Oh my! US loses first ever baseball game at Maccabiah... to Israel!

There is no joy in Mudville. Mighty Casey has struck out.

For the first time ever in the Maccabiah - the Jewish Olympics - the United States has lost a baseball game. They lost 5-3 on Tuesday. To Israel. That's right. To Israel (Hat Tip: Sunlight).

The defeat was the first suffered by Maccabi USA’s baseball or softball teams at the Israel-hosted, quadrennial Maccabiah games. It was even more of an upset because the US dominated the first match between the countries, smashing Israel 15-1 on Friday. On Sunday, Israel lost again, to Canada, 7-4. (That same day, the US junior team hammered Canada 12-0, pitching the first no-hitter in Maccabiah history.)

Gottlieb said that while Israel’s baseball association has been around for 20 years, it only started to focus on building national teams in the past seven years.

The team that gathered for the Maccabiah, Gottlieb said, was assembled over a year ago, and trained at least twice –and sometimes five times — a week leading up to the games. Players threw, hit and ran at the Baptist Village stadium in Petah Tikvah, which is hosting the three-country baseball tournament at this Maccabiah.

The Israeli players, the assistant coach added, had already competed together in tournaments across Europe. “Having that tournament mentality helped us overcome” the defeat in the first two games, he said. “The players knew how to say ‘OK, I lost a game, let’s move on’.”

Wow.