When Brad Ausmus first visited Israel he found just two baseball fields in the entire country, one a high school-level facility, one short of that. Efforts to grow baseball were just getting started.
“The people in Israel that were integral in bringing me on board 15 years ago, the real crux of it, they are ex-patriots who moved to the United States, lived in Israel, have a real passion for baseball,” Ausmus said. “They want the sport to grow in their now home country. So that’s a big part in why they were so fervent in getting involved in the WBC.”
Ausmus, from Cheshire, a longtime MLB catcher, executive and manager, now beginning his third season as Aaron Boone’s bench coach with the Yankees, has played a foundational role in the growth of baseball in Israel. He will manage Team Israel in the upcoming World Baseball Classic, his second go around.
“Truthfully, it’s playoff atmosphere baseball,” Ausmus said, before a Yankees workout in Tampa, Fla., this week. “We were in Miami three years ago, and that pool with the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and 30,000 people there you could barely hear the person next to you talking. The atmosphere was on par with a playoff game.”
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Ausmus managed Israel’s first team in 2012, which lost in the WBC qualifiers. Four years later, Israel, with former Yard Goats manager Jerry Weinstein at the helm, qualified and defeated South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Cuba and the Netherlands before being eliminated by Japan. Last time, with Ian Kinsler managing and Ausmus on his coaching staff, Israel was placed in a brutal pool and went 1-3, getting the win they needed to automatically qualify for 2026.
“There’s a strong Israeli baseball connection culturally,” Ausmus said. “It even happened in my family, my Mom’s Jewish, my Mom’s parents lived in Brookline, Mass., and my grandparents raised my mom to be a Red Sox fan. I do think there is a strong connection between baseball and the Jewish community, especially in the cities.”
Kinsler stepped aside last November and Ausmus, who managed the Tigers from 2014-17 and Angels in 2019, returned to manage Team Israel again. Baseball there is a different picture today. The Israel Association of Baseball (IAB), which formed as a nonprofit in 1986, now has a league with 13 teams, an academy established in 2014, and there are said to be over 1,000 players on teams spread across the country. The national team was one of six that qualified for the 2020 Olympics and got a win over Mexico when the games were played in Tokyo in 2021.
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Dean Kremer, who has dual citizenship, was the first Israeli player drafted by MLB and debuted with the Orioles in 2020. He was 11-10 with a 4.19 ERA last year, and figures to be the ace of Ausmus’ staff when the games start March 6 in Miami. Israel this year is in a pool with the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and, it’s first opponent, Venezuela on March 7.
Ausmus was part of a four-man group recruiting players and filling out the 26-man roster, a handful with major league credentials.
“You’re definitely looking for a certain level of commitment,” Ausmus said. “But initially you’re looking at professional players. The Dominicans, the United States, have the ability to choose from a large number of professionals, and specifically major-league players. Israel doesn’t have that luxury, so you’re looking at the whole professional spectrum, minors all the way up to the big leagues, independent leagues, occasionally beyond. We do have legitimate major-league talent, we just don’t have the pool to choose from that other countries do.”
Cole Carrigg, who played for the Yard Goats last season, is on Israel’s roster. Kremer, relievers Eli Morgan and Tommy Kahnle, catcher Garrett Stubbs, outfielder Harrison Bader and infielder Spencer Horowitz, are among the familiar major-leaguers committed to play for Ausmus and his coaching staff, with MLB names like Kevin Youkilis, Mark Loretta and Jerry Narron. The WBC has proven to be popular, but there is the persistent question of risk of injury as players ramp up to perform at full intensity so early in their season. Star closer Edwin Diaz, then with the Mets, suffered a season-ending knee injury last time.
“The players really like (the WBC), they really enjoy it,” Ausmus said. “There is the risk of injury, we try to minimize that risk with pitch counts. I’m hyper aware, especially as a part of a major-league team, I wouldn’t want anything to happen to our players playing for a WBC team. Overall, I think it has raised the popularity of baseball globally, I think it has been a great thing. … We’re going to be the underdog, but anything can happen in baseball. I hope people are pleasantly surprised by the underdog.”
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In the mix with Azzi Fudd
A beaming Azzi Fudd showed up at one of her favorite places to eat, Cava in Newington, to mix with the staff, meet and greet fans, some very young, others elderly, and film promotional content for the brand on Friday.
