Give It Away #15 It's Not Only Baseball Now that all of the airlines have changed their rules and have started charging passengers an arm and a leg for every pound of luggage over the legal limit, you really have to weigh every item that you consider bringing to Israel, both literally and figuratively. But just as travel regulations have changed over the years, so has the Israeli consumer goods market; there's no more need to smuggle several pairs of Levi's jeans in your trunk, all of the big-name brands have set up shop here, and are only too eager to take your hard-earned shekels in exchange for overpriced merchandise. Nowadays, the only items that still aren't available in Israel don't show up on the retail shelves due to cultural differences. And chief among them are the thick mitts made out of cow, with webbing between the thumb and index finger -- the consumer product commonly called baseball gloves. For some reason, basketball and soccer (European football) have a near-monopoly on the hearts and minds of young Israelis. Maybe it's because those are the sports that require the least amount of expensive equipment to play the game. For basketball, all that is required is a paved surface, two poles and a couple of buckets. For soccer, the requirements are even fewer; basically, all you need is a leather ball. Nowadays, you can probably buy a five-pack of soccer balls from China for the price of a felafel. Back way back when the Zionist pioneers were sketching out the first settlements in Mandatory Palestine, times were hard and disposable income almost didn't exist. So soccer and basketball became firmly entrenched in the Israeli psyche as national pastimes. American football and Australian rules rugby are ironically a little bit too violent for the Middle Eastern mentality. And in a country that almost never sees snow, hockey is not even an option. But what about baseball? Baseball is slow: in between pitches and plays, you could fall asleep at the wheel and swerve off into the dugout. Baseball isn't for jocks, it's for math nerds: just to keep up with the scoreboard, you're got to have a photographic memory and a graphing calculator on hand. But there's something romantic about baseball that all the strikes and scandals, all the drugs and lockouts can't erase. No one pines away for an old grassy tennis court, but lots people took home small pieces of Brooklyn's Ebbets Field, Chicago's Comiskey Park, and Detroit's Tigers Stadium. I think that the Billy Crystal film City Slickers summed in up best. In the film, three friends cross the country (with a herd of cattle!) and open up to each other about the moments that mean the most. Actor Daniel Stern recalls almost never getting along with his own father, having almost nothing in common with him -- except for baseball. Usually at each other's throats, they could pass the time together in perfect peace watching a Saturday afternoon ball game, because it was the great equalizer, the common denominator. It was the Sulha that soothed over differences, like a slice of mom's apple pie. I guess that that's the thinking behind Bringing Baseball to Communities of Need, a charitable organization in Israel that wants to introduce baseball to a new generation of non-Anglophone Israelis, Jews and Arabs, Russians and Ethiopians. The project's proponents believe that baseball builds individual character and teaches teamwork and tolerance. What's certain is that unless we buy them the bases, the bats, the hats and the mitts, lower-income kids will never know the difference between a double play and an RBI. So if the thought of little league brings back the warm fuzzies for you, then maybe it could also make a little bit of peace in the Middle East. Baseball's history is a mixed bag, reflecting the political conflicts of its time and place. And in recent weeks, sports historian Dave Zirin has shone a spotlight on some of the sports' dark days. So if sports can truly be a force for good in the world -- and I do believe that it can -- then let us help to make it so!