Our Man Elli fields baseball questions on tour

“Some folks
asked me about
baseball in Israel.
They knew
I had written
about it.
I told them the truth,
and we all agreed
it's one big shame.”

Just in time for the first crack of the bat of Major League Baseball’s 2008 season, Tabloid Baby special correspondent and sports editor Our Man Elli in Israel is back in his homeland, the great US of A, for his annual speaking tour of universities, synagogues and Jewish groups, telling firsthand the state of the Israeli nation fielding the occasional baseball question, and along the way, catching as many baseball games he can fit in.

This morning, the man who broke and owns the vitally-important story of professional baseball in Israel checks in from the road:

"I drove on Friday from D.C. to Virginia Beach, where I am now, at the Holiday Inn at 26th Street and Atlantic Avenue. Had a wonderful Shabbat speaking at Temple Emanuel— ”The Synagogue at The Beach”-- a lovely congregation. Told some war stories about my career in journalism l-- the 1979 NYC marathon, changing the name of Hurricane Israel, and the time I spent 24 hours at the Western Wall for a story-- and spoke about the situation in the Middle East on Saturday morning.

“This morning it's ‘The Middle East, The Media and The Message’-- always a favorite conversation when I trash my colleagues in the business. Some folks asked me at lunch yesterday about baseball in Israel. They knew I had written about it. I told them the truth, and we all agreed it's one big shame. It is now April 6th, and we still don't know definitively if there will be baseball in Israel this summer. Stay tuned.

“I hope to go to the Norfolk Tides game this afternoon. I’ll call from there.”