Even if you cry, cheer, laugh and seethe from your seat at West Newton Cinema, your favorite baseball film can remain “Bull Durham” or “Field of Dreams,” “The Sandlot” or “Eight Men Out,” “The Natural” or “A League of Their Own.”
Baseball runs through “Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel,” but as those who attend the world theater premier of the documentary will discover, it’s about far more than that. It’s about 10 Jewish-American baseball players who make a trip to Israel to gain a better understanding of themselves. Two months later, eight of them help Team Israel greatly surpass expectations in the 2017 World Baseball Classic in South Korea and advance to the next round in Japan.
An award-winner at film festivals, it includes footage of a naming dedication ceremony of Israel’s lone baseball field: Ezra Schwartz Memorial Field. A pitcher at Maimonides High in Brookline and a Sharon resident, Schwartz was shot and killed at the age of 18 while delivering food to Israeli soldiers in November of 2015. He was set to enroll at Rutgers in 2016. The man who killed Ezra and two others was sentenced by a West Bank military court to four life terms.
The premier is dedicated to Schwartz’ life, and multiple daily screenings begin Friday, the first at 1 p.m.
Some in the audience will remember Ryan Lavarnway, Team Israel’s catcher. The most ardent Red Sox fans might even remember that in his first start behind the dish in Sept., 2011, he hit his first two big league home runs. The first came off of Zach Britton, then a starting pitcher for the Orioles.
Lavarnway, 31, has made it to the big leagues with five clubs, combining for 390 at-bats, including six with the Pirates last season. He’ll try to add a sixth big league uniform, the one with pinstripes and an overlapping NY on the cap, this summer.
Lavarnway made a powerful impact with more than his play for Team Israel. He pointed out at a press conference that the very same heritage rules that made players eligible to compete in the WBC, having one Jewish grandparent, for example, once were used for evil purposes.
“I said, ‘The way this team was put together in relation to Judaism, two generations ago, that meant we were being rounded up to be killed, and now there is a Star of David floating above the stadium and people are standing in respect. We deserve to be here. We have earned the right,’ ” Lavarnway said. “Ike Davis looked at me and said, ‘I can’t believe you really said it.’ For me, looking at how proud of me Ike was for saying it was more powerful than me saying it.”
Davis, a power hitter, is the son of reliever Ron Davis, a former power pitcher.
In the film, Ike Davis referred to his father as a “redneck, hillbilly Baptist. Mom is Jewish and a little bit of a hippie, totally different. No wonder they got divorced.”
Ike shared an “eye-opening moment,” for him and anybody with a pulse who hears it.
“I was doing a family tree, and on my dad’s side, I got like five, six, seven generations,” he said. “And then on mom’s side, I got like three people, then it was over. I was like, ‘What is this?’ She was like, ‘Well, that’s what happens during the Holocaust.’ Most of the family didn’t make it. (Pause). You know, make it.”
Again, that wasn’t so long ago. Everyone needs reminders of that horrifying reality.
Veteran MLB.com reporter Jonathan Mayo and two filmmakers from Ironbound Films became friends at a Jewish sleep-away camp as youths, and for the past 15 years, according to Jeremy Newberger, Mayo has been on them to make a film. Mayo came up with the idea for the trip to Israel, Team Israel took the baton from there, and now it’s go time. So go watch it.