Hey guys,
I'm finally checking back in after 3 months of silence. These last 3 months have been crazy to put it lightly. Being a restaurant manager is a lot harder than I thought. Working until 2am, working 5-6 days a week. It was hard because I didn't have a lot of time to spend with my friends before I left, and to make matters even worse, I got wisdom teeth pulled 4 days before I had to leave for Israel, so the last few days were a total wash.
With that said, here’s an update on what’s been going down.
The draft for the league happened about a month after I posted my last blog. I sat by my computer and watched the entire thing, and my name was never called. I was stunned. I then sat back for a second and thought about why that would happen, I really thought I was going to be one of the 45 players taken. But the more I thought about it the less it mattered to me. I thought about my tryout, and as I wrote in a previous blog, I felt I had an awful tryout. I didn't even think I was going to get signed. So as the days went on it became a lot easier to handle. I just realized how lucky I am to be in this position.
We arrived in Israel 3 days ago. The plane right was loooong. I was on the same flight as all of the other Canadians, which led to some really fun conversations on the plane. We flew from Toronto to London, and stopped over there for about half an hour. The 30 mins I saw of the UK I really enjoyed. We touched down in Israel at about 2pm on Monday, and I somehow managed to stay up the rest of the day on only 1 hour of sleep.
The place were staying at -- Kfar Hayarok, is really nice. A bit of a change of scenery from what I'm used to, especially with all of the peacocks running around. The place is very motel-style. 3 beds per room, nice big closets, bathroom with a shower, and most importantly a powerful air conditioner. I'm rooming with team and countrymates Jon Ramoo and Oren Gal. The Canadians were the first group to arrive in Israel, followed by the Australians later that day. The two groups got along great. They're all really nice guys, and its fun learning about where they come from and how its so different from where I come from.
The second day we were here all the Canadians and Aussies headed to downtown
Tel Aviv and to the beach. The scenery is stunning. I was jumping around in the ocean and swimming around in the waves, and it felt like I was in paradise. At one point I looked over to my buddy Jon Ramoo, who had never been anywhere tropical and he was having the time of his life and I said to him "Dude, can you believer we're getting paid to be here?!, AND we get to play baseball!" in my opinion, the coast in Tel Aviv is a mixture between the Caribbean and Miami, but everyone speaks Hebrew instead of Spanish.
Over the last few days more people have been coming in. There’s probably 100 players here now. The Dominican players came in last night and after doing some throwing with Oren yesterday I sat down with him, two ballplayers from the US, a ballplayer from the Dominican, and the lone Japanese player Ryoju Kihara, and we just talked baseball. It was awesome, 6 people all from different parts of the world, connected by the game that we love. From what I've seen, that is what the IBL is all about.
It was nice checking in, and I'll be sure to post again soon as the season
kicks off this Sunday. Take care everyone
OOT
Oak
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Blog 3 -- Canadian Players
Hey guys. It’s been a few weeks since I last checked in. Figure I'll give you a little update on all that’s been going on over here in the great white north, and also a little information about some of the other Canadians heading over to play in the IBL.
As I mentioned in the first blog, I'm still in college full-time. The workload in 4th year has just been absolutely brutal. It seems like I always find myself stressing over an assignment or trying to find time to study for a test. The worst part about all of it is that half the time when I'm in a lecture, my mind just wanders thinking about what the summer is going to be like. Also to add to all of the madness, I work at a restaurant as a server and bar tender, but last week I was offered a management position. I've been at that restaurant for a couple years now, and becoming a manager is one of my original goals when I started working there, I'm really happy about it.
The snow up here was pretty much gone, but we had a little bit of a snowfall last night which really got everyone down. It was starting to get really nice outside, and now we're back to the snow.
For about a month now I've been training with Dan Drori and Dustin Melanson at a nearby school. We have been there a few times a week, doing absolutely everything. Hitting off a tee, hitting whiffle balls, throwing, fielding practice, and I've been doing some pitching as well. We are really working hard to get ready for the season. I've had to put a little extra work in because of this modified DH rule. I'm so pumped for the chance of being able to hit again. Because I've been pitching for the last few years, I haven't hit full-time since high school. I'm just really excited to step back in the box.
Last week I was exchanging e-mails with the league's director of player personnel Martin Berger, and he told me that the league had come to an agreement with Kfar Hayarok to be the residence of everyone in the IBL for the first season. Kfar Hayarok is a youth village just outside of Tel Aviv. That was great to hear that everyone will be staying together, it will be a great chance to meet a lot of new people and make a lot of new friends and have some great experiences.
Also, the IBL announced that they are going to be signing a bunch of guys out of the recent tryouts in the Dominican Republic. They also announced that Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball will be on the board for the IBL. It is really impressive how the IBL is getting ready for the inaugural season. I can't wait to get over there and get started.
