James Pierce’08 is Playing Professional Baseball in Israel

Student-athlete playing in the inaugural Israel Baseball League

WATERVILLE, July 20—James Pierce’08, an infielder for the Thomas College baseball team, is making his debut as a professional baseball player in Israel this summer.

Pierce, of Dorchester, Mass., is part of the new Israel Baseball League (IBL) that began its inaugural season on June 24. His team, the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox, won its first nine games and is in first place with a record of 14-4 so far this season. Other teams in the league include the Modi’in Miracle, Netanya Tigers, Tel Aviv Lightning, Petach Tikva Pioneers and Ra’anana Express. Each of the teams is playing a 45-game schedule, a mid-season all-star game and a championship game at the end of the season.

He doesn’t speak Hebrew, he has been raised a Catholic and he doesn’t have any family connections to the Middle East, but that didn’t deter Pierce from trying out for the team last summer at the Dan Duquette Academy in Massachusetts. He made the team, signed a $2,000, two-month contract that included housing and a plane ticket, and was on his way to play his first professional baseball game.

At the beginning of the season Pierce, who also plays in the infield for the Blue Sox, had a difficult time finding his batting form: “The competition is greater than anything I have played against before, but I have started to hit the ball real well in July,” he said.

The teams play six days a week, with Saturdays off—the day of the Jewish Shabbat. The competition on the field is fierce: “We have a couple of players who have played in the minor leagues in the United States and a few players who play professionally in countries like Australia, Germany, and in the Canadian Baseball League,” he said. The Canadian league was an independent minor league that operated in 2003.

Gregg Raymundo is one of those players. “His lifetime average in the minor leagues is around .300 and he can play shortstop and third base as well as pitch. Juan Feliciano is from the Dominican Republic and was actually signed by the Boston Red Sox and played a couple of seasons in their organization,” said Pierce.

Pierce, who is currently living on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, will return to the Thomas campus in late August to start his final semester at the College. He’s not sure yet what his baseball future holds, but he’s toying with the idea of playing pro ball in another country. For now, he intends to focus on finishing his degree. “Being away from home is tough and I would have to weigh all of my options before deciding to travel across the world to play baseball for a living.”

For more information about IBL visit http://www.israelbaseballleague.com/main/. For information about Thomas College’s baseball team go to http://www.thomas.edu/athletics/baseball/default.asp.

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