Fudd grew up near the very first Cava store in Bethesda, Md., and is known to be a legit fan of its Mediterranean fast casual fare, Greek salads and grain bowls. A natural NIL fit, in other words, as Cava now has five locations in Connecticut.
“We pride ourselves on using a lot of real ingredients,” said Andrew Downing, Cava’s director of social media, “and knowing her, how authentic she is to her audience, she’s really herself and she’s a really authentic fan of the brand. While we were doing a photo shoot, she was calling out all the ingredients. She knows them like the back of her hand.”
Fudd, who will be feted on UConn’s Senior Day on Sunday, likes the tzatziki, “which we like to call ‘A-ziki,’” Dowing said, which includes red pepper hummus, crazy feta, half sweet potatoes and half honey-harissa chicken. There will be an Azzi Fudd Gameday Bowl offered during Cava’s March Madness campaign, which will include several college athletes.
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SCSU swimmers honor coach
Southern Connecticut’s athletic community received shocking and terrible news earlier this month with the sudden passing of longtime swimming coach Tim Quill, just as his teams were about to compete in the Northeast 10 conference championships. The men’s and women’s teams honored their coach with their inspiring performances.
The SCSU women captured their sixth straight, and 18th conference championship. Junior Molly Kennedy, from Prospect, was most outstanding swimmer, collecting seven of the Owls’ 20 medals, six gold. The men’s team rallied to finish fourth, garnering eight medals. Teams carried a photo of their coach, with the words “always in our hearts.”
“Those who knew Tim understood that he was, above all, a husband and father, a mentor and a teacher,” said SCSU’s interim president Sandy Bulmer. “He offered a steady, compassionate presence in the lives of generations of student-athletes.”
Quill, 58, who started at the Cheshire YMCA in 1990, coached Southern swimmers for 27 years, his teams winning 35 conference titles, 17 for the men and 18 for the women, and he developed 121 Division II All-Americans. His swimmers have won 19 NCAA individual championships.
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Sunday short takes
*One has to be just heartbroken for Yale football coach Tony Reno, who stepped down this week citing health problems, and his family. His son, Dante, transferred to play quarterback for his Dad. They can cherish the memorable season they had together.
*Former UConn receiver Kashif Moore made a rep for himself coaching Skyler Bell at his alma mater. He left to follow Jim Mora to Colorado State, and now Moore is pivoting upward to coach receivers at Penn State, according to reports.
*The Nets waived UConn over-achiever Tyrese Martin last week, but he kept his NBA career alive, hooking on with the 76ers.
*Former UConn star James Bouknight, who won the G League’s 3-point shooting contest last week, is averaging 19.6 points, 2.8 assists for Mexico City. At 25, he still has time to revive his NBA hopes four years after he was drafted No. 11 overall by Charlotte.
*Outfielder Yanquiel Fernandez, who played for the Yard Goats in 2023 and ’24 after making a harrowing journey from Cuba to get a toehold in pro baseball, debuting with Colorado last year, was in Yankees camp as a non-roster invitee. The Yankees got him through waivers and retained him with a minor-league contract. At age 23, a lefty hitter with power, Fernandez could one day add value in a park with a short right field porch.
*John Cirillo, long-time sports publicist in New York, including a long stint with the Knicks, has become a versatile author, Two of his books you’d want to add to your reading list: “Marbles on an Unpaved Road: An Ode to Sheepshead Bay,” is a captivating memoir of growing up in Brooklyn at a certain time. (Hint, there’s some Vince Lombardi in there), and a children’s book,“A Tail from the Bronx: Life’s Lessons Taught by a Cat.”
*Have been curious to see how the San Francisco Giants’ out-of-the-box hire of former Tennessee coach Tony Vitello would work out. His first weeks have created some curious quotes that have the media out there wondering if his heart is in the job. To be fair, there is some overreaction, but coaching college baseball, much more so than basketball or football, is so radically different from the pros. A college baseball coach has a lot of control over his program and gets relatively little scrutiny; an MLB manager has very little control, and is heavily scrutinized.
Last word
*Now that Tom Seaver’s family has put a lot of his memorabilia up for auction, including his 1969 World Series ring, here’s hoping that Mets owner Steve Cohen blows away all bidders and gets some of that stuff to display at Citi Field. Bidding for the 1969 ring has surpassed $400,000 on Heritage Auctions site, couch-cushion coin for Cohen.