Long Islanders lead Sid Jacobson JCC to baseball gold at Maccabi Games
The East Hills Sid Jacobson JCC’s under-16 baseball team featuring 12 Long Islanders won the gold medal at the JCC Maccabi Games in Texas earlier this month. Credit: Jason Kass
Mark Rosenman knew he had an exceptional group of baseball players this summer.
Factor in the pride that comes with playing in the JCC Maccabi Games — an annual Olympic-style competition for thousands of Jewish teenagers around the world — and a once-in-a-lifetime championship experience was possible.
Fourteen boys coached by Rosenman, including 12 Long Islanders, represented Sid Jacobson JCC’s under-16 team. The East Hills-based squad won seven games in four days and secured the gold medal on Aug. 8 at Rice University in Houston.
“Just pure joy and just exuberance,” said Rosenman, a Melville resident. “That’s the best part when you see that. I mean, they set themselves a goal, they accomplished it and they took pride in the way they accomplished it.”
Rosenman was involved with the Maccabi Games when his now-35-year-old son, Josh, was a teenager. Searching for volunteer coaches a few years ago, the Games reached out to Rosenman. He was coaching another baseball team at the 2022 Maccabi Games in San Diego and the Jacobson JCC was competing there in other sports. Rosenman inquired if Jacobson was interested in rebuilding the program and the wheels were set for U14 and U16 teams to return in 2023 in Florida.
The 2023 groups did not medal, and Rosenman took a new approach this summer with just one U16 team. Tryouts started last October and workouts continued throughout the winter.
“I feel like there was a little bit of disappointment that we didn’t get a medal,” said Plainview’s Hunter Kass, one of six returners from the 2023 team. “But we knew we were going to come back next year and work harder and really work hard in the offseason to get a medal this year.”
The team practiced at the Long Island Field House in Hauppauge with former Met Kevin Baez and trainer Danny Lackner.
“We were practicing all winter, so the chemistry was really built before the tournament started,” said Bellmore JFK’s Derek Yormack, a Duke University commit.
“Sid Jacobson Hammer” became the team’s moniker, and the jerseys read “JACOBSON HAMMER.” Jacobson — who Rosenman noted was a “tool guy” — founded MSC Industrial Direct, an industrial equipment distributor, in 1941. “Maccabi” means “hammer” in English.
Jacobson coasted through four round-robin games, outscoring its opponents 50-12, and escaped the quarterfinals with a 7-3 win over the team from Baltimore.
In a 5-4 semifinal win over Los Angeles, Bellmore JFK pitcher Zach Adelstein gutted through seven innings to get Jacobson to extra innings. With reassurance from Bellmore coach Mike Gattus (who was in attendance supporting Jacobson’s three JFK players), Adelstein’s father and Adelstein himself, Rosenman felt comfortable pushing Adelstein past his original pitch limit of about 90.
Yormack, initially slated to start a potential gold-medal game, instead was inserted in relief and pitched a scoreless three innings to keep Jacobson afloat. Alex Demas, another Bellmore JFK product, roped a walk-off single in the 10th to send Jacobson to the gold-medal game.
“Me, Derek and Zach — we’ve been close since we were kids,” said Demas, another returnee from last year. “We were really excited to do this. To have us three as great players on the team, I feel like our connection really helped us propel to win a lot of games.”
In the gold-medal game against Houston, Syosset’s David Lieberman pitched a complete game in a 2-1 win.
Lieberman surrendered a run in the fifth inning, allowing a triple and throwing a wild pitch. Yormack’s two-run double in the sixth put Jacobson in front for good. After allowing a two-out double in the seventh, Lieberman snagged a lineout to secure the title.
“I’m proud to be a Jewish child in this day and age, and sometimes there is trouble involved with my religion,” Lieberman said. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything else. That tournament was great and it was a really big — not just the gold — but it was a big celebration of Judaism itself.
“I loved every second of it.”
Ben Dickson joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.
