Order at Israel baseball meeting: "Don't tell Elli!"

In wake of the collapse of the Israel Baseball League, former officials, advisory board members, investors and would-be backers met yesterday at the Penn Club in midtown Manhattan to try and thrash out a new deal for a new professional baseball league in the Holy Land. So far, we've confirmed that Daniel Kurtzer, former IBL commissioner and US ambassador to Israel and Egypt, led the meting, Haim Katz, president of Israel's baseball governing body (who recently closed the door to the IBL) was on a speaker phone from Israel, and IBL founder Larry Baras was not invited or allowed inside.

Our Man Elli In Israel emailed a few more facts this morning:

"The meeting lasted over seven hours, right through a working lunch. Nothing was resolved, more talks to follow. Mitchell Rosenzweig, Chief Financial Officer of The Jewish National Fund, was also there.

"The room was told explicitly not to talk about the meeting to anyone, and specifically not to talk to me!

"They probably will have a press release this afternoon, but it will be Shabbat in fifteen minutes, so I won't see it till tomorrow night."

Don't talk to Elli? After all the great work he's done, they oughta be giving him an exclusive report. Meanwhile, we guess we'll be back after Elli's commune with G-d.

Still... (yawn)... developing...