The 1993 World Series is Alon Leichman’s first memory of Major League Baseball.
Curt Schilling, John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, the Philadelphia Phillies; Roberto Alomar, Rickey Henderson, John Olerud, the Toronto Blue Jays.
Not a bad introduction to the game for a 7-year-old boy.
Leichman, unlike millions of others who watched Joe Carter’s series-clinching walk-off home run in Game 6 for the Blue Jays, saw the game three years after the fact, on a VHS tape in a kibbutz in central Israel.
“We didn’t have cable growing up — we had one channel,” Leichman, now 34, said by phone from a coffee shop in Cincinnati, where he is assistant pitching coach for MLB’s Reds. “My grandpa used to send me boxes of tapes from the States — that’s how I was exposed to baseball. I watched that World Series over and over and over again and then I watched the Yankees play the Braves [1996] over and over and over again.”
An obsession was born, and each new year brought more boxes of tapes from the previous season’s baseball playoffs.
With a rooting interest in the Yankees and Derek Jeter, Leichman had his first access to live games in 1999 — sort of.
“I’d go to my dad’s office before school started and get on the computer to check the internet for scores,” Leichman said.
Leichman, who grew up in the kibbutz Gezer and later attended UC San Diego in La Jolla, is the first Israel-born player or coach to make it to the majors. He was hired by the Reds in late 2022 after coaching multiple seasons at the minor-league level.
“There’s more access to baseball now [in Israel], but I don’t think there is more interest in it,” Leichman said. “I hate to say it, but I think this is where [the popularity of the sport] is going to be. It’s way too American and boring.”
Nate Fish, chief executive of Israel Baseball Americas and manager of the Israeli national baseball team — for whom Leichman still plays — said “Alon is an undersize right-handed pitcher with good athleticism. But that doesn’t really tell the story. He is exceptionally committed and single-minded in his pursuit of playing and now coaching baseball. It’s one of his assets. He is just obsessed with baseball.”
Leichman, who is 5-foot-9, arrived in La Jolla in 2013 with a blown-out elbow and previous Tommy John surgery following his compulsory military service in Israel and a three-year stint at Cypress College in Orange County.
For UCSD, Leichman, who often was pitching in pain, posted a 7-2 record as a junior, with a sub-4 earned run average.
“The short story is I blew out my elbow in my first game in the States and I’ve been in pain ever since,” Leichman said. “During a start I’d have to move around between innings to keep my arm from getting stiff. Picking up my backpack or opening a door or talking on the phone [were painful].”
Leichman graduated from UCSD in 2016 with a degree in history and a career record of 10-6 with a 3.54 ERA. He also had additional surgery on his arm.
“If he hadn’t had the elbow injury, I think he would have played pro ball,” Fish said. “The injury just limited his velocity too much and he had to pivot, develop a good change-up and deal with the pain.”
Two memories from Triton Ballpark stand above the rest for Leichman. The best was Senior Day and getting to pitch with his parents in attendance.
The other was the time he gave up three home runs in three innings.
“I standing on the mound in shock about how far the third one went,” Leichman said with a laugh.
With the Reds, Leichman helps prepare the pitching staff for opposing hitters one series at a time.
“Day 1 is getting them ready as far as getting to know the opposing hitters — how to attack certain guys,” Leichman said. “[Reds pitcher] Nick Martinez is going to attack [Phillies star] Bryce Harper differently than [Reds pitcher] Nick Lodolo. Myself, the bullpen coach and the pitching coach all do our homework and then we have a pre-series meeting.”
He also plays catch with players, watches bullpen sessions and monitors pitchers for changes in velocity and pitch shape.
“I met Alon when he was 17,” Fish said. “He was a sponge trying to soak up as much info as he could from the older players. I have watched him go through the phases of playing and coaching and growing up, and now he knows way more about pitching than the rest of us.”
Leichman spent much of the past offseason in Israel, and going into his second season with the Reds, carried the heavy burden of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
“I was in Israel right after it happened and I couldn’t think much about baseball while I was there,” Leichman said.
This season, Leichman is wearing a black glove with an image of the Israeli flag sewn into the thumb and the words ‘Bring them home now’ emblazoned across the webbing in white and red in reference to the 129 people who remain captive in Gaza after being taken hostage in Israel on Oct. 7.
“It’s important for me to have that glove because it creates conversation. That’s all I can ask for right now,” Leichman said. “I have a close friend whose uncle was kidnapped. A girl I went to high school with was kidnapped, and her husband is still there.”
The Reds will come to San Diego on Monday, April 29, to begin a three-game series against the Padres.
“If anyone asks me about where my American home is, it’s definitely still San Diego,” Leichman said. “It’s [my] first destination after the season and the first before spring training.” ◆
