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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019 day job is bench coach for the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019d go on to play his final two seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers before retiring in 2010.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I think back at my playing career, I see myself in an Astros uniform,\u201d Ausmus said. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ausmus owned a home in West University during his time with the Astros and enjoyed the now-closed Edloe Street Caf\u00e9 and Deli.<\/p>\n
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).<\/p>\n
\u201cI really liked that park \u2013 it\u2019s one of the few retractable-roof stadiums that, when it\u2019s open, it feels like an open-air stadium,\u201d Ausmus said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Ausmus was out of MLB coaching when the Astros defeated Philadelphia for their second World Series title in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m with a different organization, I\u2019m not actively rooting for the Astros,\u201d Ausmus said. \u201cBut there have been times when I wasn\u2019t with a team and I kept my eye on them because there\u2019s still people in the organization that I know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team Israel\u2019s 2026 WBC Roster has yet to be determined, but it should have at least some connection to Houston.<\/p>\n
Astros pitcher Colton Gordon pitched for Team Israel in the 2023 WBC and has expressed enthusiasm about returning in 2026. There\u2019s speculation and hope that former Astros All-Star Alex Bregman may suit up for Team Israel next year.<\/p>\n
Ausmus doesn\u2019t expect the team to be favored, but they just have to play well at the right time.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody\u2019s 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 \u2013 even a team that\u2019s better than you on paper,\u201d Ausmus said. \u201cIf we played the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico 10 times, they\u2019d probably get the better of us. But we don\u2019t have to play them 10 times. We just have to beat them one time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ausmus, the son of a Jewish mother and Protestant father, didn\u2019t grow up in Judaism, but he had an epiphany that led him to represent his heritage.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt some point in my playing career, I think a journalist became aware that my mother and grandparents were Jewish,\u201d Ausmus said. \u201cFrom that point on, I\u2019ve always connected with Judaism because there are so few MLB players who are Jewish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ausmus managed the original Team Israel through the WBC qualification rounds in 2012 \u2013 11 years before he was named Team Israel bench coach. Israel did not qualify for the 2013 WBC.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent a week in Israel in 2012, visiting the sites and meeting people as well,\u201d Ausmus said. \u201cIt definitely strengthened my connection to Judaism. Judaism and Israel weren\u2019t part of my life, but since 2012, the complete opposite is true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ausmus even had a chance to meet the late former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres in 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really good to meet him,\u201d Ausmus said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Ausmus played more games (1,971 games) than any other Jewish player.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always prided myself on playing and being available for the manager every single day,\u201d Ausmus said. \u201cIt was a source of pride, but I never went to the field trying to set that mark.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a coincidentally symbolic 18-year baseball career, it is bashert that former Houston Astros catcher Brad Ausmus will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[158136,363,99],"class_list":["post-304641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-former-astros-star-honored-as-team-israel-baseball-manager","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}