The synagogue will again field a team this spring in the Suburban Maryland Synagogue Men's Softball League. At present, 22 synagogue teams of various denominations are slated to compete.

TI has had a team in the slow-pitch league for at least 20 years, according to Marc W. Schneider, who is returning in his volunteer role as head coach for a sixth season. For more information, contact Schneider at mschneider@ftc.gov or by phone at home-301-871-9338, cell-301-928-9310.

Any male member of TI 18 or older is welcome to join. Each shul plays a doubleheader starting at 9 a.m. on Sundays. Games are 65 minutes in length, regardless of the number of innings played. Each game ends when time expires on the umpire's watch, unless the score is tied. The league uses various school and park baseball fields in Montgomery County, mostly in Rockville, Bethesda and Chevy Chase.

Each team plays about 20 games during the regular season, which will start on April 2. At the end of the regular season, there are playoffs, which run into July -- although Schneider concedes that TI's softballers have never advanced that far in the post-season.

"We are generally a roughly .500 team", the coach reported. "I don't recall our actual record, but we are typically somewhere in the middle of the league. The idea is that everyone plays and that we have a lot of fun."

"Last year, TI did better than usual", he said, "finishing 9th and getting to the second round of the playoffs. Based on the team's lower finishes the previous two seasons, TI has been 16th in the pre-season."

The league maintains a website during the season at www.synagogue-softball.org.

Schneider knows that women at Tikvat Israel, being an egalitarian congregation, would like to be members of the team. "Unfortunately, this is a men's league only," he said. "I tried to make it co-ed and was resoundingly voted down."

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	Tikvat Israel Congregation 2200 Baltimore Road · Rockville, Maryland 20851 Phone: (301) 762-7338 · Fax: (301) 424-4399 · Send us an email!
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