Dawgs Softball in Israel | ñåôèáåì éùøàì - äãåâæ

For a guy who wasn't even there, we'd like to say "Great Reporting, Lowell" ____________________________________________________________________________ Rishon LeZion, Israel February 19, 2003 In a fit of modified madness, tempered by a passion for the game, Shmuel Goldstein, a resident of the Jewish settlement of Revava, a Torah scholar, an expert in technical writing and documentation, and a star pitcher for his softball team, the DGTech Dawgs, held a late night practice at the Rishon LeZion sports field, which, by all accounts, had essentially become Lake Rishon LeZion. "Well, it was a little hard sloshing around in the water. Catching the ball was somewhat challenging, too. My pitching was a bit off, and I couldn't throw so many pitches. Not having a catcher to catch my throws, I had to retrieve all the balls myself. That sort of slowed down my rhythm and interrupted my concentration. But I needed the other eleven Ducks, I mean Dawgs, to work on other drills and skills." Goldstein, a burly ballplayer with a physique not unlike other hard throwing hurlers in history - Fernando Valenzuela, Goose Gossage, Babe Ruth, Israel's own Tito from Argentina, and Ami Baran - originally hails from Los Angeles. "While working at ECI, a colleague, playing in the league at the time, got me interested in softball. Pretty soon, I got my own team together. Five years and four kids later, here I am, on the mound where I belong. "Pitching came quite naturally to me. And I work at it, throwing balls over and over at a net propped up against the wall of my house. Once, some guys from the Mitchell Commission came by, asking about it. They then told me it violated the Oslo agreements because it constituted setting up an illegal structure in the occupied territories. Those guys don't know softball and they certainly don't know me," Goldstein said, stern-faced and determined.