A Good Pitcher, Even Better Writer

Pitching in the Promised Land

Where would you go to follow your dream?  Wouldn’t it be nice if the journey took you far away and, at the same time, back home?

That’s what happened to Aaron Pribble, a lifelong baseball habitué whom, by the summer of 2007, realized that having reached the age of 27 and never having played in an upper-echelon minor league, much less the major leagues, that his quest to be the next Sandy Koufax was nearing a disappointing conclusion.  But then along came the Israel Baseball League and with it a last chance to play baseball at a very competitive level and possibly attract the attention of big league scouts while also opening a door to a cultural journey and spiritual enlightenment.

It was quite a summer.

“Pitching in the Promised Land” is Pribble’s delightful and instructive memoir of playing in the first and, so far at least, only season of the IBL and it brings us into a universe that’s rarely explored: the life of professional athletes who live on the fringe of greatness.  They are the guys who were probably the best player in high school but then were thrust into the dangerous traffic of the big boys and for whatever reason – not quite enough bat speed, a good but not great arm, warning track power – keep getting run over.  They are the game’s good soldiers; the guys who don’t make millions and are not idolized yet refuse to deny their love of the game and won’t abandon their pursuit.  What would baseball be if there weren’t thousands of guys toiling in the minors providing competition for the dozens of players who will eventually hit the big time?

For Pribble, the opportunity to play in the IBL wasn’t just another chance to put real life – in his case a teaching job – on hold but was also a path for him to explore his identity and the ageless question of how to bring peace, prosperity, freedom and dignity to all people of the Middle East.  Pribble brings a unique perspective to this because, foremost, he’s a good writer.  But Pribble is also half-Jewish or half not-Jewish, depending on your view and, at times, his own.  When a pitcher is on the mound do we care what his religion or ethnicity is?  No.  One of the most admirable qualities of sports is that they suppress, if not outright destroy, preconceptions and prejudices and make performance paramount.  At least they’re supposed to.  Pribble knows he’s not just a pitcher, though.  He’s a man trying to rediscover his heritage and determine what his past means for his future.  In America he is Jewish.  In Israel he is American.  On the mound, he’s a flamethrower.  But what Pribble never is, is boring.  Nor is he a victim or a complainer.  He’s a man who realizes the gifts he has and the responsibility they bear and his contemplative journey through the Holy Land and through a challenging season never comes across as being self-serving or over-analyzing.

Pribble wants our attention but not our sympathy as he searches for identity, love and, sometimes, the strike zone.  Rather, he sits the reader beside him on the mound, in the dugout, and in his mind as he ponders the fascinating history and problematic present of a land that is supposed to be special to God yet is eternally torn apart by men.  One of his more heart-rending missives comes on page 105 when he’s riding the team bus after a defeat …I noticed the setting sun.  It was a large bloodred orb, casting a rosy glow on the hills of the West Bank behind us in the distance.  Rays of light shone through filmy bus windows as the sun neared impact with a looming horizon.  I thought of the largely impoverished Arabs in the West Bank, of King Solomon and his Israelite progeny.  Who cared about baseball when this centuries-old conflict was still raging?  If baseball couldn’t help unite these two lands, what good was it?

As introspective and provocative as “Pitching in the Promised Land” is at times it’s never preachy and, a great deal of the time, it’s damn funny.  The IBL rosters are full of picaresque baseball lifers from all over the globe.  They love baseball but also, like all boys, love women, live to razz each other and are quite aware that they are big boys playing a silly game.  They’re fun.

“Pitching in the Promised Land” is, in finality, very much the child of its author because it’s not just one thing.  It’s very much about baseball and it’s very much about spirituality and it’s very much about comedy and humility and politics.  It’s the union of all the thoughts that dance through a pitcher’s mind when he’s on the mound, of all the fears that hover over people trying to live peacefully with their own identity and of a group of funny guys who never want summer to end.