Customer Reviews

Pitching in the Promised Land: A Story of the First and Only Season in the Israel Baseball League

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You don't have to be a baseball fan or Jewish to enjoy this engaging chronicle of the author's summer playing baseball in Israel. Though the game is a unifying thread that connects the chapters, it's really a backdrop for some amusing and perspicacious anecdotes about multiculturalism, Arab-Israeli relations, the situation in Palestine, and how difficult it can be to implant a sport from scratch in a country that has no real history playing it. With excellent writing throughout, and laugh-out-loud funny at times, this book is a light-hearted complement to all those weighty tomes about the current situation in Israel. If we could all just play ball together, the world would be a much happier place!

I read this incredible book in two days. Its so well written and a great story. I usually don't read books about sports, but this one had a sweet story that went along with it too. Mr. Pribble incorporates news articles to tell you exactly what was happened on certain days and makes this coincide with his story. Its very well done. I would recommend everyone read it.

Pitching in the Promised Land is well written and entertaining account of the events that transpire when a professional baseball league is introduced into a complex soccer loving democracy within a difficult region of the world. Now add to the mix baseball players of varied ages and abilities emanating from nine countries around the world. The author weaves together love, friendship, politics, competitive baseball and life altering decisions into an elegant easy to read story. It is about an extraordinary adventure and the book enables the reader to join in the journey.

If you bought this book , like me, expecting to read a heart-warming story about playing America's pastime with Sandy Koufax and Art Shamsky in our beloved Israel....FORGET IT!!!

The entire book is filled with the author complaining about the league, playing conditions, compensation,etc....page 212, "the fields were bush, the umps were bush, the payment system, living situation, and schedule were bush. And quite frankly, some of the players were bush , too. " But the author did spend alot of time bragging about his success in this " bush " league. I think Sandy Koufax's name was mentioned once and Art Shamky's twice.

The rest of the book is filled with his misdirected leftist sympathies for the Palestinans, constantly blaming Israel's "settlements " as the main impediment to the peace process.

And to have to read lines like, " Being hurt was a shi--y feeling, worse than sucking on the field." ......now that's painful!!!