Now for all of our American, Israeli, European, Australian, and now Dominican friends that don't know much about some of the other Canadians in the IBL, I'll give you all a little information about them as players, teammates and people.
First is Dan Drori. He is an outfielder who can be referred to as a shed -- in the best way possible. This guy is tools. He hits for average, power, has an absolute hose from right field, and can steal bases. Being a native Israeli, he is going to be a fan favorite.
Ryan Butkowsky is a pitcher who I played with a few times in club baseball and also for the Toronto Maccabi team. He is a big, powerful righty who brings it in the high 80s, and if that’s not enough, has an absolutely nasty curve. On top of all that, he's a great teammate and is a leader.
Josh Matlow. Dude is a hitting machine. Hits everything and hits for serious power. We played high school baseball where he launched like 14 homeruns in 25 games. Also has awesome range in the outfield. He will be one of the IBL's premier hitters.
Oren Gal is an absolute glove wizard. Might as well call him Oren Vizquel. Kid is smooooth.
Jon Ramoo is a pitcher and infielder. Real solid ballplayer, but even better teammate. Always in a great mood and is an awesome guy to have on your team.
Dustin Melanson. He is a catcher that calls a great game. He is nails behind the dish, blocks, and has a cannon. Also has a power lefty bat. I pitched to him all throughout high school, and he made me a better pitcher.
Finally we get to Ryan Crotin. I met him for the first time last summer when we played for the Oshawa Dodgers of the Intercounty Baseball League. We quickly became pretty close when we discovered that we were the only two Jewish guys on the team. With no disrespect to any of the other players I listed or anyone else in the league, he will be one of the best, if not the best player in the IBL this year. He played NCAA DI baseball for 4 years, he played professionally in Australia and Germany, and can do it all on a baseball field. Plays infield, outfield, and can hit absolutely anything. Guy is a tank, and he launched some serious shots last year. Above all that, he is a great teammate and leader. My early choice for league MVP. You heard it here first.
A little update though before I go. My brother Matt is in Afghanistan safe and sound. He has been there for about three weeks now, and says that he is really enjoying his experience over there serving our country proud.
Anyway that’s it for me. I have to head off to the gym and work on those mechanics.
OOT,
Oak
As I mentioned in the first blog, I'm still in college full-time. The workload in 4th year has just been absolutely brutal. It seems like I always find myself stressing over an assignment or trying to find time to study for a test. The worst part about all of it is that half the time when I'm in a lecture, my mind just wanders thinking about what the summer is going to be like. Also to add to all of the madness, I work at a restaurant as a server and bar tender, but last week I was offered a management position. I've been at that restaurant for a couple years now, and becoming a manager is one of my original goals when I started working there, I'm really happy about it.
The snow up here was pretty much gone, but we had a little bit of a snowfall last night which really got everyone down. It was starting to get really nice outside, and now we're back to the snow.
For about a month now I've been training with Dan Drori and Dustin Melanson at a nearby school. We have been there a few times a week, doing absolutely everything. Hitting off a tee, hitting whiffle balls, throwing, fielding practice, and I've been doing some pitching as well. We are really working hard to get ready for the season. I've had to put a little extra work in because of this modified DH rule. I'm so pumped for the chance of being able to hit again. Because I've been pitching for the last few years, I haven't hit full-time since high school. I'm just really excited to step back in the box.
Last week I was exchanging e-mails with the league's director of player personnel Martin Berger, and he told me that the league had come to an agreement with Kfar Hayarok to be the residence of everyone in the IBL for the first season. Kfar Hayarok is a youth village just outside of Tel Aviv. That was great to hear that everyone will be staying together, it will be a great chance to meet a lot of new people and make a lot of new friends and have some great experiences.
Also, the IBL announced that they are going to be signing a bunch of guys out of the recent tryouts in the Dominican Republic. They also announced that Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball will be on the board for the IBL. It is really impressive how the IBL is getting ready for the inaugural season. I can't wait to get over there and get started.
Now for all of our American, Israeli, European, Australian, and now Dominican friends that don't know much about some of the other Canadians in the IBL, I'll give you all a little information about them as players, teammates and people.
First is Dan Drori. He is an outfielder who can be referred to as a shed -- in the best way possible. This guy is tools. He hits for average, power, has an absolute hose from right field, and can steal bases. Being a native Israeli, he is going to be a fan favorite.
Ryan Butkowsky is a pitcher who I played with a few times in club baseball and also for the Toronto Maccabi team. He is a big, powerful righty who brings it in the high 80s, and if that’s not enough, has an absolutely nasty curve. On top of all that, he's a great teammate and is a leader.
