Going to bat for Jewish values
Meet two locals on the World Baseball Classic’s Team Israel
Two athletes with strong local ties will be competing in the World Baseball Classic as part of Team Israel.
This Major League Baseball-sponsored international tournament, which runs from March 5 to March 17, features 20 national teams. For the first round, five teams play in Miami, Houston, San Juan, or Tokyo. The top two teams from each of those four pools will advance to the quarterfinals.
Team Israel’s first game is scheduled for Saturday night, March 7, in Miami, against Venezuela. Then the team will face Nicaragua on March 8, the Dominican Republic on March 9, and the Netherlands on March 10. Fox Sports will broadcast the games.
“We’re excited; we have a really good group, and we’ll show the world that we’ll do our best,” left-handed pitcher Rob Kaminsky said.
Mr. Kaminsky, 31, was born and grew up in Bergen County; his parents are Donna and Alan Kaminsky. He graduated from the Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County in New Milford before going on to St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale. “That was a wee bit of a change,” he acknowledged. “But they respected me there, and I had no issues about being Jewish.”
He’s been to Israel only once, when he was a little boy. Unlike the Olympic Games, which require athletes to be citizens of the country they play for, the WBC rules stipulate only that players must be eligible for citizenship in the countries they represent. According to Israeli law, that means having one Jewish grandparent or being the spouse of a Jew. Team Israel’s roster of 30 ballplayers includes just one native-born Israeli.
Nevertheless, Mr. Kaminsky — who pitched five games for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2020 and then played extensively in the minors before becoming a free agent last year — has long been a fan of the WBC. He earned a spot on Team Israel in the previous tournament in 2023.
“Playing in the WBC for Team Israel is a real privilege and honor for me,” he said. “I’m very proud to be Jewish; I learned a lot of my morals and values from being raised Jewish, and there’s something about being in a clubhouse with guys raised similarly, even if there are different points of view. A lot of good ballplayers are Jewish and have eligibility for Team Israel, so to be picked for the team in 2023 was an awesome experience for myself and my family. This year, a lot of the same guys are on the team.”
It does not faze him to be representing a country that is often vilified in the public sphere. “In the turbulent times we have now, it’s important to be involved and to get a big stage to do that, and for me the easiest way is on the baseball field,” he said, adding that he hopes to visit Israel as soon as possible, “maybe in the next off-season, and maybe I’ll officially make aliyah so I can represent Israel in the Olympics.”
The other local member of Team Israel, catcher and leftfielder Jason Agresti of the Frontier League’s N.Y. Boulders in Rockland County, became an Israeli citizen in January 2025 as a prerequisite for playing on Israel’s National Baseball Team in the European championships in Rotterdam. Israel placed seventh in those games.
Mr. Agresti, 29, the son of Ellen Ruzinsky-Agresti and Joe Agresti, grew up in Westchester County and went to Solomon Schechter (now the Leffell School) in Hartsdale. “Our eighth-grade trip in 2011 was two weeks in Israel,” he said. “When I flew there to complete my citizenship process, that was my second visit.”
He noted that his bar mitzvah was held at Temple Emanuel of the Pascack Valley in Woodcliff Lake, where his maternal grandparents, the late Enid and Ed Ruzinsky, were longtime members and active in the local Jewish community.
In 2025, Mr. Agresti, who now lives in Stamford, Conn., was named the Boulders’ team MVP and an all-star MVP, and received welcome news regarding the WBC.
“In December, I was notified that I’d be the Team Israel bullpen catcher for the WBC,” Mr. Agresti said. “It’s an amazing opportunity to be part of something way bigger than myself. It’s an honor.”
Like Mr. Kaminsky, Mr. Agresti isn’t letting anti-Israel sentiment dampen his enthusiasm. “We definitely encountered protestors in Rotterdam, and I never experienced that in baseball before,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we’re representing Israel and playing baseball. It’s a great way to blend my passion and my heritage.”
In an interview posted on Facebook by Follow Team Israel in 2023, Mr. Kaminsky said that for a lot of players in the minors and majors, “you are the first Jew they ever met in real life. Especially with antisemitism on the rise in recent years, I am even more proud to be a Jew and hope to be a good representative of the community. And who knows, hopefully change a few minds and be a source of positivity in our society. Treat people right, speak out against hate and promote inclusiveness. That’s what being a Jew means to me.”