PETACH TIKVA - America's pastime hit a home run with fans Sunday as the Israel Baseball League (IBL) launched its inaugural season with the Modi'in Miracle playing the Petach Tikvah Pioneers.

Thousands of spectators, 120 players, six managers, an array of executives, staff members and coaches rose to their feet to sing Israel's national anthem.

Initial expectations led league officials to order a thousand seats for the big day, but as the date drew near they were forced to order a lot more. By game time, two thousand seats were waiting along the foul lines at the Yarkon Sports Center in Petach Tikvah's Baptist Village.

No one expected 3,112 paying fans to show up, but they did. And the fans didn't seem to mind having to deal with a "standing room only" situation, especially since players whose teams were not on the field were happy to shmooze with them throughout the game.

In the tradition of "Jewish time," almost half the fans trickled in sometime during the second inning. Jeffery Royer, part owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks and a member of the IBL's Advisory Committee, told The Jewish Press that the cause was a bottleneck at the gate because security personnel insisted on checking every person.

"I told them to open the gates," he said with some exasperation. "You have to let the fans in if you want to fill the stands." The inconvenience of security checks at the entrance to every public venue in Israel, accepted so casually as a part of everyday life, is still new to most of the IBL players and staff.

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Unruffled by the thought that the IBL's opening game might serve as an inviting target for a suicide bomber, Kurtzer said a security adviser - "a major in the Israel police for many years" - was hired to work with the league.

"The players got a briefing on security," he added, "not different from what they would have gotten anywhere, but it's Israel, so they also needed to know a little bit about the larger environment. So, yeah, it's on our minds, but on the other hand, we don't anticipate that we're going to be a target or anything - but we're doing what security needs to be done in Israel."

The former ambassador was one of the first to be drafted by the league. Founder Larry Baras caught up with him just as he was ending his career with the Foreign Service.

"We actually met in a synagogue in Boston," he smiled. "My son goes to the synagogue there, and [Larry] knew I was going to be there. I knew he was going to be there [and] we made an engagement to meet over coffee, and that's where it really began."

Of the league's 120 players, 77 are from the U.S., with most coming from New York, Florida and California. Eighteen are from the greater New York area.

There are approximately a dozen players from Israel.

"The Israeli players will grow with the league," said Dan Duquette, the league's director of baseball operations.

Duquette, who served as general manager of the Boston Red Sox and the Montreal Expos, noted that because there is no history of professional baseball in Israel, "it is going to take time for the Israeli players to come up to speed. But they will."

The non-Israelis have had some level of professional baseball experience. Some have Major League credentials, including three of the league's six managers. Ron Blomberg, formerly of the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox, is managing the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox; Art Shamsky, formerly of the New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cubs, pilots the Modi'in Miracle; and Ken Holtzman, who pitched for the New York Yankees, Oakland A's, Chicago Cubs and Baltimore Orioles leads the Petach Tikvah Pioneers,

The league, like Israel itself, is a colorful mosaic of international personalities. Not every player is Jewish and at least a dozen are from the Dominican Republic, where professional baseball is a treasured sport. The Dominican Ambassador to Israel personally greeted his country's players to wish them well upon their arrival in the Jewish state.

Other players are from Australia, Canada, Columbia, New Zealand, Ukraine and Japan. The Japanese player's "English is so-so, and his Hebrew is nil," one of the staff members said quietly with a grin.

"I literally scoured the world last year to recruit for the league," said league president and chief operating officer Marty Berger. It wasn't easy; Berger is an attorney with a busy practice and family life in Miami. "My partners have been very understanding," he said. "It's been a tough year, but incredibly rewarding."

Everyone in the league, from management to players, has a story to tell, but perhaps the most quotable statement came from Ron Blomberg.

"These are my people," said the Atlanta native in his southern drawl. "This is where I started my life. I am a Chosen Person and this is how I feel."

For the record, the Modi'in Miracle routed the Petach Tikvah Pioneers 9-1 in the league opener.