The legend of Shlomo Lipetz, WBC Team Israel’s 44-year-old ‘mythical figure’

In October 2001, a hairy Israeli man in skinny jeans and a skin-tight nightclub shirt strolled onto the baseball field at San Diego Mesa Junior College. Thousands of miles from home and just three weeks removed from mandatory military service, the 22-year-old freshman approached one of the coaches and introduced himself.

“Hi, I’m Shlomo,” he proclaimed in broken English. “I want to play baseball.”

Twenty-two years later, the 6-foot-4 sidearming Israeli soft-tosser is the second-oldest player in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. When Team Israel takes on the Dominican Republic in a week’s time, Lipetz will share a stadium, if not a field, with the likes of Juan Soto, Manny Machado and Rafael Devers.

Here is another seemingly contradictory fact: The 27⅔ innings he threw for the Netanya Tigers of the short-lived Israel Baseball League way back in 2007 are the totality of his official professional baseball experience.

Armed with a mid-70s fastball, a vagabond’s passport, a mullet and, sometimes, a gold tooth, Lipetz is Kenny Powers, Forrest Gump, Paul Bunyan, Batman and Walter Johnson rolled into one. He has pitched around the globe — from Tel Aviv to Vienna, Belgrade to Seoul, Tecate to Blagoevgrad, San Diego to Turin, from the Tokyo Olympics to Central Park — all the while carrying the Israeli baseball community on his shoulders