38 | AUGUST 19 • 2021
The Detroit Shul Basketball
League has wrapped up its
inaugural season.
Now it gives way to
the Detroit Synagogue
Basketball League for its
debut season.
Shul League games were
played at Farber Hebrew
Day School in Southfield,
which will be the site for
Synagogue League games.
Playoffs in the weekly
Shul League — a five-
team league put together
by 20-year-old Daniel
Shamayev of Keego Harbor
over a couple weeks in July
— were held Aug. 17 and 18,
with third-place and cham-
pionship games played
Aug. 18.
The Shul League
was made up most-
ly of teams from
area Orthodox
shuls.
Going into the playoffs,
the only two league teams
with above .500 records
in the regular season were
Young Israel of Oak Park
(4-1) and an unnamed team
coached by Dylan
Bressler (3-1).
“But the league
was very com-
petitive,” said
Farber graduate
Shamayev, the
league’s youngest
player along with
being its founder
and commissioner.
Shamayev
hopes the Synagogue
League, also his idea, also
will have teams from area
Reform and Conservative
synagogues, hence the
name change from the Shul
quick hits
BY STEVE STEIN
J
osh Baker hit his tee
shot on the third hole of
the South course at the
Links of Novi. He had no idea
what was about to happen.
Using an old tee from
another golfer he had just
found on the ground, Baker
launched a 9-iron shot on the
133-yard par-3 hole that made
history.
When his shot rolled into
the cup, it was not only his
first hole-in-one in his 23
years of playing golf, but the
first ace in the nine-year his-
tory of the B’nai B’rith Golf
League.
Baker was so excited after
his shot that he didn’t think
about saving the golf ball he
used for the ace.
“I played with that ball for
the next couple holes until
someone told me to put it
away,” he said.
It was a good idea to put
away the ball because Baker
lost a different golf ball while
playing the eighth hole.
Perhaps distracted by the
aftermath of his hole-in-one,
Baker shot double-bogey on
the final two holes of the nine-
hole round and finished with
7-over 41.
Baker normally plays more
golf than he’s been able to
squeeze in this summer.
The 48-year-old West
Bloomfield resident is the
owner of Baker Design +
Build, a building and remod-
eling company, and he’s been
NMLS#2289
DAVID SWIMMER
Golfer’s fi
rst hole-in-one is the fi
rst
ace in B’nai B’rith league history.
Baker Takes
the Cake!
STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
sports HIGHlights
brought to you in partnership with
Longtime friends
and B’nai B’rith Golf
League teammates
Josh Harvith (left)
and Josh Baker
stand by the pin
where Baker shot a
hole-in-one.
LEFT: Here’s Josh
Baker’s hole-in-one
scorecard.
Shul Basketball League Becomes
the Synagogue Basketball League
Daniel Shamayev