Dawgs Softball in Israel | ñåôèáåì éùøàì - äãåâæ

Jeff Taragin played on this team only once, and for only one game . . . But Jeff was the key person who introduced your webmaster and general manager (Shmuel) to the game of softball. Jeff was an "all-around guy", as his daughter Temimma has said. He was athletic - he played softball and tennis, swam, played the guitar, was a software engineer, learned and taught daf yomi, was a melodic baal koreh, dedicated to Yiddischkeit, and had a wonderful sense of humor. He was a model of a good person, a good Jew, had a good family, a good marriage, was tall, attractive, charismatic. The type of guy you would want your daughter to marry. There was just one problem: He was dying of cancer. Jeff passed away August 28, 2003, after a protracted battle against Lymphoma. He was 48 years old, and is survived by his wife, Aviva, his daughters Chaya (+husband and child), Temimma, and Shayna, son Yitzy, brothers Arnie and Sonney, sister Faith, and his mother, Rachel. He will be sorely missed, not least of all by me, Shmuel. --------------------------------------------------------------- Let me give you some more background history: Jeff Taragin arrived in Rehovot in 1995, with his family, looking for a more frum (religiously dedicated) environment than what he found in Raanana. He showed up at the "Chatam" synagogue, which was just finishing its new building. So, one evening after maariv [evening prayers] we were putting up the shelves for the library (which has since moved to the 3rd floor), and he pitched in (ha ha). He mentioned to me, and a few other guys "Hey, is there any baseball here in Rehovot?" I looked at him incredulously, saying "Uh, no . . . . ". A few days later, again after maariv he says to me "Hey, lets go out and bat the ball around, I found a place". The place is what they used to call the Maccabi Field in the center of Rehovot. It was just a dirt field, but it was available, and there we went. I found out that in contrast to my experience earlier as a child in the US, and as a yeshiva student at Ohr Somayach, that I could not only hit, but I could catch a long fly ball, and throw accurately. Aha. This is interesting. Well, next week Jeff turns to me after maariv, and said that he found a few more guys. Let's go out again. I didn't have a car then, and so he drove by and picked me up. I had things to do, and so wasn't too interested. Jeff said I *have* to come out, because I'm his franchise player. I guess this means the most important player. Jeff was like that - he had the talent of making almost anyone he spoke with feel good. Anway . . . we only batted around the ball a bit that day, but it was a lot of fun. This kept on going, and it became a habit. Every week, we would go out and hit the ball around, with more and more guys that both of us found, until one week, Jeff and I were able to get enough people together to actually play a game. The bases were cardboard boxes, the equipment was whatever Jeff had, and soon I nudged my brother-in-law (Todd Ehrlich) to bring over whatever equipment had from the US. Well, it took just a few more weeks for us to realize that the field, in the middle of town, was too centrally located for us to play. Everyone just waltzed right through the field as if they didn't know what baseball was, which they didn't. Remember, these are Israelis. Then it rained, and right after that the city decide to set up a temporary amusement park right in the middle of our baseball field. This lasted only a week, but the ruts and furrows from the wheels of the heavy equipment made it impossible to play. So, one day Jeff mentioned to me that he heard that there is a place on the south side of Rehovot were people used to play. Shmuel, come out with me and let's look for it. So one evening (after maariv and daf yomi, of course), we snooped around together, and found it. This is the ORT field, so named because it's right next to the ORT school. So, we called up everyone on our list, and told them that we are moving the field. By this time (spring 1996), it was clear that "the game" was organized by Jeff and me. Jeff would get guys, and brought a high level of play, in addition to his son, Yitzy (10 y/o at the time). During the course of time, I acquired more equipment - bats, balls, and we took up a collection to buy bases. I remember both me and Jeff nudging Danny Rabinowitz, during a trip to the US for a wedding, to use his luggage allotment to bring the bases back. It is very difficult to get baseball equipment here in Israel (or at least it used to be). So, Jeff and I almost always picked teams. This means that we always played on opposite teams, and the game turned into Jeff vs. Shmuel. Guess who won most of the time (it wasn't me). Yea, Jeff was a nice guy, but I'll tell you, he played to WIN. So, everyone settled down to a weekly pick-up softball game, slowpitch (without an arc), no tagging up (can you believe it?), and very rarely calling balls and strikes. I even bought a fertilizer spreader, and adapted it so that it can lay down that white powder for the third base and first base foul lines - every week, I'd go out either the night before, or half an hour before the game and line the field. For an article on the game (in Hebrew), go to Albums -> Dawgs in the News, or use this link: Albums - Dawgs in the News. Unfortunately, the reporter was there on one of the rare weeks that Jeff wasn't. Towards the fall of '96, Jeff mentioned to me a guy named David (turns out this is David Gilore), who is involved in a softball league. You see, Jeff saw that I was getting very serious about this. So, after a couple of months of mulling it over, I did indeed call "David", and we started talking, and he invited me to a meeting. Turns out this was the captain's meeting in Feb. 1997, right before the 1997 season of the ISA. So, I came to the meeting where I met people involved in the softball league, including David Gilore, Burt Faudem, Larry Silverman, Goose Gillette, Richard Duffy, and others. The captain of the new, expansion team to which I was "assigned" was Peter Baker, and the sponsor was Nafti Wexler, owner of Glomar Vertical Blinds. Well, for the softball history, the rest is written in the History of the Dawgs -> 1997 link. Back to Jeff . . . The Friday afternoon game kept on going, every week, week after week, summer, winter, all the time. The field had great drainage, and I think we were rained