just 8 innings on Monday. According to World Baseball Classic’s rules, the game is ended after 7 innings if the run differential between both teams is at 10 points.

During Wednesday’s game, Israel managed to stay in a scoreless tie with Japan through 5 innings. Japan however, scored 5 runs in the sixth, which would end up to be more than enough to win the game.

Israel prevented a shutout in the ninth inning when Ike Davis scored in Sam Fuld with a single, followed by a double by Ryan Lavarnway, driving in another two runs.

Despite Team Israel’s loss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considers Israel’s performance, which took many by surprise, a success.

“Israel’s achievements in baseball this year are a source of Jewish and Israeli pride,” stated Eli Groner, Netanyahu’s chief of staff, according to Times of Israel.

“These are players that take off their baseball hats and proudly wear skullcaps while singing the Israeli anthem before the game,” Groner continued. “That’s a diplomatic achievement that is going to stay with us for many years.”

“The State of Israel and the Foreign Ministry invest many resources into building relationships with many countries in the world where baseball is an important sport, like Japan, Latin America, China, Taiwan and others, and therefore Israel’s success is not only an athletic success, but also a diplomatic success,” he added.

By: World Israel News Staff

The post Team Israel loses to Japan 8-3, ending Cinderella drive appeared first on World Israel News.

Exceeding projections, Team Israel beat higher-ranking teams and progressed to the second round of the World Baseball Classic.

With a little help from “The Mensch on the Bench” mascot, Team Israel is into the second round of the World Baseball Classic.

Just 41st in world rankings, Israel shocked third-ranked South Korea 2-1 in its opening game and then beat fourth-ranked Taiwan 15-7 on Tuesday. On Thursday, Israel beat the Netherlands 4-2 to finish in first place in Pool A with a 3-0 record.

Next up for Team Israel is the second round in Tokyo with a chance to advance to the semifinals.

South Korea won the bronze medal in the 2006 WBC and silver in the 2009 edition and was one of the pre-tournament favorites to win a medal again. Beating them on home soil was a huge upset.

But Israel’s 73-year-old manager Jerry Weinstein says he’s not surprised by the early success.

“The only unknown was the caliber of the competition,” Weinstein said. “We never doubted our ability. Our strengths are that we are a well-balanced team. We can pitch and have pitching depth; we have team speed, team power and can catch the ball. We’re a very close knit group.”

The Mensch on the Bench

The team is getting some inspiration from its popular mascot. Infielder Cody Decker brought The Mensch with him from home and he’s been a big hit in South Korea.

Mensch means a person of integrity or honor in Yiddish. The Mensch on the Bench started during Israel’s qualifying round in New York.

“He’s on the team,” Weinstein said. “Everybody brings something to the team and certainly The Mensch is a unifying factor for the ball club.”

Israel’s roster is made up almost entirely of Jewish-American players with major or minor league experience. Some familiar names include, pitcher Jason Marquis, formerly of the Cincinnati Reds, and catcher Ryan Lavarnway, who has MLB experience with Boston, Baltimore and Atlanta.

Then there is pitcher and Israel citizen Shlomo Lipetz, the only player on the roster with no MLB affiliation.

For some of the players — Josh Zeid, Nate Freiman, Nick Rickles and Ike Davis — the 2017 WBC will be their third appearance with Team Israel. They were all part of the team that narrowly missed qualifying for the 2013 WBC, and all played in the qualifiers in September.

The WBC’s “heritage rule” states players eligible for national citizenship may play on that country’s team. This will be the first time American Jewish baseball players represent Israel in a world championship.

In January, eight members of the team visited Israel for a week to learn about the country and meet Israeli fans. They toured Tel Aviv, Jerusalem’s holy sites, the Dead Sea, and met local Israeli baseball players.

Israel was the final country to qualify for the 2017 WBC and is making its first appearance in the tournament.

According to the Israel Association of Baseball, there are about 1,000 active baseball players in the country.

American immigrants started playing baseball in Israel in the 1970s. In December 1986, the Israel Association of Baseball (IAB) was formed as a nonprofit organization to develop and promote baseball.

The Israel Baseball League started in 2007 and features six teams: The Bet Shemesh Blue Sox, the Modi’in Miracle, the Netanya Tigers, the Petach Tikva Pioneers, the Ra’anana Express and the Tel Aviv Lightning.

Decker, who is currently in the Milwaukee Brewers organization, hopes the team’s success in the WBC will translate into a baseball boom in Israel.

“The growth of Israeli baseball over the past four years since the initial qualifier in 2012 has been huge,” Decker said. “So who knows what it can be in another four years. We’ve done a lot with this and we’re just hoping to keep it going.”

By: AP

The post Israel advances to 2nd round of the World Baseball Classic appeared first on World Israel News.