Josh Matlow. Dude is a hitting machine. Hits everything and hits for serious power. We played high school baseball where he launched like 14 homeruns in 25 games. Also has awesome range in the outfield. He will be one of the IBL's premier hitters.
Oren Gal is an absolute glove wizard. Might as well call him Oren Vizquel. Kid is smooooth.
Jon Ramoo is a pitcher and infielder. Real solid ballplayer, but even better teammate. Always in a great mood and is an awesome guy to have on your team.
Dustin Melanson. He is a catcher that calls a great game. He is nails behind the dish, blocks, and has a cannon. Also has a power lefty bat. I pitched to him all throughout high school, and he made me a better pitcher.
Finally we get to Ryan Crotin. I met him for the first time last summer when we played for the Oshawa Dodgers of the Intercounty Baseball League. We quickly became pretty close when we discovered that we were the only two Jewish guys on the team. With no disrespect to any of the other players I listed or anyone else in the league, he will be one of the best, if not the best player in the IBL this year. He played NCAA DI baseball for 4 years, he played professionally in Australia and Germany, and can do it all on a baseball field. Plays infield, outfield, and can hit absolutely anything. Guy is a tank, and he launched some serious shots last year. Above all that, he is a great teammate and leader. My early choice for league MVP. You heard it here first.
A little update though before I go. My brother Matt is in Afghanistan safe and sound. He has been there for about three weeks now, and says that he is really enjoying his experience over there serving our country proud.
Anyway that’s it for me. I have to head off to the gym and work on those mechanics.
OOT,
Oak
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Blog 2 -- live from Pembroke
Hey guys. So I'm in the beautiful town of Pembroke, Ontario. For those of you who don’t know where that is -- which is probably all of you -- its an hour north of Ottawa. What, you ask may bring an international baseball superstar to Pembroke. It’s not the fine dining and the great hiking trails. My oldest brother Matt is a member of the Canadian Army and he's going to Afghanistan in 3 days and I came to spend some time with him before he goes. I'm really happy I could come see him because Matt and I are really close. We always hang out and have been playing sports together all the time since we were little kids. He even bought a catchers mitt and a jock and caught for me in the backyard when I was learning how to pitch as a 16 year old. So all of you guys out there that joke about the Canadian army consisting of a canoe and a beaver, its real. There’s not the firepower of the Israeli or American army, but it’s still real people going to fight overseas. He'll be in Afghanistan for 6 months. He'll be there through the IBL season and he'll follow all of the action on the website. I already told him that he has to draft me in the IBL fantasy baseball league. It sucks for my mom, having two of her kids in the Middle-East, and she’s already a worrier. But we all plan on keeping in touch. I was told they have wireless internet in Israel, so we'll be all good. The NBA All-Star weekend is upon us. Speaking of which, HOW BOUT THEM RAPTORS!! On top of the Atlantic Division, looking at the playoffs, Bosh playing like a superstar...its great to see after five years of a terrible team.
That’s it for me. Talk to you again from Toronto.
OOT
Oak
That’s it for me. Talk to you again from Toronto.
OOT
Oak
Monday, February 19, 2007
Blog 1 -- The Debut
It really looks like things are off and running for the IBL. ESPN.com, CBS Sportsline, this is getting pretty crazy, it's really starting to pick up some steam.
Anyways let me give you a little background so you know who you’re reading about. I'm Ian Okorofsky, a 21 year old pitcher from Toronto, Canada. I traveled down to the IBL tryout in Miami with my buddy, Dan Drori, and I'm happy to say that both of us got signed out of that tryout. I can't tell you how awesome it feels to be a professional baseball player. I've been a part of the league for almost 2 months and it still hasn't fully sunk in. Maybe because there’s 9 feet of snow outside, who knows? I'm still in school, in my 4th year studying business. I also work part time at a restaurant where I serve tables and bar tend. This is where the craziness begins. Trying to juggle an absolutely insane workload with a job and training for baseball. I basically have to pack 3 bags in the morning, and I'm out of my house until I come home to sleep. But hey, if that’s what I need to do then so be it.
I first heard about the IBL from my buddy Dan, and I was kind of skeptical because he tends to bend the truth sometimes. "Yeah man a pro league, they’re paying us like 40 grand, we get to live in our own houses"…can you tell yet why I tend not to believe him? But anyway he told me about the league and I went off and did my own research. The only thing that was the same was that there was a baseball league starting in Israel, that’s it. But I didn't expect limo's and the silver screen, so we we're all good.