out only 2 or 3 times each year. In 1998, Ed Miller made aliyah from Pittsburgh. He coached Little League there, and wanted to start it up in Rehovot. So, after applying more than a little pressure on Jeff, and after Jeff realized that his son Yitzy would benefit from it, we switched the pick-up game from the afternoon to the morning, thus freeing up the field for the kids in the afternoon. That way, we were also able to have an adult game, and not worry about a 12 year old wanting to come and play. That was always a problem. Someone would come, and bring his kid with him. "Can he play, too?" The kid would be, well, a kid. Meaning that he doesn't run as fast, he can't hit as far, or throw as far. You also don't want to throw with all your strength at a kid. Makes for a less interesting game, and besides, who would pick the kid? We tried to make a rule saying "no kids", but it was difficult, especially when you needed someone in right field. But Jeff, well, Jeff had a way of taking care of his family. Never mind that there was a "no kids" rule, Yitzy was always in the game somehow. And you know what? Jeff later told me that he did the whole thing just so Yitzy can play ball. If Yitzy couldn't do it, then it wouldn't be worth it for him. Several times, I tried to get Jeff to join the fastpitch softball team I was involved in. But he always demurred. I thought at the time that it was so important to him to win that he didn't want to take the chance. But I saw later that that was not the reason at all. Like Temimma said, he was an all-around guy, and balanced his life: After playing ball on Fridays, he quite often would take his family and go on a short "tiyul" (Hebrew for day-trip). I remember him telling me about a great swimming hole called "Hof Zikim", near Ashkelon. A little wadi empties, or tries to empty into the sea. You can swim in the sea, or in the wadi. Jeff told me exactly how to get in without having to pay. During the week in Chatam, I would see him at the daf yomi table, either listening, or later, giving the shiur (lesson). Daf yomi is a world-wide program for learning one page of Talmud a day. To finish, it takes 7 and a half years. Truth is, I did for a while before Jeff came to Rehovot, but things just got too hectic for me. But not for Jeff. I guess he couldn't come play fastpitch with the Dawgs (Glomar, then) because he was too busy with daf yomi. He also lavished attention on his kids, or at least seemed to. He was always talking about Yitzy this, and Chaya that, and then Temimma, and then little Shayna. In fact, I am hard pressed to remember him coming out any Friday without Yitzy, until he got older, and there was Little League in Rehovot. But there was a time, I believe it was 1999, the first year Dimona was playing in the ISA, when I was really hurting for guys for ONE game. I don't know why, but a whole bunch of guys that one evening said they couldn't come out. So, I got Jeff, and yes - Yitzy (who was now almost 13), and even Eli Krantman to come out and play that one game. I saw right away that fastpitch was not Jeff's game. Let's leave it at that. But it was very good to Eli and to Yitzy. One of the Dimona fans said to Eli, in her best American Black accent "Hit the baw, Elleh" And all this time, Friday softball in Rehovot kept on going. The Chatam guys (Jeff eventually got almost everyone there to play softball at one point, including South African cricketer Reuven Pokroy) usually go to Rav Stein's house on Purim night to drink, sing badly, and have an all around good time (definitely male bonding, this Purim thing). So, fine, kind of yeshivish actually. The first Purim he's in Rehovot, Jeff shows up. He brings his guitar, with small amplifiers, and starts to play. Hey, he can play a guitar, too ? What can this guy NOT do ?!? Hey, cool - half of us were drunk, so that helped the mood, but it seems that Jeff didn't touch the sauce. Maybe I'm wrong. But his guitar added an extra dimension to the Purim atmosphere, no question about it. It was great, and next Purim, we all looked forward to him coming again, and he did. One day, I think it was summer 1999, I saw him walking along to somewhere, I don't remember to where, and I saw some bandages on the back of his neck. "Hey, Jeff, what happened to you?" I said, gesturing to his neck. "Oh, it's nothing, they just wanted to check something." "Hmmmmmm, *check* something ?? What did they want to check?" "Well, they thought they found something that needs to be taken care of." At this point, I realized that he didn't want to go into too much detail, and I didn't want to interrogate the guy, so all I said was that I hope they found it and that it won't bother him anymore. "Omayn" he responded in that typical way of his. I did have an ominous feeling about it, and I mentioned it to someone else (I forget who, but it wasn't a family member), and that person told me that Jeff had some suspicious growths in his lymph nodes, and that it wasn't a new thing. Oh dear. I never forgot that incident, and when I got phone calls telling me Jeff was sick, or that he had to go in for tests, I knew it was lymphoma, without having to be told. One wants to deny these things, and we all learned the hard way, that we must face reality. My denial went like this: Last fall (December 2002), I heard that he was "really" sick, and so I called him up, expecting to get Aviva, or someone else at home. I got Jeff. He sounded great, and didn't tell me how really sick he was. So, stupid me, I took it at face value. I mean, we've all been sick, right? You get sick, you get a fever, you lay down for a few days, take some aspirin, and you get better, right? A guy like Jeff, get SICK !?! I mean, what is he, 90 years old? It didn't register in my brain. I think it's because I didn't see him in the last two years or so, after we moved from Rehovot to Revava. From what I've been told, he had all the symptoms of someone on chemotherapy - loss of weight (can you imagine that? I mean, look at the pictures - this is NOT a fat man), and loss of hair. Had I seen him, I think the reality would have hit me like a ton of bricks. Instead, the reality hit me when I was told that he's in the hospital, and no, I cannot visit him, and no one can visit him. This was about a week before he left us. So, I called his house again, thinking, hey, gee, I spoke to him just a few months ago, I'll speak to him again. No, Shmuel, you will not speak to him again.