With Major League Baseball hosting the beloved All-Star Game last month, I’d like to focus on the Israel Association of Baseball (IAB), a slightly lesser-known baseball league that is headquartered close to Greenberg Traurig’s Tel Aviv office. The IAB was founded in 1986 and runs various leagues, starting as early as age six. In 2012, Israel’s national team narrowly lost out on its bid to qualify for the 2013 World
Baseball Classic, and the team has already started preparing for its upcoming qualifying bid to take place later this year in Coney Island, Brooklyn for the 2017 World Baseball Classic. Our Tel Aviv office has a special connection with IAB’s junior league, as shareholder Lawrence Sternthal’s son plays third base for the IAB’s Under 14 National Team.
Being that we are a legal blog, I’d also like to call your attention to a fascinating legal analysis of the infield fly rule that can be found William S. Stevens’ seminal law-review note “The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule,” written for the 1975 University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Stevens’ article literally spawned an entire movement of legal studies of baseball, and discusses the origins of a particular situation in which the infield fly rule is called during a baseball game (for the specifics of the infield fly rule, see here). Stevens discusses the rule as an example to show how common law develops bit by bit, with changes added to address new problems that come about. Please feel free to reach out to me if you’d like to discuss any of the fine points in the article.