Former Astros star honored as Team Israel Baseball manager

With a coincidentally symbolic 18-year baseball career, it is bashert that former Houston Astros catcher Brad Ausmus will be managing Team Israel in the 2026 World Baseball Classic this March.

Ausmus, 56, served as the Team Israel bench coach in 2023 under Ian Kinsler, 43, one of his former players in Detroit. He succeeds Kinsler as manager. Ausmus’ day job is bench coach for the New York Yankees.

Ausmus spent more than half of his Major League Baseball career in Houston, from 1997 through 2008, with the exception of two seasons in Detroit in 1999 and 2000.

On a beautiful roof-opened stadium early October 2008 day against the Atlanta Braves, a Daikin Park crowd gave Ausmus a long-standing ovation after a video highlight was shown of him. It was known that it would be his last game in a Houston uniform. He’d go on to play his final two seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers before retiring in 2010.

“When I think back at my playing career, I see myself in an Astros uniform,” Ausmus said. “It was great. We had good teams, and the fans showed up. I have great memories of playing for the Astros. We made lots of friends, lots of memories and visited a lot of great restaurants.”

Ausmus owned a home in West University during his time with the Astros and enjoyed the now-closed Edloe Street Café and Deli.

When he joined the franchise, they were playing in the Astrodome. By the time he returned, the Astros were in their second season at Daikin Park (formerly Minute Maid Park).

“I really liked that park – it’s one of the few retractable-roof stadiums that, when it’s open, it feels like an open-air stadium,” Ausmus said.

Ausmus played in the only World Series of his career with the Astros in 2005. He went on to coach in one in 2024 when the Dodgers beat the Yankees.

Ausmus was out of MLB coaching when the Astros defeated Philadelphia for their second World Series title in 2022.

“If I’m with a different organization, I’m not actively rooting for the Astros,” Ausmus said. “But there have been times when I wasn’t with a team and I kept my eye on them because there’s still people in the organization that I know.”

Team Israel’s 2026 WBC Roster has yet to be determined, but it should have at least some connection to Houston.

Astros pitcher Colton Gordon pitched for Team Israel in the 2023 WBC and has expressed enthusiasm about returning in 2026. There’s speculation and hope that former Astros All-Star Alex Bregman may suit up for Team Israel next year.

Ausmus doesn’t expect the team to be favored, but they just have to play well at the right time.

“Nobody’s going to pick Israel to win the whole thing, but it is baseball, and you only need a pitcher or a couple hitters. You can beat any team – even a team that’s better than you on paper,” Ausmus said. “If we played the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico 10 times, they’d probably get the better of us. But we don’t have to play them 10 times. We just have to beat them one time.”

Ausmus, the son of a Jewish mother and Protestant father, didn’t grow up in Judaism, but he had an epiphany that led him to represent his heritage.

“At some point in my playing career, I think a journalist became aware that my mother and grandparents were Jewish,” Ausmus said. “From that point on, I’ve always connected with Judaism because there are so few MLB players who are Jewish.”

Ausmus managed the original Team Israel through the WBC qualification rounds in 2012 – 11 years before he was named Team Israel bench coach. Israel did not qualify for the 2013 WBC.

“I spent a week in Israel in 2012, visiting the sites and meeting people as well,” Ausmus said. “It definitely strengthened my connection to Judaism. Judaism and Israel weren’t part of my life, but since 2012, the complete opposite is true.”

Ausmus even had a chance to meet the late former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres in 2012.

“It was really good to meet him,” Ausmus said. “We sat down at his residence when I was in Israel. Baseball is not very popular in Israel. Although he had some understanding of who I was and what I was doing, it was me explaining some things about the sport to him.”

In 2020, Ausmus was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Netanya, Israel. He wishes he could have attended the ceremony, but it was during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Ausmus played more games (1,971 games) than any other Jewish player.

“I always prided myself on playing and being available for the manager every single day,” Ausmus said. “It was a source of pride, but I never went to the field trying to set that mark.”