Jordan Gladstone and Spencer Rapkin are both 12 and huge baseball fans. For a few weeks this summer, they’ll get to see the national pastime up close in a whole new way.
Jordan and Spencer will travel with Team Israel (baseball) when it goes to eight East Coast cities to practice and play games from July 6-20 in preparation for the Tokyo Olympics.
Team Israel will leave for the Japanese capital the following day, but Gladstone and Rapkin – who this fall will enter seventh grade at Pikesville’s Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School — won’t be a part of that leg of the journey. (The Tokyo Olympics will be held July 23 to Aug. 8.)
Adam Gladstone is Jordan’s father and has served as assistant general manager/director of baseball operations for Team Israel for the past decade. He was with Team Israel in 2017 when it competed in the World Baseball Classic, spending 23 days in South Korea and Japan.
A Pikesville resident, Gladstone suggested the idea of accompanying Team Israel to Jordan, who not surprisingly loved the idea.
“It was an opportunity for me personally to give my son a little bit of exposure to what I’ve been doing in my career,” said Gladstone, who has worked with the Orioles and various minor league teams over the years. “I brought it up to him, and he wanted to be a part of it.”
They also suggested the idea to Spencer, and he jumped at the chance. Besides local venues such as Shirley Povich Field in Bethesda on July 18 and Leidos Field at Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen on July 19, the team will play in Rockland County, New York, Hartford, Connecticut, Central Islip, New York, and other places.
Team Israel will play against the Rockland County Boulders and other Major League Baseball-sanctioned summer collegiate clubs, plus the New York Police and New York Fire departments.
Jordan and Spencer will be help out in Team Israel’s workout camps, making sure the players have whatever they need to play their best. During the games, they will serve as batboy and ball boy.
“It’s kind of like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Jordan said. “You’ve got to embrace it while you can. I kind of like seeing baseball at a different level. I’ll get a different perspective.”
Jordan, who will become a bar mitzvah this fall, said he also looks forward to seeing how Jewish life is observed in different towns.
Spencer said he is thrilled to learn more about the game of baseball.
“It’s going to be a great experience,” he said. “I’m going to get to do it all. It’s going to be really fun. It’s exciting because I can see the players. Then, when I watch [the Olympics] on TV, and I’ll know them.”
Spencer, who will become a bar mitzvah this spring, looks at the Team Israel trip as an early present of sorts.
“Just this whole experience itself is a bar mitzvah gift,” Spencer said. “I’ll enjoy it.”
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