L ifestyle /C ulture
Jewish Softball Leagues Back in Play in 2021
S P ORTS
JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
MUCH LIKE Major League
Baseball, the two big Jewish
softball leagues in the
Philadelphia area struggled to
play a 2020 season.

Due to the pandemic, the
Main Line Synagogue Softball
League finished a six-game
regular season with no playoffs,
according to Commissioner
Scott Waterman. The Delaware
Valley Synagogue League
didn’t even have a season, per
Commissioner Ken Sherman.

But in 2021, much like MLB,
the middle-aged man pastime
is back in full.

The Main Line League has 11
teams, three more than last year,
playing a nine-game season plus
playoffs. The Delaware Valley
League had 18-21 teams in a
typical season before 2020. This
year, 18 teams and more than
400 players agreed to come back
for a 12-game regular season
and playoff tournament.

Most of the players in
both leagues are vaccinated,
according to the commis-
sioners. That’s why they agreed
to come back.

16 JULY 29, 2021
But that wasn’t the only
reason. For middle-aged men
with careers, families and lives
filled with responsibilities,
playing softball on summer
nights as the weather cools off
might just be heaven.

Todd Leon, 47, is the captain
of Del Val’s Shir Ami team
out of Newtown. The insurance
lawyer can’t even remember
how long he’s been playing in
the league.

As he described the experi-
ence, he gets to keep playing the
game he’s been playing since he
was 4. He gets to compete, high
five, sweat and make fun of
guys who make bad plays. Plus,
since the Shir Ami team is 10-2
going into the playoffs, Leon
gets to win, too.

“Then we go out to eat, have
a couple drinks and we go
home,” he said. “Then we do it
all again the next week.”
The Main Line League has
teams from Montgomery,
Delaware and Philadelphia
counties. The Del Val League
stretches across similar terri-
tory, just with Bucks County
replacing Delco.

Last year, both leagues
faced the same issue into
late-June: Suburban townships
wouldn’t open their fields.

As the lockdown ended, with
no vaccine yet available, the
men could either risk COVID
and play with heavy restric-
tions, like masks and social
distancing in the bench area,
or just not play.

Enough Main Line players
decided to play in a smaller
eight-team league; while Del Val
guys just scrapped the season.

“If we could have a season
last year, we were going to have
a season,” Waterman said.

Sherman said that, even by
mid-summer, he didn’t have
enough open fields to organize
a full schedule.

On the Main Line, nobody
got sick in 2020, according to
Waterman. In the Delaware
Valley, most of the players did
get sick ... with boredom.

By the winter, Del Val
players were blowing up
Sherman’s phone about the
2021 campaign.

“What are we going to
do?” he recalled. “They were
chomping at the bit.”
“I was getting texts weekly,”
Leon added. “When are we
going to start batting practice?”
Both leagues started between
April and early May to allow
more guys to get vaccinated,
according to the commis-
sioners. But once they opened
the season, it felt like 2019 again.

They were just a bunch of
middle-aged guys going out
and playing ball. Township
rules didn’t even require them
to wear masks or maintain
physical distances anymore.

“The world
changed quickly once the vaccinations
happened,” Sherman said. “The
idea that we’re able to provide
this activity is a blessing.”
With the playoffs coming
up in both leagues, it feels like
2019 in the standings, too.

Leon’s Shir Ami nucleus
is in its sixth or seventh year
together. Some of those guys
use bats with their names
engraved on them.

JEWISH EXPONENT
Delaware Valley Synagogue League action
Photo by Eric Patent
The Delaware Valley Synagogue League is back this summer after a
COVID-induced hiatus in 2020. 
Photo by Eric Patent
In other words, they are
serious. And in their 10-2
regular season, the Newtown
boys outscored opponents by
more than 100 runs. They enter
the eight-team playoff field as
the favorite to win the title.

On the Main Line, Beth
David Reform Congregation
in Gladwyne is going for its
15th championship in 16
years. Led by ace pitcher Rob
Pearlstein, the Beth David
team is undefeated going into
the postseason.

“His ball spins,” Waterman
said of Pearlstein.

More importantly, both
leagues are on solid footing
again. Waterman expects even
more players and teams to sign
up for 2022.

This middle-aged man
pastime dates back decades,
and now it looks likely to go on
for decades more.

Sherman, 61, a member
at Congregation Beth Or in
Ambler, went to the bar and
bat mitzvah celebrations of his
teammates’ children back in
the day. Now, Leon is doing the
same thing with his Shir Ami
teammates. “Not only are the guys on my
team some of my best friends,
their wives have become some
of my wife’s closest friends,
too,” Leon said. l
jsaffren@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
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