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Motor City Hit Men, back row: Dave Ettlinger, Todd Kaluzny, Matt Brand, Lyle
Schaefer, Harold Grossbart, John Shea and Greg Lewis. Front row: Todd Gesund,
Marc Tushman, Danny Weiss, Rodger Davenport, Rick Sherline and Ian Freed.
Steve Stein
Contributing Writer
irvana.
That's how Rick Sherline
describes the 34th annual
International Jewish Men's Slo-Pitch
Softball Tournament that's coming to
Novi's Power Park over Labor Day week-
end.
Fourteen teams from across the U.S.
and Canada will compete, bond and
share laughs and tears during the four-
day event.
"What's special about the tournament
is the camaraderie and the relationships
that have formed over the years between
players and managers from different
cities and countries whose common
threads are a love for softball and their
Jewish roots:' said Sherline, manager
of the tournament host Motor City Hit
Men team.
"It's nirvana for us:' he added.
Seven U.S. and seven Canadian teams
will compete in Novi. Besides the Hit
Men and the Detroit Mayhem team,
managed by Seth Gorback, the U.S.
will be represented by two teams from
Chicago and teams from Las Vegas,
Minneapolis and St. Louis.
Three of the seven Canadian teams
are from Montreal. Teams from
Hamilton, Toronto, Vancouver and
Winnipeg also will play.
Everyone will gather Friday, Aug. 31,
at the host hotel, the Sheraton Detroit
Novi, for hospitality and a draw to fill
out the brackets for the qualifying round
Saturday, Sept. 1, and Sunday, Sept. 2.
The top eight teams will earn berths in
the single-elimination championship
playoffs Monday, Sept. 3.
There is no admission charge for
spectators. Power Park is located behind
the Novi Civic Center, 45175 W. 10 Mile
Road.
The off-the-field highlight for the
tournament will be the annual dinner
banquet Sept. 2 at the Sheraton Novi.
Hazzan Daniel Gross, cantor of Adat
Shalom Synagogue in Farmington
Hills, will sing the national anthems
of the U.S., Canada and Israel; former
Detroit Tigers pitcher and 1968 World
Series champion Jon Worden will speak;
Sherline's son David will present a video
he'll piece together from the previous
day's games; and the Leon Weberman
Courage Award will be presented.
Weberman's widow, Freda, is expected
to be at the banquet on what would have
been the couple's 61st wedding anniver-
sary.
First presented in 2010 in Toronto,
the award honors players, coaches and
others involved in the tournament who
display courage in the face of extreme
adversity.
Leon Weberman survived Nazi atroci-
ties in the Lodz ghetto in Poland and the
Auschwitz and Mauthausen concentra-
tion camps — but not robbers' bullets.
He was shot to death Dec. 21, 1978, at
his scrapyard on the Detroit-Hamtramck
border, perishing at age 49. The mur-
derer was never caught.
Bruce Weberman, the youngest of
Leon and Freda Weberman's four chil-
dren, has played in the tournament
every year but one since 1985, mostly
for the Hit Men.
He played with the Toronto Gamblers
last year to fill out their roster, and
he'll be with them again this year. The
Gamblers are the defending tournament
champions.
The Hit Men have played in the tour-
nament since 1987, the first year it was
held in Detroit, and won it six times
including three consecutive years from
2008-2010. The last time Detroit hosted
the tournament was 2003.
Among those expected at Power Park
is the tournament's traveling umpire,
Ruby Goodman from Montreal, who
lost an eye to cancer about 10 years ago.
His son David plays for the Montreal
Royals team.
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And then there were four.
Just four teams were still alive in
the Inter-Congregational Men's Club
Summer Softball League playoffs
Sunday, Aug. 19, and they were sched-
uled to compete in the semifinals and
championship games.
Shir Shalom vs. Temple Israel 1 and
Beth Ahm vs. Adat Shalom 1 were the
semifinal match-ups. Shir Shalom went
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