The tryout was a really fun experience. For all the Americans out there, your high schools are like palaces. Honestly. We were at Miami Country Day school where they had a football field and a baseball field side by side, both gorgeous, and made of field turf. FIELD TURF! Holy cow, the Blue Jays just got field turf 2 years ago and you have it at your high schools. Our high school baseball diamonds are 15 minutes away from our school and the outfield grass is a patch of weeds. I really wish there was less focus on hockey and more focus on the real sports. It’s brutal. You turn on the sports report in TORONTO and you get the highlights and friggin 20 minutes of interviews from the Edmonton-Nashville game when the Raptors played in the same night and they get 10 seconds. I can't stand that. Another thing Americans, be happy for ESPN and how they've already established that nobody cares about hockey. And don't get me wrong, I'm not at all hating on my country, but there are just some things that make you upset. Okay back to business. So the tryout, we did the 'standard' baseball tryout stuff. Run the 60yard dash, field our positions, pitch, hit, bla bla bla. They cut it down from a list of like 70 players to 30 something for a game. All the pitchers pitched an inning or 2 and the position players got a couple of at-bats. Honestly, coming out of the tryouts I didn't think I made it. I didn't talk to anyone after for like 2 hours, came back to my hotel room and was throwing around my luggage. "HOLY CRAP, I COULDN'T THROW A STRIKE!' But that feeling went away when I decided to take a drive to the “mecca” that is South Beach. After about 20 minutes of gorgeous women and the beach...I forgot about the bad and looked at the positives.
When I got the e-mail with the contract acknowledging that I had been selected, I was so happy. My mom came and looked at it with me. I looked back at her and she was crying. "Ian, this is what you've always wanted to do. Your dream has come true. I'm so proud of you!" How cute, I know. But it was really special to see how happy she was for me.
And so it begins. The life of an IBL'er. I'll keep you posted with how things go down here in Canada, and I look forward to future blogs and to getting started in Israel.
As we say in my country, I'm oot.
Oak
Anyways let me give you a little background so you know who you’re reading about. I'm Ian Okorofsky, a 21 year old pitcher from Toronto, Canada. I traveled down to the IBL tryout in Miami with my buddy, Dan Drori, and I'm happy to say that both of us got signed out of that tryout. I can't tell you how awesome it feels to be a professional baseball player. I've been a part of the league for almost 2 months and it still hasn't fully sunk in. Maybe because there’s 9 feet of snow outside, who knows? I'm still in school, in my 4th year studying business. I also work part time at a restaurant where I serve tables and bar tend. This is where the craziness begins. Trying to juggle an absolutely insane workload with a job and training for baseball. I basically have to pack 3 bags in the morning, and I'm out of my house until I come home to sleep. But hey, if that’s what I need to do then so be it.
I first heard about the IBL from my buddy Dan, and I was kind of skeptical because he tends to bend the truth sometimes. "Yeah man a pro league, they’re paying us like 40 grand, we get to live in our own houses"…can you tell yet why I tend not to believe him? But anyway he told me about the league and I went off and did my own research. The only thing that was the same was that there was a baseball league starting in Israel, that’s it. But I didn't expect limo's and the silver screen, so we we're all good.
The tryout was a really fun experience. For all the Americans out there, your high schools are like palaces. Honestly. We were at Miami Country Day school where they had a football field and a baseball field side by side, both gorgeous, and made of field turf. FIELD TURF! Holy cow, the Blue Jays just got field turf 2 years ago and you have it at your high schools. Our high school baseball diamonds are 15 minutes away from our school and the outfield grass is a patch of weeds. I really wish there was less focus on hockey and more focus on the real sports. It’s brutal. You turn on the sports report in TORONTO and you get the highlights and friggin 20 minutes of interviews from the Edmonton-Nashville game when the Raptors played in the same night and they get 10 seconds. I can't stand that. Another thing Americans, be happy for ESPN and how they've already established that nobody cares about hockey. And don't get me wrong, I'm not at all hating on my country, but there are just some things that make you upset. Okay back to business. So the tryout, we did the 'standard' baseball tryout stuff. Run the 60yard dash, field our positions, pitch, hit, bla bla bla. They cut it down from a list of like 70 players to 30 something for a game. All the pitchers pitched an inning or 2 and the position players got a couple of at-bats. Honestly, coming out of the tryouts I didn't think I made it. I didn't talk to anyone after for like 2 hours, came back to my hotel room and was throwing around my luggage. "HOLY CRAP, I COULDN'T THROW A STRIKE!' But that feeling went away when I decided to take a drive to the “mecca” that is South Beach. After about 20 minutes of gorgeous women and the beach...I forgot about the bad and looked at the positives.
When I got the e-mail with the contract acknowledging that I had been selected, I was so happy. My mom came and looked at it with me. I looked back at her and she was crying. "Ian, this is what you've always wanted to do. Your dream has come true. I'm so proud of you!" How cute, I know. But it was really special to see how happy she was for me.
And so it begins. The life of an IBL'er. I'll keep you posted with how things go down here in Canada, and I look forward to future blogs and to getting started in Israel.
As we say in my country, I'm oot.
Oak
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
