By Scott Barancik, editor

It’s Opening Day of the 2019 Major League Baseball season, and Jewish Baseball News wants to welcome you to what we hope will be another great year for Members of the Tribe.

One key change you’ll notice at JBN this season is the frequency of posts. In past years, Ron Kaplan of Kaplan’s Korner has blessed us with Daily Pitch, a daily summary of MLB highlights. Unfortunately, a new job has made it impossible for Ron to continue with these posts, as he explains here. So for the foreseeable future, JBN will be posting weekly MLB summaries, much like we do with our popular Minor League Monday series.

On the bright side, we’ll continue to post frequent video highlights and other updates on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, so be sure to follow those. And you’ll still be able to track daily Major League stats via the Jewish Box Score shown on our home page.

And now, a few additional notes:

• It appears nine Jewish players will be on Opening Day rosters — including Rowdy Tellez, a last-minute addition by the Blue Jays. They include:
  • Richard Bleier (P), Baltimore Orioles – DL
  • Ryan Braun (RF/LF), Milwaukee Brewers
  • Alex Bregman (3B), Houston Astros
  • Max Fried (P), Atlanta Braves
  • Ian Kinsler (2B), San Diego Padres
  • Joc Pederson (CF), Los Angeles Dodgers
  • Kevin Pillar (CF), Toronto Blue Jays
  • Robert Stock (P), San Diego Padres
  • Rowdy Tellez (1B), Toronto Blue Jays
• P Dean Kremer, a joint Israeli-American citizen ranked No. 9 on MLB.com’s list of top Orioles prospects, is the subject of this recent article by MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo. The article includes several short videos of Kremer discussing his pitching mechanics.
• P Zack Weiss, a Twins prospect who recently obtained Israeli citizenship, was recently interviewed by Rabbi Jeremy Fine of The Great Rabbino website. Among other topics, Weiss discusses his vexing 2018 MLB debut and how he’s tried to learn from it.
• The San Diego Union-Tribune has a fun read about new Padres second baseman Ian Kinsler, who brings both a veteran’s wisdom and a boyish enthusiasm to the field.
• Former Major Leaguer and Team Israel star Josh Zeid retired from pro baseball in 2018, but Bo Wulf of The Athletic has written a terrific retrospective on Zeid’s baseball “odyssey” (subscription required). Zeid currently is working as a pitching analyst for the Cubs.
• And in case you are interested in college ball, Arizona State’s Hunter Bishop recently was named Pac-12 Player of the Week and is the national college home-run leader. It was his second Player of the Week honor this month.

Thanks for following us. And play ball!

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